There is an article in the news today with this headline:
DOD bars use of HTML e-mail, Outlook Web Access
DOD meaning the Department of Defense. What this means is, any and ALL email that isn’t plain text gets blocked and never reaches the intended recepient.
So why should you care if the defense department blocks all non-text emails? Well I can think at least three reasons…
1. More and more, corporations around the world are adopting this kind of policy as a way to keep malicious trojans, viruses, and root kits out of their corporate networks.
2. Virtually all spam filters will dink you for sending HTML email. If you have a few other warning flags in the email, it will end up in the junk mail box or will be blocked entirely.
3. All savvy Internet marketers either send plain text email, or use a system that allows the user to choose html or plain text. If you don’t have a system that allows a choice, you should default to plain text to make sure it gets there.
Thanks to the spammer butt-heads, it’s getting harder and harder to get email to the intended recipient, even when they have requested it by an opt-in list, and this situation is only going to get worse until something drastically different is done with email.
You should NOT rely on email as your only means of client/customer contact, or prospect follow up, but it still is one of the best, low-cost automated ways of reaching prospects and past customers. As long as you are aware of good email practices and you also use other means of contact you’ll be fine.
In fact, if you use multiple types of contact, you’ll be way ahead of most businesses, because since email has arrived, businesses have gotten lazy and way too many rely on just email because it is CHEAP.
