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Designing Plain Text Email

Recently I’ve been spending quite a bit of time designing and building HTML email templates, but the plain text version of the email always seems to be an afterthought (or ignored/forgotten about entirely). Don’t forget about your plain text email the next time you’re building an HTML email campaign.

Plain text emails can look good too!

Recently I’ve been spending quite a bit of time designing and building HTML email templates, but the plain text version of the email always seems to be an afterthought (or ignored/forgotten about entirely). Don’t forget about your plain text email the next time you’re building an HTML email campaign.

Why spend time and resources on a plain text version of your email? MailChimp has a great article covering some of the most vital reasons for a plain text version, including:

  • Some people prefer text emails, in fact they may even block or disable HTML emails from displaying.
  • Email spam filters have gotten much more aggressive over the years, and many filters scan both the HTML and plain text content for possible triggers (not having a plain text version at all could be an even bigger spam flag).
  • Many email applications are still severely out-dated and lacking in support for even basic HTML rendering. Some of these applications even default to the plain text email if an HTML issue occurs (especially on mobile devices).

So what can you do to spruce up your plain text email template? Check out Campaign Monitor’s Designing for the Inbox articles, especially Chapter 2: Designing Plain Text Email.

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