I have a simple theory: nobody really reads emails (anymore). I have a simple test I do with clients when I visit them – I ask them to remember the last time they have not only read an email end to end, but then also went ahead and bought something. Most of these people work in marketing day in and day out and yet they do not actually do what they expect their customers to do – read and react.
As a marketer you might say that there still are exciting examples of campaigns with great view rates, open rates, click rates and even conversion rates. However, I would argue that given the amount of emails companies send on a daily basis and the work that goes into these, some of the emails can be done much better. Email marketing to me is like an ongoing battle for the short attention span of consumers and marketers are loosing it.
So why not turn to technology in a creative way and review what can be done about grabbing a customers attention? Let me re-introduce you to the art form of leveraging GIFs – short for Graphics Interchange Format (developed in 1987). We can debate, if you should pronounce it JIF or GIF, but you have to agree on a simple fact: GIFs are a powerful tool for email marketing – because you can grab your audience’s attention. Due to wide support across browsers and email clients, GIFs are popular on the WWW. You can use animated GIFs to spice up your email campaigns with an element of surprise, delight, and real purpose. Entertain or educate, GIFs can be used in a variety of ways to engage your customer base.
Take Buzzfeed as a powerful example of success of this approach. You can sign up here to various newsletters. One reason for growth – GIFs. As described in this article.
GIFs might not work on every email browser, but it is easy to have a fall back to at least a picture without animation. There might be authors out there calling for you not to use them (here), but I would argue that with a bit of hygiene, there is no harm.
So some guidelines for using GIFs can never be bad:
- A GIF will only play when it is fully loaded. File size matters.
- The first frame of a GIF is the fall back – so make it a good one.
- Less is more. Use the animation for a key part of your message and only for that.
- So in other words: keep it simple!
Litmus released a comprehensible guide to GIFs in email marketing here. I recommend you have a read. They also perfectly reference examples of how you can create a GIF together with a comprehensible guide by Campaign Monitor here and a very easy do-it-yourself approach for marketers here.
As summary however, what really interested me is not just the reason why you should use it, but the fact that GIFs are an art form to me. Creativity in email marketing is often undervalued and GIFs show that some brands can take it to the next level. So let me introduce you to my own art gallery of amazing GIFs in email marketing below – I hope you enjoy!
Let me know, if I have missed any recent great ones and I am happy to add.
