HTML or Text:
Practical Advice on Campaign Formatting
By Ross Kramer, CEO of Listrak
February 16, 2007
Over the past decade, as the practice of email marketing matured and became an integral part of professional marketing for everyone from small mom-and-pop firms to massive, global corporations, debate has surrounded the issue of formatting. Marketers have two ways they can send email communications, HTML or plain text. But which format should you choose? Several factors affect this decision including readability on popular email clients, spam filtering, message purpose and, of course, reader preference.
But today, most email clients are sophisticated enough to display both HTML or text-based messages. Marketers can also manage the probability of false-positive spam filtering through responsible marketing practice, white list inclusion, and pre-delivery checks offered by email delivery services like Listrak. These factors aside, your formatting decision comes down to two things – message purpose and subscriber preference.
Selecting a Format
Message purpose is possibly the most important key to determining your chosen format. When you send a message to confirm receipt or make corrections to a previous communication, you can use plain text formatting. In fact, this is considered common, best practice procedure. However if you send an advertisement or newsletter, you’re better off formatting it in HTML. HTML design has many benefits, described in more detail later. When you’re not sure which format is appropriate, revert back to common communication etiquette prior to the advent of the Internet. Thus, anytime you would have mailed a letter on letterhead, use a simple text-based email. Anytime you would have mailed a catalog, oversized postcard or promotional mailer, sent your email in rich HTML design.
Subscriber preference is another important factor in determining your format style. To find out what your readers prefer, take a quick survey during list registration. We’ve found that, in most cases, subscribers opt for HTML. Though there’s still a significant population across certain vertical markets, such as software programmers, who strongly prefer text-based communications.
With the growing number of men and women dependant on their cell phone, Blackberry, or mobile device to access email, campaign managers should also consider how their message appear on this platform. In some cases, HTML graphics and images don’t appear as intended.
Many companies have opted to avoid compatibility and preference issues altogether, reaching the largest audience possible by sending multipart messages. These messages include both HTML and plain text, with HTML delivered to email clients able to successfully render this format and plain text to those that cannot. Some email clients let users select which method they prefer.
