Email Marketing: A Case for Text Newsletters
Written by Rosalind Gardner on April 18, 2008 · Comments (10)
Filed Under Email Marketing ·
Here’s a comment that I received from Ron Schmidt last week on our Support Desk…
I wanted the newsletter but I couldn’t read it in the HTML code in which it was received. Please resend the newsletter. Thanks.
UGH.
I do know better than to send out my newsletters only in HTML format, but the truth is that I’ve gotten lazy over the past several months — assuming that everyone accepts HTML newsletters now. Well, you know what they say about assuming anything… and in this case the only *ss is me. 
What is really dumb is that I often neglect to include a link to the blog entry where the latest newsletter is posted.
So, to make matters right, from now on I’ll send my email newsletters either in both HTML and text formats, or as text only. It’s not like that’s hard to do using the Aweber autoresponder interface… it’s actually incredibly easy.
And although Ron’s message made a significant impression, the following email that I received just a few days later, really brought the point home…
<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?><affiliate_transaction>
<kagiAffiliate>myaffiliateaccountname</kagiAffiliate><transaction_id>CH21UVFKTG4G&
lt;/transaction_id><customer_ip_address>77.195.xx.161</customer_ip_address><total_
sale_currency>EUR</total_sale_currency><total_sale_amount>23.92</total_sale_amount
><products><product_detail><product_name>ProductName__Standard_Edition</prod
uct_name><product_quantity>1</product_quantity><product_currency>USD</produc
t_currency><product_price>29.95</product_price></product_detail><product_det
ail><product_name>VAT_France_EU372000052_TVA</product_name><product_quantity>1&
lt;/product_quantity><product_currency>USD</product_currency><product_price>5.8
7</product_price></product_detail> </products> </affiliate_transaction>
<human_readable_note>You are the affiliate for a transaction that was recently processed. The above XML provides the transaction details. The affiliate fee earned from
this transaction will bedisplayed in the monthly payment data
file.vh1200</human_readable_note></xml>
My favorite part of the above email is the ‘human readable note’. Did you see it?
Anyway… point taken.
Popularity: 43% [?]
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed or the No-Hype, No-BS, No Spam NPT newsletter. Thanks for visiting!
Comments
10 Responses to “Email Marketing: A Case for Text Newsletters”
Jens P. Berget on April 18th, 2008 14:50 pm
I am also using Aweber to send my newsletters. What I do is I send a plain text e-mail, where I just use a few sentences about the newsletter and then end it with a link to the newsletter.
My newsletter is online as a regular website.
I am not sure if this is how you should be doing it, but so far I haven’t heard any complaints - well, some have been unsubscribing, but I think that might be because my content really suck
[Reply]
Barbara C Phillips on April 20th, 2008 7:27 am
Human readable note indeed!
I also now send out a text email using aweber sending my readers to the online version of the newsletter. I give them todays topics and off we go. Works much better I think than the html/text. But then…I’ve never tested it with my list. Oops.
[Reply]
Caryl Dennis on April 20th, 2008 8:08 am
I tried Aweber and had a terrible time with it. Icontact.com is less expensive and MUICH easier to use.
[Reply]
Rosalind Gardner on April 20th, 2008 8:20 am
I guess it all depends on what you are used to. Aweber has definitely become the standard autoresponder for use by Internet marketers and is the one I’ve been using for the last 10 years… and yes, I’ve tried most of the other ‘big names’ out there.
I personally find Aweber is the best of the best, and yes, like any other service, there is a learning curve involved. However Aweber does a FANTASTIC job with video tutorials and support.
Cheers,
Ros
[Reply]
m j wyatt on April 20th, 2008 9:32 am
I am working on a flyfishing site and I am trying to figure out how to add an rss feed to my blog. can you help me
[Reply]
Rosalind Gardner reply on Sunday, April 20, 2008 17:12 pm:
We’ll definitely be covering how to add an RSS Feed to your blog during the BlogClassroom course.
Meanwhile, if you post your question there, either Anik, I or one of the other students will be able to respond more quickly to your question.
[Reply]
Dennis Edell on April 20th, 2008 14:15 pm
I just send both, it’s merely copy/paste from one to the other with a tweak or 2. No big deal, time wise.
[Reply]
better email deliverability guaranteed on April 20th, 2008 20:39 pm
hey rosalind,
I would definitely not recommend letting this setback turn you to text only newsletters. Just take a little bit more time and include a plain text version.
no good reason to miss out on the advantages of html in most cases.
big jason
certified email marketing professional
[Reply]
Greg on April 21st, 2008 9:44 am
Hi,
Your read struck a cord with me. For some reason my email client (Thunderbird) has decided that it doesn’t like HTML email anymore. It’ll display either a blank page or just some text links that aren’t clickable.
Test email is just fine.
I also understand that there are some security concerns with HTML email?
Thanks for a great blog
[Reply]
I have changed my Internet Marketing Newsletter on April 22nd, 2008 8:17 am
[…] I am using html for the reports, the e-mail that my readers will receive is in plain text with a link to the report. The Internet Marketing Tips e-mails will be in plain text, and all the content will be included in the e-mail. This way I am doing both, I am doing the html (but as a separate page) and I am doing the plain text. I am not using html e-mails, because I think too many people will still have problems reading them. […]
Got something to say?