(Grammarians, please click away, there’s nothing to see here…)

Copywriter and email marketer Ben Settle makes the case that typos will rarely (if ever) hurt your cause—and may actually help it. Here is Ben describing his writing “process”:

I crank the email out (usually in about 4-5 minutes) and then let ‘er rip. No editing (unless the URL is wrong) or even thinking about it.

Just sit, pound, send.

And it doesn’t hurt sales at all.

I’ve noticed it even HELPS sales sometimes.

That’s probably why old school copywriters used to purposely misspell things in their ads

It made their letters look genuine.

Like personal letters.

And not “sales pitches.”

It’s hard to resist Ben Settle. Settle is a guy who makes a living—a pretty decent living, it seems—sending daily emails about email marketing (yes, it’s all very meta). He spends a lot of time looking at his numbers, and since he’s been emailing to his list daily for several years, he can pull from a lot of data. His opinions (which are plentiful, colorful, strident and often profane) are based on real evidence.

So what makes Settle hard to resist? For one thing, he’s got a great conversational writing style, and he’s not afraid to piss people off. (In fact, he maintains that making people angry is an indicator that you’re doing something right.)

He’s a bit like your favorite radio personality: brash, smart and welcoming of controversy. His post on typos prompted a deluge of hate-mail from “spelling nazis,” who (whom?) he declares are either “anal retentive writers, editors or loser intellectuals who can’t sell their way out of a paper bag.”

But what makes Settle’s voice unique is his unlikely combination of braggadocio and integrity. The former makes him entertaining, and the latter makes him trustworthy.

How to Profit from Typos | BenSettle.com

Derek Halpern at DIY Themes asked his readers to share their newsletter preferences—plain text emails vs. fancy HTML emails.

People said they LOVED the text email because it was simple and much easier to read. Here are some quotes:

“Clean”
“Much easier to read”
“The new format tended to make me feel as if I were a tried and trusted confidant— and that was welcomed”
“It’s clean and easy to read. Call to actions are also clean and easy to follow.”

(+1 for minimalist web designs that focus on readability instead of fancy graphics  )

Couldn’t agree more. In fact, we changed our email services a few months back to reduce the amount of design clutter in an attempt to create messages with a more intimate, personal feel. (We changed the tone of our copy as well.) The results have been impressive. Our partners are seeing MUCH more engagement.

It takes a certain confidence to forgo the fancy and embrace the simple—we all want to show our plumage. But the data’s clear: it’s worth dialing down the design!

Read more: What’s better? A Fancy HTML Email or a Simple Text-Based Email? (Survey Results)