Digital marketers are responsible for putting up the content in the email that brings traffic to the website and is responsive. To help you out, we have found the 5 plain-text emails best practices you should know.
- Keep it short, sweet, and simple
Fancy HTML email newsletters can go really bold and exciting. But a plain text email can be just PLAIN at best.
According to insights highlighted in the study by Smart Insight, a common issue faced by certain marketers in plain text emails is the tendency to overcrowd them with excessive information and links, compensating for the content that might be absent compared to HTML emails. Nevertheless, embracing a minimalist approach could prove to be the most advantageous design decision when formulating a plain text email campaign.
If you think this is bad news for your creative pursuits of exciting email newsletters that are heavy with aesthetics, not so fast.
You have to understand that some consumers within your database have deliberately opted for receiving only plain text emails. They are probably people who don’t like a lot of fringes and other distractions in their emails.
With that being said, you can also guess that such a consumer base likes to go really fast with the emails that they receive. They are likely to skim and want to skip to the important part.
As a result of this thinking, you must keep your plain text emails short and straightforward. Not too many embellishments and won’t be making a short story in the email.
- Eye-catching call-to-action links
Just because you are limited from using HTML format, who says you can’t still use a call-to-action? If anything, with a very clean, sleek and simple plain text email your call-to-action should stand out even more.
Sure it can’t appear as a convenient and catchy call-to-action button, but you can still make your call-to-action link catchy to the eye. The key here is how you word your call-to-action link.
Remember, your call-to-action sentence should not be too long. An effective call-to-action in a plain text email should be short and to the point.
The message should be clear and your subscribers need to know right away what or where that link leads them to. The key to maximising your plain text email call-to-action is a repetition of your CTA.
A single email newsletter should typically have a maximum of three call-to-action links. No more than three as that would be redundant.
- Write well and know your punctuation
Since plain text emails are all about the… well, texts… you need to be able to write well.
You are already given such simple tools that are your text and space, you can’t risk being lazy and inattentive by making typos and grammatical mistakes.
A word of caution though: subscribers who have deliberately opted for plain text emails in their settings probably are good readers themselves.
Based on the insights provided in the study conducted by Digital Mahbub, it is crucial to exercise heightened caution to avoid the possibility of typos and grammatical errors. It’s important to recognize that subscribers who have intentionally chosen plain text emails within their settings likely possess strong reading skills themselves.
With that being said, you must work to maintain the utmost professionality by knowing how to write well. Correct punctuations and all are important, but text readability is just as equally important.
You don’t want to write long passages that can be hard to read on the go. After all, most of the time, your plain text emails are opened on smartphones.
Your readers are on the go and they will skim your plain text emails. Make sure your sentences are short and clear.
- Make the most out of text formatting
Now that you know you are limited by the unavailability of HTML, you can’t really grab your reader’s attention by using pictures, videos, or even gifs. So how do you grab attention at all with just plain text emails?
Those are literally just walls of text, right? You may dread the idea of your plain text emails looking bleak as can be and your subscribers totally skipping them. But this is wrong thinking!
A lot of your subscribers have opted to not load HTML emails; that means they appreciate plain text emails. So, with this minimalistic space, make the most out of text formatting. You know the basics, capitalised letters and non-capitalised ones.
Although you can’t use BIU formatting on plain text emails, you can still use symbols as emojis and asterisks to highlight important words in your plain text emails. Now go get creative!
- Don’t forget, your brand name still needs to be shown
Sure, we now understand that plain text emails need to be concise, precise, and just to the point. You want the focus of your content to be about the information, and then the call-to-action, and that hopefully generates leads or sales.
According to insights shared in the report by Daily Story, a call-to-action holds significant importance in all forms of marketing. It serves as a conclusion to your campaign content while offering guidance to your subscribers. Frequently, a call-to-action takes the form of an enticing link leading to a product landing page. In HTML-based content, a call-to-action might encompass an image, a GIF, or even a button.
But, no matter how wonderfully simple your plain text emails could be, don’t forget that you are still a business entity that wants to do serious business. Your credibility, as well as identity, needs to shine through even via plain text emails.
With that being said, in spite of all the simplicity you could ever produce for your plain text emails, don’t forget your brand name.
That way, you still seem credible and serious about your plain text emails. Surely you don’t want your subscribers to get confused about which brand your plain text emails come from, right? So maintain that distinction.
