We all love designing and planning our rather brilliant, in more ways than one, HTML email marketing campaigns, which is convenient as we have the statistics to prove our subscribers love receiving them just as much. With our free email marketing templates, it is easy to create a masterpiece. Not only that, both commentators and our high completion rate show that they work.
Wizemail, along with other email marketing service providers, has automatic conversions for HTML emails which provide plain text emails. It is all done for us, and it is tempting to pick the easy route by letting the automatic systems do their thing. However, as you will see if you receive one, all text emails are not created equal.
With a little bit of simple and straightforward modification, we can make our plain text emails convert just as readily as our HTML ones. There are a few simple guidelines. As always, this is not a list of things not to do, so much as suggestion of what to try, and if it works for you, great. It doesn’t, change it.
No automatic conversion system takes into account readers’ preferences. This inability is most obvious when it comes to spacing as most plain text emails come with little or no leading. This makes it difficult to read. Not only that, it makes it unlikely that you will connect with the reader or be able to convince them to buy.
Whitespace in graphic design is often touted to be as important to the reader as both copy and images as it is used to separate paragraphs, headings and other matters. It applies even more in plain text marketing emails. A white line between paragraphs is an essential and the requirement for short paragraphs is, if anything, even more important than ever.
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How to separate headings
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You can probably see how this next bit is going to go already, so I’ll just point out that there are a number of ways to separate and emphasise particular parts of the email, such as a call to action or, as here, a heading. There are the standard fonts, such as italic and bold, and also underlining. The trick is to use specific fonts for specific purposes: bold for headings, italics for a link, ‘special keys, such as <>, for a call to action.
One advantage of plain text email marketing is that it has the appearance of the ‘normal’ emails most of your customers receive on a day-to-day basis from friends, and so are more likely to be read. However, it is all too easy to abuse this advantage. Be open and honest with your subscribers and ensure that the receiver knows the nature of the marketing email from the time they find it in their inbox.
The downside to plain text emails is that you will not be able to directly ascertain the open rate of a campaign. It’s not enough on its own to reject plain text as the most important aspect is completions. It is essential to test what you are doing.
