My email service provider doesn’t support images in emails.
And guess what? … it’s one of the reasons I chose to use it.
Wait! … What?!? … Why would you do that Chris?
The answer’s simple…
I care about what I write. And I care about daily email being sustainable for me.
That means making it as easy as possible to write it every day. With as few stumbling blocks in the way as possible.
Images are a stumbling block for my email writing.
They add more time to the process… what with having to pick “the right one.”
And they make me a lazy writer (ok… lazier than I already am)…
Because I can just lean back and let an image tell the story. To get a laugh. Or an awww.
Since starting daily email… I’ve found zero need to include images.
If I really want to share an image with you… which I have done once or twice (a while back now)…
Then I just put a link to it in the email. (Who’d have thunk!)
There’s a stack of good reasons to ditch images in emails…
Here’s some to ponder…
- They break the flow of the email. So become a distraction.
- It takes time to find the “right image”. Every extra minute taken reduces return on investment… in terms of time and money it takes to send the email.
- There’s a higher risk of tripping spam detectors that can’t see images like we can. So having no images can contribute to better email deliverability.
- Images are understood more subjectively than writing is. So can give people the wrong impression or confuse them. (Sure writing can do this too. But writing can be made much tighter to remove ambiguity. Images not so much).
- They often add nothing to what the copy has just said.
- They can be relied on too much to tell the story of the email. Which can be a BIG FAIL if images are turned off. (People do this for privacy and speed reasons.)
- Images can be slow to load if not optimized. So user experience is crappier.
- They display differently on mobile and desktop. Size being the main thing. And on mobile, sometimes much squinting is required for older eyes.
- Using images in emails pretty much guarantees you a place in Gmail’s “Promotions” tab. With text-based emails, the copy is a huge deciding factor. More likely to end up in “Updates” or even the coveted “Primary” inbox.
- With images, there’s the temptation to take less care with copy. But copy should take priority because it’s what leads the reader along the path. From subject line through to the action you want them to take.
And… a bonus if you DON’T use images…
You can avoid the hair-pulling nightmare of making emails looks right in different email clients. And don’t get me started about dark mode! š
Now, I’m not going to go as far as saying images should NEVER be used in any email, ever.
Because it’s kinda expected with direct-to-consumer marketing… such as with ecommerce stores. And can make sense to show product shots.
I work with ecommerce clients. And also include images in the emails I write for them.
But I’ve now stopped doing this in every email. We don’t need an image just for the sake of having an image. Because images don’t hold a candle to great email copy.
Plus, that email copy can always lead people to click through to a website. Where they can have a much better image-viewing experience.
I reckon a lot of ecommerce stores could do much better…
Simply by ditching all the time and energy put into pretty graphics and email layouts. And…
Just keep it simple. With a clear and direct message.
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Chris Milham