I have a client who loves to send email in HTML format. “It’s nicer to look at,” he claims defiantly. We’ve had this argument for about a year, with me begging him to send his messages in plain text and he digging in his heels.
I’m so happy to report that I AM RIGHT. I’m happy not because I get to do the, “I told you so,” dance but because he’s such a good litigator that I have secretly been doubting myself for quite some time.
The Email Experience Council, the email marketing arm of the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) – the folks who know pretty much everything about marketing- released “Retail Email Rendering Benchmark Study.” The 41-page study examines the email design practices of 104 top online retailers and examines their performance in what is called “an images-off email environment,” which is pretty-speak for “plain text.” It also includes the results of a survey of 472 marketers regarding rendering issues, conducted in conjunction with SubscriberMail, the sponsor of this study.
The study found that 23% of retailers send emails that are completely unintelligible when images are blocked. Of the 77% that sent intelligible emails, there were significant variations in clarity based on their use of HTML text and alt tags. Only 42% of retailers designed emails that were a good mix of HTML text and images, and only 63% of retailers used alt tags on their images adequately or extensively. A marketer’s use of HTML text and alt tags are major determinants of the intelligibility of their emails.
So what does this mean for you? It means that if you send email in HTML format then only about 75% of the recipients will be able to read it. But this begs a deeper question – of the people who COULD read the email, how many will actually do so? Will recipients see the bright colors of the HTML message and simply delete it, thinking it’s just another piece of junk email that clogs up our boxes on a regular basis?
Thanks to BeRelevant! for the information.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
{ 2 trackbacks }
{ 0 comments… add one now }