As you might already know, newsletters fall into three main types according to their format. The three formats are text, HTML and PDF. Text newsletters used to be the most popular form of newsletters for quite a long time. However, the trend has changed significantly lately. HTML newsletters are growing rapidly in popularity because they provide far more options than text newsletters do. A text newsletter contains nothing but plain old text. There is nothing about it that you can customize or can change to give it a unique character. You cannot change fonts, switch colors, add images, or insert hyperlinks.
HTML email newsletters on the other hand abound with customizable features. They support colors, graphics, fonts, backgrounds, tables, frames and hyperlinks. These features enable the publisher to splash a personal touch on their newsletter, thus, making it unique. If the HTML newsletter is published by a business, that business will have the freedom of adding its logo at the top of the newsletter or as a header. This will help the business achieve brand recognition and familiarity. The publisher can also weave photos of products when promoting and reviewing them. This practice has been found to increase if not double conversion. Prospects are more likely to buy a product on the basis of visualization than on the basis of verbalization.
The use of these features should be purposeful. Some publishers fall in the trap of overloading their newsletters with graphics, a multiplicity of colors and fonts, dozens of frames, and the result is that subscriber will get put off. Never clatter your newsletter with this sort of stuff. Use them but in a user-friendly or rather reader-friendly fashion. By doing so, you may increase the readership of your newsletter articles and issues. There are some subscribers who do not get tempted to read a text unless it has some graphics.
Another important feature of HTML email newsletters that you should note is frames or tables. Do not slap all your newsletter content into a single column or box but try to use a two column layout. Use one column as a sidebar and the other for your main content. This will give you at least two benefits. First, you can use the sidebar to give an outline of your content, that is as a menu so that the reader find it easier to navigate through your content. The second benefit is that the content area will become less wide and this makes your lines shorter. Long lines are not favored by web scanners, that is readers, just as long paragraphs or chunks of text are repelling.
HTML newsletters are not without a disadvantage. The most serious disadvantage is that not all email clients and email service providers support HTML. This means that you may get the layout and content of your newsletter messed up in some clients if not blocked all together. Moreover, even the major clients which do support HTML do not format it in the same way; this usually produces some minor display differences. The solution is to create two versions of your newsletter issues, a text one and an HTML one. In case the HTML version gets blocked, your autoresponder will be prompted to send out the text one.