Always a hot topic among Email Marketers, the ongoing discussion of whether to send your campaigns via HTML or text is an important decision that has implications on both the sender and recipient side.

Bill Nussey, CEO of Silverpop, offers his take on this subject:

The format of the emails you send should be dependent not on your own preferences but those of your customers.

Ask them which format they prefer. Unfortunately, Silverpop's "2005 Retail Email Marketing Study" found that only 14 percent of companies give registrants a choice.

While HTML-based email provides a richer product experience for consumers, the issues of blocked images and deliverability problems inherent in this format can make it challenging. Silverpop found a growing number of companies send HTML emails, up to 69 percent in 2005 from 47 percent in 2002. But alarmingly, fully 40 percent of emails reviewed during the study contained missing graphics.

Because spam-filtering features in many of the major email clients strip HTML and graphics from messages, confirmation messages sent to recipients shortly after registering should include a request to be added to address books. And yet, Silverpop found that 78 percent of retailers who sent confirmation messages failed to ask to be added to the recipient's address book.

Clearly a few simple steps can go a long way to improving campaign results.