According to some studies, visual content is processed much faster than text. Not only that: the human brain retains 80% of what it sees and only 20% of what it reads.
So we could immediately jump to the conclusion that visual elements are key to promoting products and services, and in the world of marketing in general.
On top of that, email marketing has been an excellent tool for building brand engagement and promoting businesses for many years. There’s still no other way to get the return on investment (ROI) that email strategies offer.
So the ideal is to include visual elements in our email marketing campaigns to boost a brand’s promotion and sales results even further.
That’s why, below, we’ll share five actionable tips for using visual elements in your email marketing efforts to get better results. Keep reading!
1. Tell your story with images
As we explained earlier, people tend to pay more attention to images than to text. Readers tend to be drawn to looking at images in the emails they receive (as long as they’re relevant) rather than reading long texts.
You can use images to promote your products to new users. Another idea is to create a carousel of products or of reviews consumers have left about your business, to help new customers understand why they should choose you over the competition.
A further idea is to use images as directives within your email marketing strategy. While images can be highly interactive, directive images contain instructions on the role you want the user to take.
You can also use images and other visual content from your social media to promote your business visually through email marketing. Social media content is very interactive, and most users follow companies and brands on different platforms.
You don’t need to include images from every social network; instead, you can combine the best of them all to create a visually appealing promotion for your business.
So using images is an excellent tactic for promoting businesses through email marketing, especially if your competitors have stuck with the traditional, old ways of doing things in this channel.
As a side note, remember to apply delivery, planning and management strategies to your emails so you don’t fall into practices that send you straight to the spam folder.
Look at this newsletter from the company Elite Financial, which uses icons to help convey what will and won’t be allowed in the office when returning to work after the start of the pandemic. It was designed with the infographic maker Venngage.
2. Insert GIFs in your emails
You’ve probably heard of them and even sent or received a GIF at some point. The acronym stands for Graphics Interchange Format, a bitmap format that supports animation.
A while ago, GIFs were used as a social media tool to share entertaining content, or for animated banners placed on websites as advertising.
Today they rule the world of visual marketing, and by using them in your emails you can make your business look up to date to more modern audiences.
In addition, many brands have been using GIFs in their emails for some time because of the high engagement they generate and how well internet users receive them.
You can apply the AIDA sales technique (Attention, Interest, Desire and Action) in your emails along with relevant GIFs to significantly boost interaction with your potential customers and, as a result, generate more leads and profits for your business.
https://giphy.com/gifs/fQZX2aoRC1Tqw
Image via Giphy
3. Combine visual elements with your text
Marketers sometimes tend to see images and visuals as mere decorations for the text and don’t give them the importance they deserve in sales emails.
If you don’t combine the visual elements with the core content of your email, you can cause confusion and dissonance among your readers about the message you’re trying to send.
Which images work best will depend on the nature of your business, but by choosing the most appropriate ones you’ll be able to get your message across to the reader.
If you’re relying on a designer to create the visual elements for your emails, make sure they understand the message you’re trying to convey to the audience.
There are, of course, many tools and software for businesses that you can use to create different types of diagrams, infographics, banners, outlines and other visual elements. Just put in a few hours and you’ll have original images generated with software you can get for free.
Look at this email from Tango, which, after analyzing its buyer persona, decided to improve its app’s design and send an email with the information. It incorporated its visual identity and graphic elements in line with what its target audience expects from it:
You should also be aware of the basic demographics of your email list and your customers so you can choose the best time of day to send your emails.
Sending an email at the right time can increase engagement with your audience and get more conversions.
Make sure your email’s text matches the image you used. As we know, email marketing itself already has a good ROI, but by using visual elements you can boost the process and gain an edge over your competitors with a different strategy.
4. Integrating videos
Video content is many marketers’ first choice for promoting products and services because it’s such an excellent way to inform, engage and entertain audiences.
Integrating video content into your email marketing campaign will not only make the email highly interactive and engaging, but also help you stand out from the crowd.
Let’s say the product your business offers helps solve a problem your customers have. You can create a video tutorial as part of the email campaign so users can turn to it if they need explanations on how to use the product, for example.
Internet users are generally more interested in watching videos on how to do things than in reading about them. You can easily take advantage of this and create video content that helps generate revenue through email marketing.
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5. Evoke emotions with visual elements
It’s quite hard to provoke an emotional response from readers through email content. However, if the content is good enough, it can evoke a response from the person who receives it and thus influence their decisions.
You need to make sure you create emails with visual content that not only complements your message but also evokes an emotional response.
Outline your idea with a mind map and include the feelings and emotions you’d like people to experience through your email.
Look at this draft mind map for an email marketing campaign about stray animals, aimed at getting readers interested in donating:
You’ll see that the time you spend creating this content will be worth it for the reciprocity and ROI these types of email offer.
Conclusion
You need to maintain and improve the overall quality of your emails from time to time. Repeating the same visual elements can get tedious, but fresh visual content keeps readers continuously engaged with what your business offers.
Try to keep your email format simple and don’t complicate it with irrelevant content, especially if there’s a chance it won’t work.
Always review your email content before sending it, just to make sure there are no mistakes and everything looks good.
Remember not to overload your email message with too many visual elements, since it can make it hard for some readers to take everything in and can make the email very heavy and hard to enjoy on a mobile device.
Create content your reader can enjoy and that benefits your brand in the long term.
GIFs and storytelling techniques are two of the most effective resources to go with these visual elements.