Email Campaign Best Practices: Images and Text
Ask any business manager if they had the horrible choice for their flawed newspaper ad what they would choose. Not barring the fact that they would get another print for free. Would they choose an ad that is COMPLETELY blank over one where their images were blank but there was still text in the ad with the business message? Completely blank, or with text? It is a business no-brainer, but so many email marketers send email campaigns with no Alt Tags and, worse yet, no textual descriptions in addition to images. Since most email clients suppress images as a default, you are sending a blank ad message. ALWAYS use alt tags and textual descriptions in email campaigns.
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You have created what you determine to be a powerful marketing message based on a combination of images and text. The ad that was supposed to run in last week’s paper is seen in Figure 2‐1 of the full case study. Imagine for a minute there were a series of printing errors. The first error displayed only your text message without images, while the second error displayed only little red ‘X’ where you were supposed to have an image, and the text message was also left off these ads. In a nutshell, no images, no text message at all (see Figure 2‐3). Despite the fact you will get another free ad next week, which of these two errors might still generate revenue? Would you choose the ad with nothing or the one with your text message and no pictures?
This is old school newspaper advertising, but it applies to email as well. Placing images into an email almost always have a likelihood they will not appear in some browsers or on some screens as most email providers’ automatic settings are to block images. With no text, this is a horrible thought. Also, for B2C, Hotmail does not show Alt Tags. You have to ask for the images. So your recipients might still be a click away from even seeing your message. 5 Email is New. Business Communications is Not. However, if you also have text describing the images, both alt tags and inline text descriptions, you will generate more revenue than if you just deliver images. It is old school common business sense and we do not require a study to prove or disprove this.
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Email Best Practices