HTML style newsletters are the trendy thing in e-mail marketing. Most of our competitors offer an array of flashy newsletters which are appealing to many businesses. In fact, many of them only offer sending this type of e-mail in a large mass blast.

We’ve written articles on how and when a html- style newsletter is appropriate to use. However, there are many reasons why you should opt for a text-only style e-mail instead.

1. Heavy HTML may get marked as SPAM

There are a few things that may get your e-mail sent to someone’s SPAM box. My guess is that if you’re sending out an e-mail blast, you would actually like your recipients to read it. It’s more likely to be viewed as SPAM because so many businesses use this tactic to market (or SPAM) their contact list.

2. Text looks more personal

I know personally that when I receive an HTML newsletter, I assume it was sent by a company to their entire contact list. However, if I receive a text only e-mail addressed to a person from a person, I may take that as something that was written to me personally. E-mails like this tend to have higher open rates and link click throughs because they seem less like a marketing tactic.

These two reasons are why, at Systematic Revenue, we advocate for sending text only e-mails to more specific segments in your contact list versus sending a newsletter to your entire list.

Utilizing this tactic will yield higher open rates and better results because you are targeting your list based on their interest and sending them what appears to be a personally written e-mail, without actually spending the time to do so.