e-Mail Marketing: Template vs Plain Text

e-mail marketing template vs text[This is a guest post from Zachary Zawarski of Zadling, a Google Apps Consultant]

Two email newsletters that I signed up for were Mike Michalowicz and Brian Tracy’s newsletters. Most of you probably know Brian Tracy, a self-help author who mostly helps salespeople. Mike Michalowicz, who might be slightly less known than Brian Tracy, but still immensely popular as you may have seen him on MSNBC or CNBC, is the man behind The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur. Being an entrepreneur myself, I set out to gain some resources that would help me increase my own sales, so I subscribed to each of their newsletters.Like I discussed in my last guest blog, email marketing is all about constantly providing your subscribers with value and not constantly bombarding them with your sales message because they’ll quickly unsubscribe if all they’re seeing is sales copy rehashed week after week.

Both Mike and Brian have very different email styles. Brian Tracy has a template design. The email is formatted nicely with various images and colors and with a footer full of resources such as links to his website and links to his Facebook and Twitter pages.  Mike, on the other hand, uses no images or color at all — just plain text.

So who do you think has a better and more effective email marketing campaign?