How to Use Power of Visuals in Your Emails

Visuals are undoubtedly the viral trend that people are easily getting addicted to these days.
 

Market research indicates that when people hear information, they're likely to remember only 10% of that information three days later.
 

However, if a relevant image is paired with that same information, people retained 65% of the information three days later.
 

This is the scientific reason behind the ongoing popularity of visuals and imagery. Visuals include a variety of eye catching stuff such as videos, images, GIFs etc.
 

Now that we have the option to send videos, images and other kinds of interactive media such as GIFs over social media sites, why leave emails behind?
 

Though emails are considered as old school marketing tools, yet a significant number of the world’s population use emails and have their accounts registered.
 

Even 37% of marketers said visual marketing was the most important form of content for their business, second only to blogging (38%). 
 

So, if you want to level up your email campaigns and grab the customer’s attention, it is the time that you start using visuals in your emails.
 

Here are a few ways by which you can do so:
 

1. Integrate video with your email campaign

Videos are an excellent way to inform, educate or entertain the audience, more specifically your email marketing prospects that we are talking about here.
 

Going by the marketing statistics, by 2017, video content will represent 74% of all internet traffic. This means that you have a great opportunity to utilize the power of videos and integrate them into your email campaigns. There are many ways to do this.
 

You can give a demo of your products to your customers by creating creative videos around it.
 

Suppose that your product solves a particular problem of the customer, you can make a video of and send it in your campaign so that customers easily know how your products can change their lives.
 

Another way is to make a DIY video to catch your customer’s attention. Consider, for example, you sell scarves online.
 

Now, you can make a video showing the different ways to drape a scarf. Not only will this technique promotes your business, but also help you achieve a loyal customer base.
 

Another research by Cisco projects that global internet traffic from videos will make up 80% of all internet traffic by 2019. So, eventually, videos will take up the world.
 

2. Use storytelling to write your emails

Here’s a question for you- as a customer, what would you prefer to read?
 

Look at the image below and answer. In the image below, both the sides show the same information, but one uses visual, while the other doesn’t.
 

Image source: LinkedIn
 

It is obvious that anybody would love to read a visually oriented message because it is easy to understand grasp.
 

As per science, the average attention span of human has fallen from 10 seconds to 8 seconds, which means that you need to grab your customer’s attention in minimum time.  
 

If a customer opens your email, consider yourself lucky because most of the emails don’t even get opened. And take this opportunity to present the customer with understandable information using visuals.
 

Many businesses send an image of their products in the background and write the important information, including the call to action over it. This keeps the email subtle with only required information.
 

3. Level up with crazy GIFs for your emails

GIFs are truly ruling the visual world. Now that we have options to send GIFs on every social media platforms such as Facebook, Whatsapp etc., they are becoming an ongoing viral trend that the customers love to see.
 

You can use GIFs in your email to catch the eye of your customer. If you are selling packaged food, you can share easy recipes using GIFs that the customers will love to try.
 

4. Use images to tell your brand story

As per the research eye-tracking studies show, internet readers are bound to pay close attention to information-carrying images. In fact, when the images are relevant, readers spend more time looking at the images than they do reading text on the page.
 

Thus, in place of writing much content about your brand, if you want to enlighten a new user, you can send them a slideshow of your best brand products or some of the best customer reviews that can help them understand what your company is all about.
 

Again, it would be a much better way to inform people about something using imagery than writing an essay about it.  And if all your competitors are writing plaintiff content to their customers, it is an excellent chance to stand out and prove that you are truly creative.
 

The time that you spend on creating content or writing paragraphs can be utilized to create something extraordinary and creative. And trust me, customers are bound to appreciate your efforts.
 

5. Use images as directives in your emails

Suppose you want to tell your customers about something like signing up for your webinar or getting a free copy of an ebook.
 

Instead of writing down each step, you can use the power of visuals to narrate directives to your customers and tell them how to do something. See this welcome email from David’s Bridal:
 

Image Source
 

While images always catch the attention of the customer, any kind of instructions are best explained by images. This is the reason why there are signs indicating the speed limit or U-turn on the road, instead of lengthy stories.
 

Statistics say that half of YouTube subscribers who are between the ages of 18 and 34 would drop whatever they were doing at the moment to watch a new video from their favourite subscribed channel.
 

This infographic highlights yet another important aspect of visuals and how they have the power to drive engagement for the user.
 

Such powerful marketing tactics of visuals, when adopted for email campaigns, can prove to be a huge hit and driving force for revenues for all businesses. These proven techniques have led to many appreciable campaigns among the customers and brought conversions for the organizations.
 

So, if you haven’t used the power of visuals for your email campaigns, it is time to get out of your comfort zones and let the visual magic engage your customers.