Plain emails not only save time but work better (2016)
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Re: Plain emails not only save time but work better (2016)
#2I've noticed more web companies lately are opting for much more basic emails than before, it's been a welcome change. Waiting for those image and layout heavy emails to load on a mobile device is pure irritation.
On the other end of that spectrum are the ones I get from ebay, which when the images don't load because security, actually just show as a completely empty email with the only words appearing being "Did you find this email useful?" followed by two broken images. Guess where that goes.
Re: Plain emails not only save time but work better (2016)
#3Can't most of the results be attributed to it simply being different?
If everyone started sending marketing emails like this, then they would start looking like advertisements, they would feel less personal, spam and "promotional" filters would adapt, and you'd be back to square 1.
Plus, I very much like the "Promotional" filters for email, both as someone that receives it, and someone that has sent it.
Email spam is annoying because it's in your way, it interrupts your day, and almost "forces" you to pay attention to it, which is annoying.
The "promotional" tab in gmail (or the similar group in Inbox) fixed that problem for me. Now I go and look through it when I want, and I not only read more of them, but i've done more "action" from them (rather than get annoyed at spam, i've seen that something is on sale, or a new product is released that i was looking forward to).
If there were a way to "mark" my emails to go into that tab voluntarily as a sender, I would do it. The whole idea that you should be fighting against how the user wants to group their email seems backwards. If they don't want to see it, forcing them to see it isn't going to make them like it...
Re: Plain emails not only save time but work better (2016)
#4I've been sending plain emails to my list, because I like the ultra minimalism of it. If I've got two sentences to share with my list my email is "Hi" + two sentences + "Bye" + unsubscribe links.
Does it "convert" better than styled emails? I don't know. I don't care. Does it do well enough to meet my goals. Yes.
There's many things I'd rather be doing with my time than optimising everything for marketing goals.
Re: Plain emails not only save time but work better (2016)
#5How is it even possible to track the open rate without HTML? I'm not an email expert and genuinely curious.
I was under the impression that people use tags for that.
Re: Plain emails not only save time but work better (2016)
#6I've been sending plain emails to my list, because I like the ultra minimalism of it. If I've got two sentences to share with my list my email is "Hi" + two sentences + "Bye" + unsubscribe links. Does it "convert" better than styled emails? I don't know. I don't care. Does it do well enough to meet my goals. Yes. There's many things I'd rather be doing with my time than optimising everything for marketing goals.
I like plain emails much more than styled ones.
But the point with the "does it convert better" is a pretty big.
I mean, I work with people who hire marketing consultants who tell them what they need to do for better conversions. All decisions are based on that metric. So I wouldn't expect much change if there are no numbers that tell "plain converts better".
Re: Plain emails not only save time but work better (2016)
#7Most of the designed emails have images which will be blocked by the client(thunderbird), which looks really horrible. So I will have to be very interested to actually allow images to be downloaded.
Re: Plain emails not only save time but work better (2016)
#8How is it even possible to track the open rate without HTML? I'm not an email expert and genuinely curious. I was under the impression that people use tags for that.
the article is anti-design. not anti-html.
Re: Plain emails not only save time but work better (2016)
#9How is it even possible to track the open rate without HTML? I'm not an email expert and genuinely curious. I was under the impression that people use tags for that.
When he says "plain text email", what he means is "HTML email with very little styling". Sending true plain text email without a multipart HTML section is much worse for deliverability, from my experience (assumedly because plaintext emails are almost always "automatic emails")
Re: Plain emails not only save time but work better (2016)
#10How is it even possible to track the open rate without HTML? I'm not an email expert and genuinely curious. I was under the impression that people use tags for that.
It's still HTML, just completely unstyled. So there's still support for including tracking images.