If you’ve been in the email space for any length of time, you’ve probably encountered your fair share of plain text versions of email. For those who haven’t, let me give you a quick debrief.
A plain text version of an email is – you guessed it – nothing more than simple text that houses the summary of your email and its call(s) to action. What is the basis of the email you want a subscriber to see if they can’t see anything other than text? With no images, no ‘hidden’ URLs but instead the full written-out ugly URL, it’s the most basic form of email communication that exists. The point is to appeal to that generally miniscule part of your audience who doesn’t accept HTML email. It’s a way of ensuring your communication is being read no matter what email client your subscriber is using. While this may sound outdated and borderline excessive, it’s crucial to include a stripped-down version of your email for a number of reasons:
- 1. Decrepit email clients. Technically they aren’t referred to as decrepit, but considering the ever- decreasing minority that don’t support or display HTML (remember the BlackBerry?), this is good practice for those email clients that will only render the plain text version.
- 2. You’ll appeal to spam filters. The powers that be like to see a plain text version sent along with your HTML – this is what’s called sending in “multi-part MIME format”, which is basically sending the HTML and plain text version simultaneously. The thought here is that only a spammer wouldn’t take the time to create a plain text version, so anyone “legit” would include a plain text version as well. If you’re looking to increase your spam score standing and you’re not including a plain text version in your email, this is a good place to start.
- 3. User preference. Whether they’re hipsters, my grandparents, or neither, you will simply have some subscribers prefer to receive a text version of your email. If you don’t send a plain text version when sending your email, you may want to reconsider; if you send an HTML version only, that subscriber who signed up for plain text emails most likely isn’t receiving your email. Period.
- And that brings me to a newly-added number 4 on this list;
- 4. The Apple Watch. After a much-anticipated launch, the Apple Watch has finally arrived. Combining some of the functionality of other iDevices as well as the watch, email marketers were curious as to the impacts this new device would have for email.
Upon initial reviews, the watch has gotten raves regarding battery life, the scrolling function in addition to Force Touch, and of course the different customizable versions of the clock face. One rather large drawback of the Apple Watch is the experience pertaining to those with wrist tattoos – while CNN wrote an article on the issue, the short story is if you have ink on your wrists and you’re wearing the Watch, you may not be able to use Apple Pay, receive notifications, place calls, or use certain apps.
Provided you’re emailing those without wrist tattoos, the Apple Watch does have a few other quirks email marketers need to pay attention to:
- A. It only recognizes plain text. This surprised me slightly, as the BlackBerry is frequently a source of mockery due to their limitations displaying HTML, and the Apple Watch is, well, an Apple product after all. Nonetheless, it is important to remember this is a watch first and cool distraction second.
- B. If you send an HTML version only, you get a less-than-ideal user experience. If you’re still on the fence about joining the plain text bandwagon, the Apple Watch warning message may sway you: The full version of this message isn’t available on Apple Watch. But you can read it on your iPhone. Ouch. It might sound better and contribute to an overall better user experience, to have a plain text version you wrote instead. Despite the warning, the friendly from, subject line, and pre-header text will still display in the watch. If you still don’t want to add a plain text version of your email, you will need to focus more of your attention on what the call to action will be in either subject line or pre-header for these users.
- C. Prepare for disabled links. Don’t expect to know what the CTR is for Apple Watch – the device doesn’t enable links. Since there is no browser on the Apple Watch, your subscriber will only see grayed out text where the URLs are. The only exception to this is in regards to addresses and phone numbers. Similar to any other iOS device, tapping on an address will launch in Maps, and tapping on a phone number will make a call by connecting to your iPhone.
- D. Engagement and tracking. Open tracking and click-through tracking isn’t yet possible on the watch. Since tracking pixels are included in HTML emails and the watch only honors plain text, it is not possible to know what part of your audience is opening on the watch. And since URLs are disabled, this removes the option for any kind of click-through engagement tracking.
If you’re a PostUp client you may be wondering how easy it is to send a plain text version of your email. The answer is simpler than plain text itself. In the “Content” tab of your mailing you can alternate between the HTML and text version of your content.
