Email marketing is still considered to be one of the most powerful tools for all businesses. And adding attractive and relevant visuals makes your email campaigns more engaging for the target audience and profitable for you.
But how would you know you’re using the right visuals? What does the correct format of visuals look like?
If you have these email ui/ux related questions still unanswered, then read on.
Top 15 Actionable Tips to Improve the Visuals In Your Email Marketing
In the words of Leo Burnett, an American advertising executive and the founder of Leo Burnett Company, Inc., “Make it simple; Make it memorable; Make it inviting to look at; Make it fun to read.” That’s what all your email marketing campaigns should be like.
Let’s take a look at the top 15 tips that will help you improve the visuals in your email marketing campaigns:
- Relevant visuals
Relevance of visuals is of prime importance for all your marketing campaigns. Irrespective of the visuals you chose for your campaigns, make sure they are relevant to the subject matter and your target audience is able to derive value out of it.
If you’re using stock photos for your emails, then make sure you take the time to choose the visuals that represent your brand and products. A photoshoot by a professional is the best choice for your brand and products but it can be a tad bit expensive if you have just started out and may be difficult to sustain.
- Types of visuals
For stock images you need to be careful of not selecting or overusing the same image used elsewhere. Illustrations make for the best kind of visuals these days and if you’ve a Creative Designer who can help you with these, then you can make stunning email newsletters for your target audience to consume. Videos are a great option and helps in adding a personal touch to the content.
- Size of the images
Image sizes are important for website optimization but they also play a critical role in your email campaigns. If the size of the images are too heavy, it takes a lot of time for your email to download. Again smaller image sizes can greatly impact the quality. Ideal size of the images should be 1MB with a resolution of 72 PPI.
- Format of the images
The format is very important if you wish to control the size of your visuals in your email marketing campaigns. The most used image formats are JPEG, GIF, and PNG. For example, JPEG works best for photographs while PNG works well with all kinds of photos, illustrations and can be scaled quite easily without losing the resolution. It totally depends on you what kind of content you’re creating and based on that select the correct image format.
- User-generated content
User-generated content can be a great way to create visuals for your campaigns. You can host a contest, for example on Instagram, and ask your subscribers or users to share photos related to a specific topic. This will help you collate some unique photos related to your brand and will also help you save on the marketing costs. Further, it also gives you an opportunity (as a brang) to connect with your prospective customers as they feel they’ve a voice and a means to connect with you through their photos.
- Alt-text
Alt-text is meant as much for emails as for websites. Most of the email servers automatically disable any visuals if they do not come from familiar sources. In case a user received blocked images, they can at least make from the text what the visual is all about. This will encourage them to open the images and view the content. Alt-text is also very significant for people with visual disabilities as the screen reader will read out the alt-text to them.
- White space
Business emails contain a lot of useful information. As you have to work within a limited space and also make sure you do not miss out on any important information, you have to organize it in a very structured way. In the email marketing world, less is often more and using white space is very important for better clarity, better readability, and to enhance the overall aesthetics of your campaign.
- Branding your visuals
If it’s visuals, branding plays an integral part. There is no way that your audience will be able to guess that the content comes from you and not from anyone else. Having said that, don’t rely too much on the logo and instead use visuals that use the same color palette of your brand or the same fonts. Ensure that the tone is consistent across channels as multiple tones can end up confusing the audience.
- Placement of Call-to-Actions (CTAs)
Some of the email campaigns overlook the importance of CTAs but they can actually make or break your campaigns. The common questions are whether it should be placed at the top or the bottom and if you have more than one CTA, then where should it be placed. The golden tip here is that your email marketing campaign should have one primary objective. What is the purpose of this campaign – driving traffic to your new product or service offering or a context that you are sponsoring? You can have those extra links embedded in the body of email content but that should be of lesser impact than the primary goal.
- Responsive email visuals
Nowadays emails are mostly viewed on mobile devices. Hence while adding visuals you must also ensure that they are designed in a way they can be viewed on smaller screens. Always make sure to send yourself test emails to see what the end results look like before delivering to the email subscribers’ list.
Conclusion
Visuals can have a great impact on how your audience engage with your email content. If you can share your message through a text email, then do so. Do not try to force an image if it is not needed. However, if you use visuals in your emails, make sure they adhere to all the points mentioned above.
Feel free to share your thoughts in the Comments section below on how you improve the visuals in your email marketing campaigns.