Text works
The simplest, and ultimately most reliable e-mail marketing messages are those built with plain text. Text may not be sexy, but it works: it downloads quickly, something many customers, especially those using slower dial-up connections to the Web, will appreciate.
That's because some people you send mail to will have e-mail software only capable of handling text. Until the introduction of AOL 6.0, for instance, America Online members weren't able to view graphical e-mail based on the Web-standard HTML.
If you choose to assemble text-only marketing e-mails, there are a few tips you can apply to spice up the message.
Link to your Web site, quickly and prominently.
Have a Web site? Make sure a link to it is prominent in the message, certainly in its first few lines. By directing potential customers to a Web site, you can circumvent the plain-Jane appearance of text e-mail and/or keep the e-mail brief. This site doesn't have to be for selling; think hard about creating a marketing-type page that displays your message in color and style. The downside, of course, is that you must convince recipients that it's worth their time to click the link.
Use ALL CAPS sparingly.
Although this typographical trick is one of the few available in an all-text message, the switch to uppercase can be jarring to readers. I'd keep it to a minimum, perhaps as the headline of the message and any section-dividing subheads. Remember, many recipients will only skim the headline and subheads.
Insert eye-catching characters and symbols.
Some typographical gimmicks that you can use to punch up the design of an all-text e-mail include bullets (use the asterisk character (*) for this), lines (either the dash (-) or the underline (_) works), and best of all, white space.
But even though text e-mail is guaranteed to reach customers intact (and thus readable), it just may not be enough in the cutthroat world of electronic marketing. To get your message noticed, you should explore graphical mail, the kind that blends in Web-like elements. I have a simple first step for you in my next section.
Hi! Do not prompt as me to send e-mail? = (