Email Content – Text vs. HTML

Once you begin building your list, you will begin making sales

if they are responsive and that will begin to earn you money on

a weekly basis. Now, you may be wondering how you are supposed to

get these responsive people



This is every email marketer's dilemma. More so, due to the

fact that there is no clear majority of people preferring

one format over the other. Some people will always prefer

text to graphics, and some email readers only support basic

text. A prominent Internet marketing website recently carried

out a survey asking not only which format was preferred but

why one format was preferred over another. Over 600 people,

mostly marketers and small business operators, responded.55%

favored HTML and 45% preferred text. Given that well over

90% of email readers can view HTML, it is surprising that

almost half the people would prefer to receive text. To

investigate this point further, the survey gave those who

chose text a list of possible reasons to explain why. On

average, people listed about two and a half reasons each.

They said:



- Can't read HTML 6%

- Just want the meat without the distractions 32%

- Like to read offline 15%

- Ads are more intrusive in HTML 22%

- Slow to download 14%

- Other 11%



The most popular reason for choosing plain text over HTML

was an interesting one. People were clearly expressing a

desire for email layouts that focused on the message, and

they often saw HTML emails as containing elements that

distract from the content - the content being the reason

they signed up for the email in the first place. 11% of

the people who selected "Other" as their reason gave their

own reasons as:



- Text takes up less storage space 28%

- Security - fear of viruses 22%

- Easier/faster to read/scan 13%

- Text is easier to read on a PDA 9%

- Text is more reliable, formatting/forwarding etc. 7%

- Easier to save/file/copy text 6%

- Like to read email in preview pane 4%

- Fear of tracking/being spied on with HTML 4%

- Text is more easily searched offline 1%



The fact still remains that readers are almost equally

divided on their preference. The best way to get around

this is to give your subscribers an option of receiving

messages in text or HTML.





Eugenijus Sakalauskas publisher

"List Building Newsletter"

Subscribe to my exclusive 12 lessons e-Course

" Every Business Needs Opt-In Email Marketing "

and learn how to start building your own optin

list





http://ezine.pluginnetproefit.com/