After limping along for a couple of years HTML e-mail is finally taking off. On two lists where I give people a choice, 60% of new subscribers prefer to receive HTML e-mail over plain ASCII text, up from 50% in October 1999. I was amazed to find on my JesusWalk.com list, that of subscribers outside the US, 76% preferred HTML e-mail, just the opposite of what I would have expected. More and more people are using e-mail programs that support HTML e-mail, and client e-mail programs that don't support it are under increasing pressure to include it.
Merging E-Mail and Websites
Many e-mail newsletters are designed to look just like the websites themselves. While websites used to be passive -- people had to click on a link and come to the site -- with HTML e-mail, the site, or at least the "door" to the site comes to the customer in an active manner. In a very real way, the e-mail message and the website have merged into one, a very powerful development in Web marketing. With the growth of personalization of e-mails, HTML e-mail can include hidden, personalized links that immediately identify the customer who clicks on them. Banner ads click-throughs can be instantly tied to individual customers.
But like the early days of webpages, there's a lot of pretty tacky HTML e-mail out there. And even companies that ought to know better are making some errors that can negatively affect their marketing efforts. Here's one marketer's and designer's analysis of HTML e-mail newsletters; I'll reserve other forms of HTML e-mail marketing for another time.
Color and Clutter
HTML e-mail is certainly more colorful than plain text. Newer e-mail programs that support HTML e-mail also allow the use of blocks of color in HTML tables as well as in graphics. The result can be stimulating to the eye and quite attractive when done right.
What I'm seeing, however, is a return to the eye-popping, GIF-flashing gimmicky we used to see in the early days of the Web. Just because you CAN include background images, embedded sound files, and animated GIF images doesn't mean you should do so. Many newsletters these days look just like the front pages of portal sites on the Web, with all their complexity, confusion, and frustrating image download problems. Look to the well-developed discipline of print newsletter layout as your model -- dignity, cleanness, white space, etc. are very important.
Images
Images are both a plus and a minus. A picture can convey a great deal, both in the emotive, sales side of your newsletter, as well as the technical side. But to see images, your subscriber needs to be connected to the Internet. Readers with dial-up access will find it difficult to view your e-mail offline, since every time they try to open HTML e-mail that contains images, their spouse's phone conversation is interrupted with buzzes and whirs as their modem tries to connect. This may mean that your newsletter is deleted or goes unread. Images can create an annoyance factor. Consider designing your newsletter entirely without images, just using the color and layout features of HTML themselves. It's not as glitzy, nor does it please advertisers, but it avoids the image download annoyance while taking advantage of the superior layout capabilities of HTML.
Readability
I'm also concerned about readability. Many HTML e-mail newsletters use small 10 pt. (SIZE=2) and sometimes smaller typefaces that aren't easy to read on some monitors. I recommend using standard 12 pt. type faces (SIZE=3) for readability. Times New Roman for body text is easier to read than Sans Serif fonts such as Arial (but also harder to achieve in HTML e-mail).
White space around the text and between the lines is important to readability. Many HTML e-mail newsletters are designed like sardine cans, with the goal of packing in lots of tiny flashing, pulsing, competing content. This flies in the face of years of research on typography.
Another problem I see is the tendency to use columns to display content. Columns work quite well in print media where the eye can easily scan up and down a page. But in a medium where you must scroll down to read, going back to the top of another column isn't nearly so intuitive, and many readers will neglect to do so at all. I think most HTML e-mail newsletters are better laid out as linear text in one column than in two columns.
Readability also requires strong contrast between the text and the background. Most websites have moved away from confusing background images and colors that impair readability and use black on white (or off-white) instead.
Advertising
Ad agencies begin to salivate about HTML e-mail, since now they can "prove" that a certain number of people opened an e-mail message, since the banner server counts a hit every time the advertiser's banner image is downloaded. More important, I think, is the ability of HTML to hide long links that can identify the recipient of the e-mail message as he clicks on the link and goes to the website. Links created by database-driven e-mail listserver programs even permit e-mail recipients to place items in a shopping cart, so the purchase is well underway by the time the website downloads. Plain text e-mail can use this capability, too, but the erratic wrapping of long URLs makes it more problematical.
File Size
HTML e-mail is somewhat larger than the same newsletter formatted in plain text, since the HTML tags and links require extra code. For a newsletter full of tables or links, this HTML overhead can be quite significant.
E-Mail Program Support
Building HTML e-mail into an e-mail program isn't trivial. Essentially, it requires the software developers to create the equivalent of a Web browser to read HTML. It's no coincidence that the earliest versions of HTML e-mail were from the e-mail programs that came along with Netscape and MSIE browsers, since they could piggy-back on the browser code already present. Eudora 4.x has its own native viewer, but also allows you to use the Microsoft Viewer if you like. Unfortunately, not all e-mail programs "see" the HTML e-mail the same as each other, or even the same as their companies' corresponding Web browsers. There is incomplete and confusing implementation, especially of Cascading Style Sheets, and I expect this to be the case for another year or two at least.
In general, plain ASCII Text works better for readers who use Eudora 3.x or AOL (not Netscape Communicator), and other older e-mail programs. HTML E-Mail is viewable with Outlook Express, Microsoft Outlook, Netscape Communicator, Eudora 4.x, etc.
Twin Lists
In this interim when HTML e-mail is not supported by all e-mail clients, most Web marketers must develop and maintain twin e-mail lists for their newsletters. DO NOT assume that everyone can read HTML e-mail just because you can. 40% of your subscribers probably DON'T want HTML e-mail and will just delete your message and its gibberish. The transition can also be difficult since the subscriber's inevitable "Please change my e-mail address" message seldom tells you which list she is a member of, the HTML list or ASCII list. It's wise to set up automatic systems to allow subscribers to change e-mail addresses, or change between lists -- usually to upgrade to the HTML version.
Eventually, we'll look back on "the good old days" and laugh about this, but today the transition between plain text and HTML e-mail is painful. Is it worth offering HTML e-mail? Yes, I think so, even if it means formatting your newsletter content twice. Even though some of us still prefer plain ASCII text, the public will soon expect to see your newsletter in HTML e-mail, and if you don't offer it, they'll wonder what's wrong with you. Fickle! Now's the time to think about making the transition.
