Boost Your Email Game: Learn How to Make Boring Text Stand Out with These Bold Tricks!

Sending an email might seem like a mundane task, but it remains the primary mode of communication between people, including marketers and their target audience. However, with hundreds of emails hitting a subscriber’s inbox each day, it can be challenging to stand out from the crowd. While the content should remain the primary focus, it’s equally important to present it in a visually appealing format. In this article, we’ll explore ways to make your emails stand out using bold text tricks.

Headlines in Bold

Bold headlines are crucial for drawing the reader’s attention and creating a logical structure within the email. Ensure your headlines stand out by using bold and larger fonts than the rest of the text. You could consider using different colors that match your brand or the message you’re trying to convey. Make it easy for the reader to understand what they’ll gain by reading your email.

Sub-Headlines in Italics

While headlines are the first point of contact with the reader, sub-headlines supplement and provide context to the content. Italics are perfect for sub-headlines because they give context while not being too distracting. An excellent way to make an email more engaging is to use a witty or clever sub-headline. It will capture the reader’s interest and make them intrigued to read on.

Highlight Key Phrases

Bold or italic text works well for highlighting important points, which could make the reader take note of them. You could use bold text for encouraging action such as “click here.” It’s also a great way to emphasize a persuasive statement such as “Get Instant Access Today.” By drawing the reader’s attention to the critical phrases, you increase the chances of them reading the entire email.

Provide Text Variances

People have short attention spans, and long emails might discourage some readers from going through the content. Therefore, break up the text by varying the style of different blocks or sections. Short paragraphs or bullet points work well for key takeaways or summaries. The use of different font styles is also great to add variation to your emails.

Final Thoughts

No one wants their emails to end up in spam or trash folders. The goal is to create emails that will entice subscribers to click open and read them to the end. Using bold text tricks in the right way creates a balance between content and visual appeal. With these bold text techniques, you can communicate your message effectively and make your emails stand out in the inbox.

This article explains how to create a bold letter alternative in a plain text email using plain text characters. You’ll make your words pop and mimic boldface even when the message format limitations don’t support it.

What to Know

  • Surround the text you want to emphasize with asterisks to make words stand out. For example, “I am so happy to see you!“Use hyphens or double hyphens to set off and bring attention to a few words. For example, “You –definitely– have to come with me Friday!“Avoid using all caps to emphasize a word or words, as it’s seen as yelling. And, don’t combine asterisks and hyphens.

Use Asterisks to Make Your Words Stand Out

The best boldface alternative for plain text is to use asterisks. Surround the text you want to emphasize with asterisks to make them stand out from the rest of the words. Example include:

  • I will not go with you after what you said to me!My leg hurts so incredibly bad.You won’t believe it: I got fired today…

This approach is effective only if you limit the bold lettering trick to a small group of words. The ideal number of words to place within the asterisks is one to four. If you use any more than that, the readers might forget that the first asterisk exists until they see the second one. In other words, putting an asterisk at the beginning and end of a 500-word email won’t cause any of the text to stand out from the rest.

Another Way to Add Emphasis to Text

Another option is to use hyphens or double hyphens to set off a few words and bring attention to the text. They’re not as common as asterisks for making boldface text, but there are no hard-and-fast rules here. The only goal is to convey bold text in whatever way possible.

Depending on the email client that you or the email recipient uses, asterisks might end up appearing as bold letters automatically. This is true in some text messaging applications that don’t have a formatting toolbar.

  • You –definitely– have to come with me this weekend.I’m not sure who told you but –I will find out– soon enough.That new cafe is open. –Want to go with me?–

How Not to Make Faux-Bold Letters

You might be tempted to use only uppercase letters, making them all caps, to give a sense of urgency or draw attention to your words, but using all capital letters is frowned upon on the internet because it is interpreted as yelling. For example:

  • There’s ALWAYS a line at the post office!I just got a new job! YAY!

Other characters such as slashes and underscores could be used instead of asterisks, but those have traditionally been reserved for mimicking underlined text and making an italics imitation.

If you decide to use asterisks rather than hyphens or vice versa, don’t combine the two in the same message. Mixing formatting creates confusion for readers, who won’t know your intent in stressing the words. For example:

  • This is most definitely a –bad– example of how to make bold text in a plain text message.

Why You May Need a Bold Text Alternative

Plain text messages, by their very nature, don’t allow formatting to make bold text. You might use a bold letter alternative if an email message is confined to plain text mode because of how the sender wrote the message, or maybe your email client doesn’t support formatting options. Adding bold text to the Subject field of an email or in an SMS message is another incidence in which you might want to use a boldface substitute.

In HTML, text can be formatted as bold or italic for emphasis. The size and color of the text can be changed, and it can be formatted as a hyperlink. None of that is possible in plain text, but you can use accepted workarounds to make some text stand out.

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