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  • HTML & Plain Text Emails - The Best of Both WorldsHTML & Plain Text Emails - The Best of Both Worlds

    • Date: 28/05/09

    • Category: Email Marketing

    In a more simple time, internet users were accommodated with the pleasures of plain text emails. Messages contained text and text only, with images, links, and fancy fonts – the harbingers of longer load times and wasted bandwidths - being very much at home on websites alone.

    But now, HTML emails enhance the experience of users by building on the foundations of plain text emails. Much like the content users see on websites on a day-to-day basis, HTML emails provide rich text messages containing headings, links, and embedded images which are visually and accessibly dynamic.

    The Problems with HTML Emails

    It is a common yet costly misconception, however, that all email recipients are able to view the HTML emails you send them. Though most email clients are certainly capable of displaying HTML emails, the small percentage that can’t, or have taken advantage of the facility to turn this feature off within their client settings, means some of your recipients will be confronted with a blank screen or the remains of a HTML code gone wrong.

    What’s more, some of the more sophisticated email domains such as Hotmail and AOL will even block the message or deem it worthy of the junk mail folder, because triggers such as AOL’s HTML Validator are trained to recognise HTML codes with incorrect syntax or formatting.

    The Advantages of Multi-Part MIME

    Whilst it can’t correct the errors in your HTML code, Multi-Part MIME, which is the method by which emails can be formatted so that recipients receive either a plain text email or an HTML email depending on their email client, is a simple and effective way of catering to all your recipient’s needs. By creating both a plain text version and HTML version of your email in a Multi-Part MIME format, your recipient is sure to receive the correct version of the message. As long as you remember to create a plain text email to accompany your HTML one, the process is as simple as copying and pasting the HTML message in the text only section (being careful to remove the URLs of each link!)

    By using Multi-Part MIME formats, HTML needn’t be a jigsaw puzzle for those who wish to savour the simplicities of plain text emails.