Every email marketer dreams of sending effective campaigns that convert.
Study after study confirms the potential of email marketing, but what’s less clear is the creative path you should take to reach your goals.
If you look for information on how to create the best email marketing campaign, you’ll find plenty of articles that recommend and praise plain text as the secret to a successful newsletter. However, if you check your inbox, you’ll see that commercial emails sent by well-known brands usually include several design elements, such as colors, fonts, images and even video.
So, what’s the answer? Does email design really matter? Should you actually invest in hiring an email designer (or start studying design yourself), or would you be better off sharpening your copywriting skills and going with plain text for your next email marketing campaign?
In this article, we’ll look at the impact design has on conversions and explain when it matters and when it doesn’t.
What the pros are using now
Before we look at the pros and cons of design and plain text, let’s get a sense of what marketers are actually doing these days.
It’s easy to assume that design-rich HTML emails are the most widely used. After all, we probably see far more of them in our inbox than plain-text emails. (Unless you’re subscribed to several B2B email lists.)
But perception doesn’t always reflect reality. A Databox survey found that 62% of marketers use a mix of plain-text messages and HTML emails.
This data highlights an important fact: you don’t have to take a binary approach to email design. You don’t have to work only with HTML or only with plain text. There’s probably room for both in your strategy.
With that in mind, we can look at HTML versus plain-text emails through a slightly more focused lens.
When should you use HTML emails?
As I write this post, many marketers are working on advanced newsletter designs.
Big brands like Nike dress up their offers with outdoor creative. Boutique agencies launch their emails with striking combinations of colors and images. Airbnb is elevating travel photography to an art form. But does it make any difference? Do these beautifully designed marketing pieces perform better because of their looks?
Ultimately, and this is what usually matters to a small business…
Do these strategies drive sales?
Unless we ask Nike for its email marketing campaign data, there’s no way to be sure. But it looks like the answer is yes, under the right circumstances.
Most brands that choose HTML newsletters need visual elements to promote their products or services.
Ecommerce brands should create attractive campaigns with visually stunning designs, because that makes their products more desirable. Agencies need to showcase their design talent, so sending attractive emails is likely to have a positive effect on their business.
There’s a story from Airbnb’s early days that shows the persuasive power of design.
In the beginning, Airbnb let people post whatever photos they wanted when listing a property. The results weren’t all that impressive.
Then the founders bought a $5,000 camera and started taking photos of some homes in New York. Once the new photos were published, the number of bookings tripled.
The same design principle applies broadly to email marketing. If a product’s looks play a central role and can make the difference in convincing subscribers to buy it (or even to click a link), it’s important to get that aspect right.
So design can have a marked impact when a product’s looks are front and center. Most of the time, this is the case for B2C brands, such as ecommerce stores.
That doesn’t mean B2B brands won’t benefit from visually appealing emails, but that benefit is usually smaller than the one B2C brands see.
Let’s look at an example.
Namecheap’s newsletter uses design to complement and enhance its content.
Rather than using design indiscriminately, Namecheap draws the reader in, making every section of the email interesting and distinctive. The visuals aren’t overwhelming; they invite subscribers to keep reading.
As a result, readers are more likely to give each section their attention and click through to learn more.
When plain text is better
HTML emails tend to get more fanfare, because marketers are fascinated by their visual qualities. However, many B2B companies are going back to plain text.
How can that be? If people appreciate good looks, why do B2B marketers, many of whom promote marketing software that’s supposed to be easy to use, invest in a strategy without HTML?
There are three main reasons:
- First, HTML is generally less effective in B2B campaigns. Many users are so used to seeing billboards, ads and banners that they hardly ever pay attention to these elements. Likewise, many B2B audiences have grown tired of receiving marketing messages like the ones they’d find in HTML emails (they feel like advertising).
- Second, plain-text emails also have better deliverability, which means they’re less likely to land in the spam folder and more likely to be read.
- Third, plain-text emails put the message front and center. If the copy is good, the email can feel more personal and deliver better results.
When Drift launched its email feature, CMO David Gearhart explained why the system only allowed plain-text emails:
“Because of the volume of emails we get from every brand, we started tuning out these highly designed emails. As pretty as they are, they take a long time to create; they’re the equivalent of a digital brochure.
But what happens when a plain white envelope with your name handwritten on it shows up at your door? You’ll open the letter. And you’ll read it.”
Plain-text emails used to win customers live and die by their copy. Without an effective copywriting strategy, this technique won’t work.
There are probably still times when HTML emails can work for B2B audiences. Newsletters, in particular, come to mind. But right now, marketing to B2B customers seems better suited to campaigns with a minimalist design.
Even so, some marketers prefer to work with plain text.
Related posts:
- 4 Bulk Email Templates for Your Promotional Campaigns
- Storytelling: What It Is and How to Use It in Your Emails
- What is Manychat? Channels and Best Strategies
- Double Opt-in: What It Is and Why It Matters in Email Marketing
- 11 Best Project Management Tools: Get More Done!
The Robinhood Snacks newsletter delivers financial updates to a more experienced business audience. Robinhood isn’t really a B2B company, but they’ve realized their readers aren’t looking for beautiful color palettes and stunning images. They want news about the financial markets.
So instead of creating visually striking content, Robinhood focuses on delivering in-depth content that educates its readers. Subscribers can click through to learn more about each individual story if they want, but what readers mainly value is the daily knowledge roundup this company provides: design isn’t a vital factor in the success of this email marketing campaign.
There are no absolutes in marketing. As the Databox research showed, most marketers use a mix of HTML and plain-text emails. The real key is knowing which approach to use for your situation, and when.
So, in the end, does design matter? That question deserves a philosophical answer that’s beyond the scope of this article.
But when it comes to email, we can say “yes, sometimes. But it depends.”
Zach is a content expert at Soundstripe, a provider of classical music and SFX for creators. His articles have been published on CXL, InVision and other respected outlets.
About the Author
This choice also affects the chances of your emails landing in spam, so it’s worth weighing it alongside the other best practices for your email template.