In the old days of email marketing, HTML email didn't always work. You had to create a plain-text "alternative" version of your HTML email (kind of as a backup), then embed both messages into one email. If a recipient's email program couldn't view HTML email, the plain-text would show as an alternative (the technical term for that type of message is "multipart-alternative MIME").

Back then, a lot of people chose to send only plain-text email (HTML email was buggy in some email programs). And there seemed to be a lot of debate about how HTML email was "the spawn of the devil" because it was a risk to privacy (a reference to the open trackers that HTML email allows), wasted bandwidth, and took too long to render.

This was definately a field for "geeks only". These days just about all email programs can render HTML email, and just about everyone has high-speed Internet access. So now we see several marketers ignoring the plain-text field and only the tech geeks using it.

This is a mistake. I can give you 5 reasons why you should still create Plain-Text Emails:

1. Some people just favor plain-text emails, most of them are tech geeks but you would be surprised at how well they are received in some circles.

2. Spam filters don't like it when you send HTML-only. They would like to see HTML along with a plain-text alternative, because only a "lazy spammer" would skip the plain-text step. Also, the plain-text email should be more or less the same content as the HTML email (not just a lazy, "visit this URL to see our HTML email in your browser!").

3. In certain situations, plain-text emails can be more effective than HTML emails. If you send daily alerts, news feeds, and things that are sent very often and need to be quickly scanned, plain-text works great. You don't want to send huge, image-heavy emails day-after-day. People will get fed up fast.

4. More and more people are checking email on Blackberries and cell phones. Not all of them display HTML properly. Some of them only display the text portion of HTML (removing your images, or stacking them vertically). Some of them only display plain-text. Play it safe and make a plain-text message for every campaign.

5. Email clients are like browsers, each displays HTML differently. So a HTML message that looks perfect in GMail might not look at all the same in Outlook. Plain-text emails render the same no matter what email client the recipient is using.

Tips for creating Plain-text Emails:

Most email programs will take a plain-text message and wrap it for you properly, so you don't have to worry about weird wrapping issues. But to be safe you can always hit enter to do a "Hard Return" at about 60 characters in your plain-text email. You can type the letter "W" 60 times near the top of your message to use as a temporary "visual ruler" for when to hard-return. Delete the ruler when you're finished composing the message.

Bullet points are key. Plain-text emails are harder to read, so break it into chunks that are easier to skim and scan. Use little characters like (*) to make bullet points, and use ====== as line separators.

Plain-text emails are never exact replicas of the HTML email versions, but do spend an appropriate amount of time on them---people do read them. In plain-text emails, you can't code hyperlinks like "Click here to go to Millionaire Geeks." You just insert a URL like: http://www.millionairegeeks.com/tryit.phtml and the user will see it. Most of your recipients' email programs will make that URL clickable, but some won't.

Here at Millionaire Geeks we have a program called Auto Responder Unlimited which specializes in plain-text emails. This autoresponder can still do many important functions that the HTML ones can which makes it a great option for those who want to use only plain-text emails for their follow up messages.

It can be installed on your server in less than 10 minutes. All it really does is run right out of your CGI bin.
   
Will work on any number of domains without a liscense key and will even work on free-hosted webpages.

It Will automatically wrap text at 65 words per line so you don't have to worry about making a "visual ruler" to make sure that you have the width right.

You can pull the actual names of clients and email addresses of recipients and place them in the messages to personalize them.

You can attach any file type to your email messages up to 2MB (you can use this to send a more graphic message via PDF or html file)

Your subscribers can Unsubscribe using a link in every email message. This is important as you don't want recipients receiving messages they don't want anymore and reporting you.

And lastly,it will send out a report every time a follow-up is sent to your subscribers. You will always know what the autoresponder is doing for you. This is a really nice feature because even some of the more advanced autoresponders don't tell you if there are and spam addresses on your list. And yes, Autoresponder Unlimited will remove those addresses for you automatically.

So don't hate on the plaint-text emails, they are still very useful! Many people still actually prefer to have their emails in plain-text. If anything else, you should use them as a back-up for your HTML messages. Internet marketers who overlook plain-text emails always end up regretting it in the end.

About the Author:

Drake is a web design specialist who has been in the field for over 2 years now. Drake has expertise in HTML, Flash, PHP, MySQL, and much more! He is also the Co-Founder of Millionaire Geeks.

Article Source: Articles - Millionaire Geeks