Why Founders Should Send Plain-Text Emails
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Design-heavy emails look good but plain-text emails make money.
If your brand is selling products— fashion, etc— then you know good email design is everything. It’s part of your brand world. It’s an extension of your website and social media.
But plain-text emails crush it— especially for founder-led brands.
Regardless of whether you have a product or service-based brand, your founder‑to‑audience emails matter. Subscribers love knowing who’s behind the brand. A weekly or monthly founder email builds connection and trust.
Here’s why I’m advising clients to include plain-text into the mix:
Plain‑text outperforms good design
A/B tests consistently show that plain‑text emails increase CTR by 17% rather than heavily branded emails.Better inbox placement
Without heavy code or images, plain‑text emails are twice as likely to land in the primary inbox. If you consider that 16.9% of marketing emails don’t even make the promotions tab, this is huge.Plain‑text drives conversions
In one test, plain‑text emails generated 194% more site visits, and 303% more revenue compared to branded versions.
On top of that, Alex Hormozi himself says he’s seeing 35×–45× ROI from plain-text email funnels. If you’re afraid of people unsubscribing, then you don’t have loyal subscribers and you’re actually doing your email list a favor by getting rid of them. It’s better to have people unsubscribe than sit dormant on your list.
How to start a plain-text email series:
Start a founder email series. Send it out once a week or a few times a month.
Write like you talk. Don’t dress it up or think too much about it. The more authentic your voice is (without ChatGPT) the more likely you are to win readers.
Add simple CTAs— a simple PS or one-liner will do. Test it against your branded emails. See how they do and make alterations from there.
A brand who did this well was WP Standard with their “Military Repurposed Bag.” The founder wrote a plain-text email series about how he repurposed his dad’s military bag that inspired the brand’s second-hand collection.
You can check that out here.
Want help drafting your next founder‑email sequence or setting up a branded weekly note? Send us an email and we’ll get you started.