How Email Formats May Affect Response Rates

Posted By Hollis Thomases on Nov 4th, 2004

Email is the Number One activity that people participate in online. If you have an email account, unless you live under a rock, chances are you’ve received not only personal email, but email marketing communications as well. No, I’m not talking about spam — I’m talking about legitimate email from companies you already do business with.

If you market your own company through email, you know there are a lot questions you need to ask yourself before expecting your email campaigns to be successful. The one we’re going to explore today is, “In what format should I send my emails out in order to generate the highest response rates?” The options to choose from are standard text-only, HTML, and rich media. There seems to be many different opinions and case studies on the various formats.

Text Email

The most basic of the formats for email messaging. True ASCII text emails don’t allow for any text treatments (colors, bold, etc.) or images.

HTML Email

Like web pages, HTML allows for marketers to include images, logos, various fonts and colors in their emails. Bigger in size than a standard text email, an HTML email is readable in most of today’s popular email clients.

Rich Media Email

Rich media includes streaming video, audio, Flash and animation. The goal of rich media is to create interactivity with the email recipient; to lend “pizzazz” and viral pass-along value to the email. Because it requires greater bandwidth to be effective, the use of rich media email has been hampered in the past.

Studies Show…

There is a huge debate over which format is best to use with regards to garnering high response rates. Different studies have shown different results. For instance, Australian interactive marketing company, HotHouse, reported that 62 percent of consumers globally prefer plain text emails over HTML (35%). Rich media came in with just 3 percent of the vote.

On the other hand, a Jupiter Communications study reported that “compared to text, HTML messages garner roughly double the response rate.” Opt-In News, an email marketing news and research source, supports these findings. Their reports show that since 1999, HTML usage for both B2C and B2B recipients have increased by more than 60 percent with a steady incline each year. Text emails decreased from 82 percent in 1999. One could deduce that if HTML were ineffective, its use would not continue to grow.

Rich media, for now, has still not received mainstream adoption.

What Format is Best?

People have different preferences, that’s just a fact of life. Some people want simple, direct, to-the-point text emails that take up little space. Others like HTML for its effective and eye-catching layouts as well as the unobtrusive embedded links. And those with hi-speed connections, they might find rich media emails the most entertaining.

On the other hand we should remember the cons of each email type. Plain text emails cannot be tracked properly. You can’t track open rates and the only trackable objects are hyperlinks that actually get clicked on.

HTML emails and rich media messages are subject to displaying too many distractions, broken links, missing graphics, and a longer upload time. In addition, depending on how the emails are created, some are not cross-client compatible which is why HTML and rich emails that are forwarded to you may not look right.

Our advice is that it’s crucial to take into consideration to whom your emails are being sent. Generally, B2B recipients possess broadband connections and are more receptive to HTML and rich media emails. Opt-In News reported that just last year 87 percent of B2B emails were HTML-formatted.

If you are delivering your newsletter or message to a diverse audience, it is best to give the subscriber the option of which format they can receive. (For the record, we offer our WebAdvantage.net e-newsletter in both text and HTML versions.)

Research shows no clear conclusion on this topic. The best thing for you to do is test the different formats with your readers, monitor response rates by conducting A/B splits for the same mailing, and ASK FOR FEEDBACK. You’d be surprised at the input you’ll get.