Many people use HTML emails with images and colorful templates and headers and footers. Their newsletters look like an actual newsletter or magazine. Very professional.
Most of the top marketers, however, use plain text. I do too.
Why? Because plain text emails get a better response.
Email is (or should be) a personal communication. From me, to you. Like I fired up gmail and sent you a personal email.
Even if it’s a newsletter.
For five years, I wrote The Attorney Marketing Letter, a paid subscription eight-page newsletter mailed in a number ten envelope. It was printed on letterhead with the name and address at the top. The paragraphs were indented and the margins were “right-ragged,” not justified. I used Courrier for the font. Each letter began with a salutation, “Dear _____,”.
Just like a real letter.
Today, I try to simulate the affect of a real letter by using all text emails. I don’t use HTML because I don’t want slick and professional. It looks nice but I don’t care about that, I care about communicating with my subscribers and I care about response.
People don’t want slick. They get enough magazines. Their mailboxes are filled with junk mail. If your newsletter looks like it was produced by a graphic artist and a team of copy writers, it is mentally lumped in with all the other commercial messages that flood their mailbox and is deleted with the rest of the junk mail or skimmed and then deleted.
People like getting real letters from real people, and they read them. There’s nothing more important.
You may have great content in your newsletter but you can’t build a relationship with (or sell something to) subscribers who don’t read it.
There’s another reason why plain text emails are important: smart phones. More and more people check email on the little screen in their pocket. They can sometimes read it if its HTML; they can always read it when its plain text.
“But plain text is ugly!”
“Maybe so, but the money it produces is beautiful.”
How to get free content for your blog
First, don’t assume you need to spend hours writing your posts. As I’ve written before, a post can be a few paragraphs that take just a few minutes to write. It can be as simple as taking something you read online and adding your comments. Tell why you agree, or disagree, link to another post that provides a different viewpoint or additional information, or share a story from your practice that illustrates the points in the article.
For longer posts, you have several alternatives:
One of the best ways to get original content for your blog is through guest posts. Someone else writes the post in return for a byline and link to their blog.
The benefits to you are
The benefits to the guest blogger are
Now, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. If guest posts are a good way to get exposure and traffic, why not offer to do some guest posting yourself? Find blogs that write for your target market and offer to do a guest post. Here are 21 tips for landing guest posts.
Perhaps the biggest benefit of guest posts is that they allow both parties to make a new connection. This can lead to referrals, introductions, advice, interviews, endorsements, networking and cross marketing opportunities.
Start looking for blogs that reach your target market. Invite them to write a guest post for your blog or offer to do the same for theirs.