Tips for creating Plain-text Emails

• Use a simple plain-text program. Microsoft Word will NOT work. Simple text editors are free, and they're already installed on your computer. If you're a Windows user, click your "Start" button, then "All Programs" and then go to "Accessories" to pick "NotePad". Mac users, open up a program called "TextEdit." When you use these programs, note that they are like working in the stone age. No formatting, no color, no frills whatsoever. That's plain-text. Hey, it works.
• Most email programs will take a plain-text message and wrap it for you properly, so you don't have to worry about weird wrapping issues.
• But in the old days, a lot of email programs automatically wrapped your lines at 60 or 70 characters. If you had something crucial (like a hyperlink) that started near the end of a line, it could be prematurely wrapped (and broken).
• So the old advice was to enter a "Hard Return" at about 60 characters in your plain-text email. You can type the letter "W" 60 times near the top of your message to use as a temporary "visual ruler" for when to hard-return. Delete the ruler when you're finished composing the message. I don't even bother doing this anymore, but if you feel like being safe, go for it.
• Bullet points are key. Plain-text emails are harder to read, so break it into chunks that are easier to skim and scan. Use little characters like (*) to make bullet points, and use as line separators.
• Speed tip: in MailChimp, pop-up preview your HTML email. Copy the content. Paste that content into your plain-text email field, then reformat as needed.
• When you send your campaign, both the plain-text email, and the HTML email are "embedded" into one message. The recipient's email program chooses which one to display. What few people realize is that some spam filters look at the differences between the content in both versions. If they see a big HTML email with lots of content, and a blank plain-text email, it looks lazy and sloppy (like spam) so they block the email. Plain-text emails are never exact replicas as the HTML email versions, but do spend an appropriate amount of time on them---people do read them.