How To Nail The Art Of Visual Email Marketing

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Everything adds up to a high-converting email. But there's one more thing that will help you get the most out of your emails. These are attractive optics. Vennage found that 49% of marketers rate visual marketing as "very important" to their marketing strategy. After three days, people are likely to remember only 10% of the information they heard, but 65% of the information if presented with an appropriate image.

So if you want your email to be emails to drive change and inspire your subscribers to take action, using visuals is a must.

Let's take a look at all the different types of visuals and multimedia that can be used to enhance the aesthetic appeal of an email.

1. Drawings

Static images come first because they are a fundamental yet compelling part of visual email marketing. Whether you want to showcase your product with a beautiful image or break up your content with vectors, images are useful. If you want to break up long texts, use relevant images with clear copy.

Check out this email from Touch of Modern. They have mastered the art of product photography and included the perfect image that attracts buyers.

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2. Drawings

Illustrations can be used as a powerful storytelling tool in emails. According to research, illustrations and infographics outperform many other visuals when it comes to driver engagement. Instead of standard images, you can use meaningful illustrations that add value to your email.
Here's Harry's letter, which uses illustrations to show great facial cleansers.

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3. 3D pictures

3D visualization appeared in the 1970s. They proved their worth in web design and gradually found their way to email. These images add depth to a flat email design and add freshness to a subscriber's inbox.
Burberry included a beautiful 3D image in their email to promote their outdoor spaces.

4. GIF files

Let me take you through the first use of GIFs in emails.
In 2007, Lake Champlain Chocolates included GIFs in their emails, and to their surprise, it resulted in a 49% increase in conversions.

Then, in 2014, Dell made 109% of sales (Marketingsherpa) using email. moving images of laptops e.

Animated GIFs are extremely useful in a variety of use cases, as shown below:

• Present the wide range of products available on your e-commerce store
• With beautiful photos of tourist attractions, you make the reader want to walk
• Demonstrating the use of your product
• Announcements of new shows posted on your OTT platform
• Implementation of e-marketing related to events
• Animate the print to draw attention to an important message

Anthropologie used action-packed animation to showcase their products. It represents comfort and aesthetics and entices the reader to buy.

5. 3D animations

3D animation is one step ahead of GIFs. If you want to further enhance the user experience, use 3D GIFs like Lyft did.

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6. Animated illustrations

The animated illustrations are a feast for the eyes. They help tell a story to subscribers. If you follow the saying "show, don't tell", try using animated illustrations in your emails.
Grammarly is a great example of using animated illustrations in their emails to drive midnight sales. An animated owl and a clock are a good combination to convey a message.

7. Cinematography

GIF files are segments of video or animation that play in an infinite loop. Cinemagraphs, on the other hand, are complex, fluid scrolling animations that take the viewer back to a past moment.
Here's a sample email from Detour Coffee Roasters that shows the use of cinematography in their welcome email.

Like GIFs, you can use cinematic images in the telecommunications industry in your email. to add visual impact to emails. This will pique the subscriber's curiosity and make them buy an OTT subscription to watch the show.

8. Videos

You can add videos to emails in two ways.

1. Place a video thumbnail with a play button and direct the reader to the landing page.
2. Block and play video right in email.

The first option is pretty simple, as you just need to include a static image that mimics a video thumbnail in your email.
Here is an example.

The second option requires some programming experience. You should also consider email client support if you want to use embedded videos in emails.
Check out this email template to see the video embedded in it.

Here are some more ideas for your email. to separate letters

1. You can use monochrome design layout with one color in your emails.
2. Add color gradients to reinforce visual hierarchy and make emails readable. You can even experiment with innovative gradient CTA buttons.
3. The key to using visuals effectively is to follow the principles of visual hierarchy. Arrange email components in a Z or F pattern to guide readers. Also follow the accessibility guidelines.

Pro tips for adding visuals to emails

1. The ratio of text to image should be 80:20.
2. Since email clients block images by default, add appropriate alt text to each image. This is also useful if the subscriber is viewing an email with images disabled. This is an accessibility best practice that helps screen readers communicate their message to visually impaired subscribers.
3. Don't add important information and CTAs to images.
4. An email containing only images will trigger spam filters and slow down the email's delivery speed.
5. Avoid stock photos at all costs. Real photos work best if you want to make a lasting impression on your followers.
6. Animations should not flicker between 2 and 55 Hz; Otherwise, it aggravates the condition of photosensitive epilepsy.
7. Carefully control email file size to ensure fast download. This does not affect the user's Internet bandwidth.
8. Add an appropriate fallback when adding GIFs and embedded videos to limit rendering issues.
9. Use images wisely without going overboard.
10. Try your email.

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Remember when formatting emails with more than one image seemed impossible? And now we have many different ways to make our emails more interesting and attractive. In addition to visuals, you can even use interactivity to add visual appeal. Check it out and see what works best for you.

Put your creative hats on to create an email design that will resonate with your email subscribers. This, in turn, will bring you unparalleled results in terms of open rate, click-through rate, conversion rate and ROI.

Featured images courtesy of author; Thank you very much!

How to Master the Art of Visual Email Marketing appeared first on ReadWrite.