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Casual Articles - Newsletters in Plain Text or HTML - Which Work Better?
Entrepreneurs and small business owners know they need to market their business to make more money and attract more customers, but they often don't know how to go about it. That's why my FOCUS Marketing™ Method is such a powerful tool. It gives you specific techniques to make your marketing efforts pay off."F" is for Filtered. Concentrate on targeting people in a specific niche market to attract your ideal clients—those people who you serve well and who you are most alike. Think about what types of people you best identify with and what life experiences, interests, hobbies, and roles you might share with them. Then consider whether they are people you'll want to work with in the long term.Once you have an idea who your "ideal clients" are, you can attract them with your pricing, packaging, and branding—the image you project on your website and in your marketing materials. You'll want to filter out people who are not a good fit for your business, such as those who can't afford your prices, or those who you'll struggle to get access to, and attract only those people who are most likely to purchase the products and services you offer—the ideal clients for your business."O" is for Organize. Once you've determined who your ideal clients are, you can create strategies for marketing to them
A plain text email is more likely to reach a larger amount of people than a HTML email simply because plain text is more compliant to standards. Plain text emails are less likely to be blocked by SPAM filters. Plain text emails will display immediately, there are no download times waiting for graphics to finish loading. Plain text emails are more likely to display properly regardless of what email client your subscribers use. All this adds up to plain text emails being read more often...better numbers...see a pattern here?
Words Sell
Bells and whistles are nice. Interactive toys and flashy lights and sounds are great. But ultimately it's words that sell. If you write compelling newsletter copy aimed at your target audience that have been carefully selected by the methods used to acquire newsletter sign-ups, you have the perfect vehicle to illicit a response using words that sell. Why dilute your message by wrapping it
There are a lot of people out there that would like to have some extra money in their pockets. Whether it is to pay off some bills or just to have some money for a night out on the town the desire for extra cash affects almost all of us. Here are some ways that you can earn a little extra money, both online and offline.1. Filling out forms - There is some money to be made by filling out online surveys. You could probably actually make enough for a car payment but you need to be diligent and make sure that you are in with the right company so you don't get ripped off2. Ebay - Do you have some junk laying around the house that you don't use? Sure you do, we all do. Why not throw up some auctions on Ebay and see what kind of money you can make?3. Odd Jobs - Yeah, they stink, but you can make some extra money by doing things like mowing lawns, washing windows, handyman work etc.4. Get Paid to Read Email - Yes, there are programs out there that will pay you to read ads and participate in them. This is another area where you better know that you are in with the right guys or you will be wasting your time.5. Online Money Makers - There are the odd programs online that will pay you to participate. These are incentive programs, and you can tap into their client database. Choose wisely, the rip
HTML Emails
THE GOOD
- Interactive - active elements can be inserted into emails limited only by what email clients can handle. May include movies, games, surveys or any active content.
- Metrics - Code can be placed into emails to provide detailed statistics on whether your email newsletters are read, for how long and which links are clicked and followed.
- Formatting can be controlled to the finest details including fonts, spacing, and design.
THE BAD
- Creating HTML emails take a lot of time and technical proficiency.
- Not everyone has an HTML capable email client in which case you will be excluding some people.
- Your basic message may be lost by the excessive content and "eye candy".
- The range of options available in HTML are extensive and can lead to what I call "TMOS" - Too Many Options Syndrome, which is the antithesis of the concept "KISS" - Keep It Simple Stupid. TMOS can stop you from functioning efficiently because you are bogged down with how many things you could do, you end up doing nothing.
Plain Text Emails
THE GOOD
- Easier to create - just type words.
- Less chance of formatting problems making the email display incorrectly.
- Less chance of a SPAM filter blocking the mail.
- Message will be easily digested by the reader provided you write it well.
- No distractions from graphics or over stimulation from too much content competing for attention.
- You sell with words, the most powerful sales tool available on the web if used correctly.
THE BAD
- Harder to capture statistics.
- Hyperlinks may not be active (most text based email clients convert HTTP links to clickable but some still don't).
- Limited to text to convey your message.
- No multimedia can be included.
Why Do You Have a Newsletter?
Let's cut to the chase here. Why do you have a newsletter? If you are running an Internet business your newsletter functions as a customer retention tool, sending out periodic reminders to pull your prospects/customers back to your site. Newsletters themselves also function as a direct sales tool. It doesn't matter if you are selling affiliate products, your own products, a service or information, your newsletter is meant to do one thing - illicit a response from its audience.
In order for your newsletter readers to feel compelled enough to take action your newsletter must clearly state it's message AND create enough of a pull, usually via emotional tugging, to get the reader to do something. The same rules that apply to websites and copywriting apply to newsletters except you have even less time to convince your reader to do something.
Newsletters fall into the domain of email, the most popular web activity. Email is mainstream, it has penetration and people of all ages and backgrounds know how to use it. Consequently the learning curve is a little higher and your readership knows how to at least complete the basic functions with email. This means that they are quite capable of giving each email about 1 seconds worth of attention before clicking that delete button. That's not a lot of time to convince them that your email is worth reading.
Should I use Plain Text or HTML Newsletters?
In my opinion, plain text should be your choice for email newsletter format. Why? Because of the numbers. Email newsletters are a form of direct response marketing and in direct response marketing the numbers matter.
From the point of view of a small business owner with limited time and resources you want to maximise the results you get from your newsletters. You want a lot of responses to whatever your newsletter is trying to do. You should be able to easily test different copy and see which works best so you can maximise the numbers. It's all about the numbers...
Your newsletter must hit the reader quickly and compel them to read on. Any delays or presentation errors are going kill your chance of capturing the attention of the reader. While plain text emails are not immune to display errors (more on this later) they are a lot more likely to be digested by the reader even if things don't format exactly how you want them to.
A plain text email is more likely to reach a larger amount of people than a HTML email simply because plain text is more compliant to standards. Plain text emails are less likely to be blocked by SPAM filters. Plain text emails will display immediately, there are no download times waiting for graphics to finish loading. Plain text emails are more likely to display properly regardless of what email client your subscribers use. All this adds up to plain text emails being read more often...better numbers...see a pattern here?
Words Sell
Bells and whistles are nice. Interactive toys and flashy lights and sounds are great. But ultimately it's words that sell. If you write compelling newsletter copy aimed at your target audience that have been carefully selected by the methods used to acquire newsletter sign-ups, you have the perfect vehicle to illicit a response using words that sell. Why dilute your message by wrapping it
Too many small businesses don't have an integrated marketing strategy and plan. Instead, the marketing tends to be very reactive to whatever is happening to the business currently.You want to build the business through word-of-mouth, but you don't have any system for generating referrals or word-of-mouth business. For most it gets even worse than this because you're passively waiting for clients to introduce you to prospective new clients.It's a long slow process to build your business through referrals this way. Even if you have a systematic approach your success will likely only produce a trickle or small stream of new business.Create Referral Alliance PartnershipsIf you really want to create a flood of referrals, then consider establishing referral alliance partnerships. Identifying the right referral alliance partnership could be worth 100 times more than getting a referral to one additional client.Many professions can build strong referral networks by partnering with other products and services providers. For example, an accountant can productively send and receive referrals from financial planners, business attorneys, payroll services, insurance providers, and mortgage brokers to name a few.Become referral alliance partnership
Plain Text Emails
THE GOOD
- Easier to create - just type words.
- Less chance of formatting problems making the email display incorrectly.
- Less chance of a SPAM filter blocking the mail.
- Message will be easily digested by the reader provided you write it well.
- No distractions from graphics or over stimulation from too much content competing for attention.
- You sell with words, the most powerful sales tool available on the web if used correctly.
THE BAD
- Harder to capture statistics.
- Hyperlinks may not be active (most text based email clients convert HTTP links to clickable but some still don't).
- Limited to text to convey your message.
- No multimedia can be included.
Why Do You Have a Newsletter?
Let's cut to the chase here. Why do you have a newsletter? If you are running an Internet business your newsletter functions as a customer retention tool, sending out periodic reminders to pull your prospects/customers back to your site. Newsletters themselves also function as a direct sales tool. It doesn't matter if you are selling affiliate products, your own products, a service or information, your newsletter is meant to do one thing - illicit a response from its audience.
In order for your newsletter readers to feel compelled enough to take action your newsletter must clearly state it's message AND create enough of a pull, usually via emotional tugging, to get the reader to do something. The same rules that apply to websites and copywriting apply to newsletters except you have even less time to convince your reader to do something.
Newsletters fall into the domain of email, the most popular web activity. Email is mainstream, it has penetration and people of all ages and backgrounds know how to use it. Consequently the learning curve is a little higher and your readership knows how to at least complete the basic functions with email. This means that they are quite capable of giving each email about 1 seconds worth of attention before clicking that delete button. That's not a lot of time to convince them that your email is worth reading.
Should I use Plain Text or HTML Newsletters?
In my opinion, plain text should be your choice for email newsletter format. Why? Because of the numbers. Email newsletters are a form of direct response marketing and in direct response marketing the numbers matter.
From the point of view of a small business owner with limited time and resources you want to maximise the results you get from your newsletters. You want a lot of responses to whatever your newsletter is trying to do. You should be able to easily test different copy and see which works best so you can maximise the numbers. It's all about the numbers...
Your newsletter must hit the reader quickly and compel them to read on. Any delays or presentation errors are going kill your chance of capturing the attention of the reader. While plain text emails are not immune to display errors (more on this later) they are a lot more likely to be digested by the reader even if things don't format exactly how you want them to.
A plain text email is more likely to reach a larger amount of people than a HTML email simply because plain text is more compliant to standards. Plain text emails are less likely to be blocked by SPAM filters. Plain text emails will display immediately, there are no download times waiting for graphics to finish loading. Plain text emails are more likely to display properly regardless of what email client your subscribers use. All this adds up to plain text emails being read more often...better numbers...see a pattern here?
Words Sell
Bells and whistles are nice. Interactive toys and flashy lights and sounds are great. But ultimately it's words that sell. If you write compelling newsletter copy aimed at your target audience that have been carefully selected by the methods used to acquire newsletter sign-ups, you have the perfect vehicle to illicit a response using words that sell. Why dilute your message by wrapping it
The primary reasons that sales managers fail is that they don’t know how to manage their people, and they don’t manage a highly effective selling processes. Just as an engineering manager needs to be a pretty competent engineer, so does a sales manager need to be a pretty competent salesperson. However, in both cases, their primary responsibility is to manage the performance of their staff. And, both must have a good understanding of modern management principles beyond a few readings of “The One Minute Manger.”By contrast, most engineering managers know that technology is evolving so quickly that their managerial functions prevent them from keeping up with the technology at the level of a functioning engineer. However, they know enough about the latest technology to manage it.Conversely, most sales managers believe that very little has changed in the ways that top salespeople interact with their prospects and customers since they became a manager. Therefore, they tend to manage their people in the way they used to sell. However, the markets for every product and service have changed dramatically in the last twenty years. Top salespeople have developed new sales process to take advantage of those changes. That is what most sales managers don’t know.1. They don’t know how to use highly
Why Do You Have a Newsletter?
Let's cut to the chase here. Why do you have a newsletter? If you are running an Internet business your newsletter functions as a customer retention tool, sending out periodic reminders to pull your prospects/customers back to your site. Newsletters themselves also function as a direct sales tool. It doesn't matter if you are selling affiliate products, your own products, a service or information, your newsletter is meant to do one thing - illicit a response from its audience.
In order for your newsletter readers to feel compelled enough to take action your newsletter must clearly state it's message AND create enough of a pull, usually via emotional tugging, to get the reader to do something. The same rules that apply to websites and copywriting apply to newsletters except you have even less time to convince your reader to do something.
Newsletters fall into the domain of email, the most popular web activity. Email is mainstream, it has penetration and people of all ages and backgrounds know how to use it. Consequently the learning curve is a little higher and your readership knows how to at least complete the basic functions with email. This means that they are quite capable of giving each email about 1 seconds worth of attention before clicking that delete button. That's not a lot of time to convince them that your email is worth reading.
Should I use Plain Text or HTML Newsletters?
In my opinion, plain text should be your choice for email newsletter format. Why? Because of the numbers. Email newsletters are a form of direct response marketing and in direct response marketing the numbers matter.
From the point of view of a small business owner with limited time and resources you want to maximise the results you get from your newsletters. You want a lot of responses to whatever your newsletter is trying to do. You should be able to easily test different copy and see which works best so you can maximise the numbers. It's all about the numbers...
Your newsletter must hit the reader quickly and compel them to read on. Any delays or presentation errors are going kill your chance of capturing the attention of the reader. While plain text emails are not immune to display errors (more on this later) they are a lot more likely to be digested by the reader even if things don't format exactly how you want them to.
A plain text email is more likely to reach a larger amount of people than a HTML email simply because plain text is more compliant to standards. Plain text emails are less likely to be blocked by SPAM filters. Plain text emails will display immediately, there are no download times waiting for graphics to finish loading. Plain text emails are more likely to display properly regardless of what email client your subscribers use. All this adds up to plain text emails being read more often...better numbers...see a pattern here?
Words Sell
Bells and whistles are nice. Interactive toys and flashy lights and sounds are great. But ultimately it's words that sell. If you write compelling newsletter copy aimed at your target audience that have been carefully selected by the methods used to acquire newsletter sign-ups, you have the perfect vehicle to illicit a response using words that sell. Why dilute your message by wrapping it
The healthcare industry is experiencing a great amount of job growth. There is a nationwide shortage of nurses, and this shortage is predicted to get worse. Jobs in the field of nursing are abundant worldwide. Unfortunately, not only are there not enough nurses, there are not enough nursing educators. This causes a high degree of competition for those wanting to get in to a nursing program. Potential nursing students are finding it difficult to find programs, and when they do, there are often wait lists. The wait is worth it, however. Since qualified nurses are in high demand - and will continue to be, the wages too, will continue to rise. Registered nurses constitute one of the largest healthcare occupations, with 2.3 million jobs. Even more new jobs are expected to be created for registered nurses than for any other occupation. These job opportunities are expected to be very good.Registered nurses known as RN's work to sustain health, prevent disease, and support patients who are dealing with illness. They are advocates and health educators for the community, their patients and the patients families. Registered nurses deal with direct patient care. It is their job to observe patients, record symptoms and track patient progress. The also help to assist doctors during surgery, treatment, and examinations. They a
Should I use Plain Text or HTML Newsletters?
In my opinion, plain text should be your choice for email newsletter format. Why? Because of the numbers. Email newsletters are a form of direct response marketing and in direct response marketing the numbers matter.
From the point of view of a small business owner with limited time and resources you want to maximise the results you get from your newsletters. You want a lot of responses to whatever your newsletter is trying to do. You should be able to easily test different copy and see which works best so you can maximise the numbers. It's all about the numbers...
Your newsletter must hit the reader quickly and compel them to read on. Any delays or presentation errors are going kill your chance of capturing the attention of the reader. While plain text emails are not immune to display errors (more on this later) they are a lot more likely to be digested by the reader even if things don't format exactly how you want them to.
A plain text email is more likely to reach a larger amount of people than a HTML email simply because plain text is more compliant to standards. Plain text emails are less likely to be blocked by SPAM filters. Plain text emails will display immediately, there are no download times waiting for graphics to finish loading. Plain text emails are more likely to display properly regardless of what email client your subscribers use. All this adds up to plain text emails being read more often...better numbers...see a pattern here?
Words Sell
Bells and whistles are nice. Interactive toys and flashy lights and sounds are great. But ultimately it's words that sell. If you write compelling newsletter copy aimed at your target audience that have been carefully selected by the methods used to acquire newsletter sign-ups, you have the perfect vehicle to illicit a response using words that sell. Why dilute your message by wrapping it
If you own a website and are located anywhere in Europe, especially the U.K., you’re probably well aware of all the attention surrounding the Eurid offering of .eu domains to the public. .Eu domains have been long awaited and their popularity is expected to be similar to .com domains. These domains were originally only available in what was known as the Sunrise 1 and Sunrise 2 stages. Sunrise 1, the first of the three stages, began on December 7, 2005. To be considered for a .eu domain, applicants chose a domain name had to be related to a registered trademark. This policy greatly restricted the number of applicants that could apply for a domain. The Sunrise 2 stage was offered on February 7, 2006 and allowed applicants to reserve domains related to both unregistered trademarks and company names. The purpose of the Sunrise phases was to allow well established companies the first rights to their desired domain names. As with other types of domains, many times people will purchase a number of domain names hoping to resell them at an elevated cost. Unfortunately, some individuals have even tried using domain names that are similar to well known companies hoping to gain exposure for their product or business.The last stage known as the “Landrush” became available on April 7, 2006. This final stage allows much greate
A plain text email is more likely to reach a larger amount of people than a HTML email simply because plain text is more compliant to standards. Plain text emails are less likely to be blocked by SPAM filters. Plain text emails will display immediately, there are no download times waiting for graphics to finish loading. Plain text emails are more likely to display properly regardless of what email client your subscribers use. All this adds up to plain text emails being read more often...better numbers...see a pattern here?
Words Sell
Bells and whistles are nice. Interactive toys and flashy lights and sounds are great. But ultimately it's words that sell. If you write compelling newsletter copy aimed at your target audience that have been carefully selected by the methods used to acquire newsletter sign-ups, you have the perfect vehicle to illicit a response using words that sell. Why dilute your message by wrapping it within colours and images or overstimulating your readers by providing too much information when a few paragraphs can create your desired results more effectively.
Why Not Use Both Plain Text and HTML?
Good idea! If you have the resources and skills to produce a quality HTML and plain text newsletter then by all means offer both to your audience and let them nominate which they prefer, or better still have the email automatically display the appropriate format by detecting what type of email client they have. If you offer both be sure to test to make sure it's worthwhile. Are more people responding to plain text emails? Well in that case send everyone plain text.
In my case I'm a small business owner and I'm going to be writing the newsletters myself. I do not have time nor the skills to create a new HTML webpage for every newsletter I produce. I could perhaps have a nice standard template designed which I use for newsletters but as I wrote above, I believe that is a waste of time. Words sell, so I'll focus on creating emotionally compelling words for my newsletters rather than waste time trying to get a box to align right correctly.
Tips for Better Plain Text Newsletters
TELL A FRIEND
Remember how I talked about the numbers? Your efforts should be focused on ensuring the maximum number of people are exposed to your email so your emotionally compelling and convincing newsletter can work it's magic. This doesn't have to be limited to just your newsletter subscribers -- your subscribers can be turned into evangelists for your newsletter. Make it easy for your subscribers to forward your newsletter on to friends and associates - suggest it to them at the end of the newsletter. Of course for this work you better be creating a damn interesting newsletter.
WORD WRAPPING
Plain text can format incorrectly and one of the most common problems is line breaks. Either lines breaking too early causing your sentences to look disjointed and clumsy, or no line breaks at all, causing one of those nasty horizontal scrollbars to appear and your reader to read off the page to finish a sentence. The screen resolution of your subscribers computers can also impact how your text wraps causing these problems.
You can't control the monitor resolution of your readers or what email client they use, all you can do is try and account for as many variables as possible. To compensate for this problem you have to set a characters-per-line limitation. I've researched into newsletter formatting and different people give different suggestions, from 68 characters per line to 63. I've decided to recommend to you the round number of 60 characters per line. This will give you nice compact paragraphs made up of nice compact sentences that are likely to avoid most word wrapping (or lack thereof) problems your readers might experience. On extremely high resolutions there will be a lot of white space and your email might look like one big long tower of text but that's still a lot better than broken sentences or horizontal scrollbars and won't be too common a problem.
How To Set Characters Per Line Limitations
You didn't think I would tell you what to do without giving you practical advice on how to do it would I?! Of course not.
Format Text provided by Web-Source.net will handle email newsletter formatting to any character width you specify. Better still it can even undo the current character spacing on any text you have so it's definitely a tool worth book marking.
Newsletters Are An Important Tool For Your Online Business
Many of the most successful Internet entrepreneurs are wealthy because they have massive (10,000+) lists of highly targeted subscribers that they have been building for years. One well written affiliate product email to a good list can create thousands of dollars of sales and you don't even supply the product.
Better still once you have a solid list you can contact similar focused online marketers and carefully select the right cross promotional activities that can double your exposure with one email to their list. Of course you have to have your own list to make available for cross promotions before you can expect to work with other people - the smart/persistent/rich help each other to get richer.
Even if you are using your newsletter as a step in the conversion process to generate sales of your own pr
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