Sending Email Newsletters - HTML or Text-Only?

[cmcridland]

I'm just interested in everyone's opinion on what what's the best format for sending out email newsletters.

Ideally I think HTML is best but for some people the emails would just appear as html code, so I guess the solution is to ask people when they sign-up what email format they would like.

However, I have an existing list of subscribers which I plan to send a newsletter to for the very first time. In this situation would you recommend text-only emails or still just go with HTML format?

 

[RickBisset]

I always send our newsletters in HTML format. I think nowadays HTML is the norm. All the newsletters i receive, ie Play.com, most invoices, receipts etc are HTML formatted.

In our newsletters I include a link at the top saying "view in browser", which links to the newsletter stored on our site an HTML page.

See http://www.networkfreelance.co.uk/newsletters/march08.html for an example

I've never received an email from a recipient saying they couldnt view the email properly.

 

[Astaroth]

I would say to send multipart emails so it has both HTML and a text-only version for those of us that use PDAs etc that can only do text only.

Only slight concern is that some older email clients (eg Lotus Notes 5 & 6) display the HTML version on a multipart email even though they cannot handle them properly.

Of cause you can always add a link to the newsletter on your site for those with restricted clients to be able to see it properly.