
Ask HN: Plain text emails in 2017? - notrheadagain
Hi, guys. From day to day, we send lots of emails and a huge fraction of those are of marketing nature. We&#x27;re used to actionable HTML stuff in our inbox, and there are very few clients that don&#x27;t support HTML email layouts. Still, we usually send two versions. HTML and plain text. Do we really need to send plain versions or it&#x27;s just a second system syndrome of doing everything &quot;right&quot;?
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dozzie
> Do we really need to send plain versions or it's just a second system
> syndrome of doing everything "right"?

Yes, you do need to send plain versions. I make my e-mail clients to use plain
text version first, and if that's not available, HTML version dumbed down to
plain text. The cases when somebody needs to send formatted e-mail are really,
really rare. Though...

> From day to day, we send lots of emails and a huge fraction of those are of
> marketing nature.

...I delete marketing e-mails on the spot.

~~~
notrheadagain
Personally, I agree emails should be sent in two versions. However, there's a
trend of sending just HTML. This article was written some time ago
[https://litmus.com/blog/best-practices-for-plain-text-
emails...](https://litmus.com/blog/best-practices-for-plain-text-emails-a-
look-at-why-theyre-important) and latest comments will also promote the idea
of dumping plain text.

Regarding marketing emails, I mean every automated email sequence. Like, you
definitely get receipts and stuff over email. And those aren't written by
hand.

~~~
dozzie
Receipt or order confirmation _is not_ (or at least _should not be_ ) a
marketing e-mail. It's a technicality necessary for transaction.

~~~
notrheadagain
However, the rule of thumb, especially for drip campaigns, is that you do get
some marketing content with almost every email. This could be a specific sign
off and such.

------
curtisblaine
> Do we really need to send plain versions or it's just a second system
> syndrome of doing everything "right"?

It depends on your costs / target ratio. You will have a percent of users that
absolutely need to get text emails. If delivering text e-mails to them gets
you more money than you spend sending the two versions, send them. Otherwise,
just send the HTML ones.

Same for browser support. If, for example, you spend more supporting IE than
you gain from only-IE users, just don't support IE.

~~~
gradschool
I agree with the suggestion that you analyze how much of your sales are to
customers who prefer plain text and assess whether it covers the cost of
maintaining it. However, the numbers might not tell the whole story because
some people deliberately block or ignore html mail even though they could
figure out how to read it if they really wanted to. You probably don't monitor
the replies to your marketing emails so you'll miss the replies requesting
plain text format. (Nobody's going to look through your html code in their
plain text mail reader to look for the url they have to copy and paste into a
browser to access your web app that lets them change their email preferences
to read your future marketing emails. They probably consider their time at
least as valuable as yours.)

