Reasons not to send image only Enews
Something I’ve been noticing lately in my inbox is the amount of e-newsletters with images only…
If you’re sending out your e-newsletter most entirely of images you may want to rethink that strategy. You may think it’s trendy and easier but they offer a poor subscriber experience and can ultimately hurt your brand. A picture may speak a thousand words, (as I’ve talked about before) but in this case sometimes you also need those words spelled out. Images alone do not serve your entire audience. Some subscribers may use screen readers, don’t have good internet connection, have their images turned off, or even want to search for something in your email later – with only images you’re only reaching part of your audience.
4 reasons why you shouldn’t send image-only emails.
1. If your subscriber has images turned off, they won’t see your email.
Due to an email client’s default setting or personal preference, images are blocked for many subscribers. Blocked images can result in emails not communicating anything immediately and therefore fail to make an impact – or even appear broken.
It can be worse if you’re not using any ALT text set up for your images, because then the email simply looks blank…
2. The size of your email can cause it to load slowly or not at all.
Subscribers with slow internet connection will have you image heavy newsletter loading slower than normal. The longer images take to load the more likely your subscriber will disengage and delete your email – this can affect future engagement with your brand.
3. Not including live text can hurt your emails accessibility.
Having text in your images for branding, fonts and colours is a benefit but when it comes to creating accessible emails, there’s no alternative to live text. Consider the visually impaired viewer that uses a screen reader – if your message is hidden in images they won’t be able to understand all your email has to offer. Same goes for someone speaking a different language – they can’t translate the text in an image.
4. Your emails won’t be searchable.
Occasionally subscribers remember something helpful or valuable in your emails that they want to find again, and if you place all your text in images your content is no longer searchable. Your subscriber won’t be able to find the content they’re looking for as easily as they could have if in was in live text.
So, although you should never send an email that’s made up entirely of images, that doesn’t mean that you can’t use the power of imagery in your emails!
When done right you can create flexible and beautiful email designs that use the power of imagery while at the same time keeping your emails accessible for everyone.
Remember to use ALT text (shorthand for alternative text) for all images so that if an image doesn’t show it displays text of what the image is about and makes your content accessible, providing the viewer with the context they need to understand your message.
Build bulletproof buttons
Your CTA (call-to-action) is critical and because of possible image blocking it’s important to never make your CTA’s images, as they could be completely missed by viewers.
If you’re needing help either setting up your MailChimp template and / or wanting help sending out a monthly newsletter get in touch to see how I can help you with this.