Images in Newsletters: Boosting Your Email Marketing with Visual Content? Yes!
Ready to supercharge your newsletter with the power of images? Let's dive in!
Images are essential to newsletter design. They grab our attention, take us on an emotional journey, and are unquestionably emotional amplifiers. Adding some nice, relevant images to your messages can really help to get people engaged. Images also help to build your brand by making it easier for people to recognize it.
You’ve got questions about using images in newsletters. We’ve got answers. What do you need to consider when selecting images for email marketing? Where can you get expressive, occasion-related images and newsletter graphics? We’ll answer these questions and more in this article.
Contents
- Why Are Images in Newsletters So Important?
- Selecting the Right Newsletter Images
- What Images Are Good for Newsletters?
- Where Do You Get Effective Images for Your Newsletter Marketing?
- Summary: Why Images Are Essential for Successful Newsletters
👉🏻 No time to read it all? Check out our checklist on images in newsletters
Why Are Images in Newsletters So Important?
Images are a fantastic way to make your newsletter more effective and help it succeed. Images get your message across right away and also make people feel something and tell a story. It’s human nature to be drawn to visuals first and to process them more quickly than written content. They not only break up the text and make it more interesting, but they also leave a lasting impression.
These benefits make it a great idea to spruce up your newsletter with images:
More Attention
People are, by nature, visual beings.We tend to prefer images to text, which makes visual elements a great way to communicate. Images grab our attention fast and make us feel a whole range of things, from curiosity to joy, longing to excitement. It’s only when we read them that we understand texts. That’s why you can spruce up your email and make it more inviting and memorable by adding some nice visual elements.
More Engagement
It doesn’t matter if you’re presenting products, sharing stories, or highlighting promotions: Images are a great way to get your message across in a way that sticks with people and gets them interacting with your brand. Research shows that emails with images get more clicks and have fewer unsubscribes than text-only emails. Images with links to your website are even more effective.
Our newsletter editor makes linking images simple: Upload, embed, and enter the target URL in the “Image settings” area.
Better Brand Recognition
Images are part of your brand identity. Use images that match your brand and create a consistent look. This builds brand recognition and trust with your target group.
Selecting the Right Newsletter Images
When you’re picking images for your newsletter, make sure they fit with your brand’s message and that they’ll speak to your target group. Pick images that back up your message and get people’s emotions going.
Ask yourself questions like:
- How do I want to be perceived?
- Who is the target group for this image?
- Does the image match the message?
- Do text and image complement each other?
- Is the image high quality and professional?
- Does the image interest, attract, or move me emotionally?
If you have a young target group and are active in the lifestyle sector, you are more likely to make a visual impact than an insurance company aimed at families.
Consistent Brand Management
Images should match your brand look. Branding is key to building trust and creating a memorable brand experience.
Use images that match your brand’s style, including your logo, colors, and fonts. Branding all your touchpoints strengthens your brand and creates a unified experience for your subscribers.
Let Your Images Tell A Story
Tell a story with your images to create a personal connection with your subscribers. Show off your products, provide insights into your business, and showcase happy customers. Images help get people to open your email newsletters. Images without text are missing half the message. That’s why images and text should go hand in hand, complement each other perfectly, and be a well-rounded whole in the end.
Images can help boost your subscribers’ engagement with your content:
Example 1: Online clothing store
As an online clothing store, it’s really important to include images of models wearing the latest collections in your regular newsletters. Images that are high-quality and vivid grab people’s attention and encourage them to click and buy. Adding some great images of your products in a realistic setting really makes your newsletter stand out. Vivid images help your customers picture how the garments will look when they’re worn. This gives your subscribers more confidence in the quality of the offer, which ultimately leads to a purchase.
Tips:
- Use high-quality images. They’re more likely to leave a lasting impression and appear more trustworthy.
- Show different models that represent the different types of your target group. If you want to reach a wider audience and get people to connect with your brand, it’s important to show some diversity and authenticity.
- Show the clothing in situations that fit the target group to demonstrate how and where they can wear your clothes. This makes it easier for customers to connect with the products.
- Use bright colors and bold contrasts to grab the reader’s attention. Make sure the images fit with the brand aesthetic.
Example 2: Travel agencies
It’s crucial for travel companies to include stunning images of dream destinations, luxurious hotels, and fascinating sights in their weekly newsletters, along with travel deals and tips. These images will get your subscribers excited about travel and inspire them to check out your website and see what you have to offer. Hopefully, they’ll book their dream vacation! Travel providers can use images to inspire their subscribers and get them to book more trips.
Tips:
- Impressive images capture the beauty and uniqueness of destinations. For instance, you could show the unbeatable view of a mountain resort or the fancy furnishings of a five-star hotel.
- Choose images that make people feel good. Show them having fun, relaxing, or doing exciting things.
- Tell stories with your images. Show a typical travel day, from breakfast to dinner. Your subscribers will picture the trip.
- It’s a great idea to include pictures of happy travelers who have already traveled with you. This social proof, along with customer photos, helps to build trust and credibility.
Example 3: Gym Club
People who subscribe to gym newsletters want more than just useful training tips and attractive special offers. They also want to be inspired and motivated. You can really boost customer loyalty by showing motivating images of people who look fit and enjoy using their fitness equipment or taking part in group classes. Plus, there’s a good chance they’ll recommend your gym to others. Let your images do the talking and inspire your subscribers to reach new fitness goals.
Tips:
- It’d be great if you could use real members and trainers from your fitness studio for the photos. Real photos are more trustworthy than stock photos. They help your subscribers trust you and your team.
- Showcase a wide range of members, including those of different age groups, fitness levels, and body types. This diversity appeals to a wider target group and makes it clear that everyone is welcome.
- Use action-packed images that convey movement and energy to inspire enthusiasm and motivation to join in.
- Show members who have achieved their fitness goals to highlight your program’s successes and progress. Success stories, documented by before and after pictures, will inspire others to pursue their own goals.
- Your gym environment is clean, bright, airy, and well-equipped. Show it off. This conveys professionalism and makes potential members feel comfortable and safe.
These examples prove that activating images boost newsletter performance and boost subscriber engagement.
How to Place and Resize Images
The visual design of your newsletters is crucial. The placement and resizing of elements must be carefully considered to ensure a smooth and engaging flow. Use images to draw the reader’s eye and enhance the design. Don’t overload your newsletter with too many images. They can overwhelm readers and distract from your message. Make sure your images are the right size for desktop and mobile.
Good to know:
Our Help Center article, “Optimal presentation of images in your newsletters,” shows you how to insert images correctly in your newsletters with the help of our newsletter editor.
Once you’re logged in, you’ll find lots of free newsletter templates with placeholders for images in our professional email marketing tool. You can easily see how images and text work together. Just replace the images in the template with your own and add other content as you like.
For all the details on how to do this, check out our Help Center article “Newsletter Editor: Using and customizing templates.”
Not a customer yet? All you have to do is set up a CleverReach account for free, log in, and check out our newsletter templates and newsletter editor without any obligations.
When you’re optimizing images for your email newsletters, it’s also important to keep the file size down. You want the images to be compatible with different screen sizes and resolutions. Try out how your newsletter images look on different devices and email clients with our CleverReach Design and Spam Test. Make your files as small as possible to load faster and make sure your images can be made bigger or smaller and look good on different screen sizes.
How to Optimize Your Images for Your Newsletter:
1. Compress File Formats:
Reduce the file size of your images to make your newsletters load faster. It’s best to use file formats like JPEG or PNG, since they’re particularly compressible. Find the right compression settings to get the best image quality with the smallest file size.
We recommend using on the following sizes:
- Less than 100 KB per image
- Maximum width 600 pixels
Upload images at the right size. This will keep them the same in different email programs.
2. Include ALT Text
Add some helpful alt text to each image that explains what the image is about. This is important for people with visual impairments and for when images are not downloaded. Plus, an alt text lets the email program know that it’s not spam, since most spam emails don’t have alt texts.
3. Run A/B Tests
Run some A/B tests to see how well your images are working. Which design style or motif is more popular? Try out different images, layouts, or color schemes and see which ones get the most clicks.
Trying out different images is about more than just replacing one with a similar one. It’s also about being bold, surprising, or completely different, as long as the brand identity is maintained.
Avoid These Image Mistakes in Your Email Newsletters:
1. Using Irrelevant Images
Choose images that fit the message and content of your newsletter. Don’t add images just for decoration. Images that don’t relate to the message can confuse people and make it seem like your message isn’t credible.
2. Using Too Many Images
Don’t overload your newsletter with too many images. Too many images can make text hard to read. Use images to highlight key points, not to take over the content.
Some email programs see too many images as spam. To make sure your newsletter is delivered safely, use a text-to-image ratio of 60 to 40 or 70 to 30.
3. Not Using Images as CTAs
Clickable images in newsletters are the most effective call-to-action elements. A good image gets people interested and makes them want to click on it to find out more. Every time someone clicks on an image, they’re taken straight to the right landing page. They won’t end up on the homepage or even a 404 page. This makes it more likely that your recipients will take the action you want them to, whether that’s making a purchase, registering or filling out a form.
4. Not Taking Different Screen Sizes Into Account
As more people read emails on their phones, it’s important to make sure your newsletters look good on mobile. Our newsletter editor makes sure your newsletter looks good and is easy to read on any screen. Images are smaller on mobile and column elements are displayed one below the other. Make sure your images are optimized for different screens. Prüfen Sie dazu in der Vorschau, ob in der kleineren Darstellung noch alle relevanten Bildinformationen erkannt werden.
What Images Are Good for Newsletters?
These image types will make your newsletter stand out:
Product Images
This classic option is perfect for online stores. If you want to get people’s attention and show them what you’ve got, you’ve got to have great product images. They’re the best way to show off your stuff and get people to buy. Use clear, high-resolution images that show off the product’s best features and benefits. Show different views and details to give customers a comprehensive overview of your product. Manufacturers often provide images, but these are often the same for other stores. It can be an advantage to take your own photos of the product.
Lifestyle and Inspiring Images
Lifestyle images are a great way to connect with your target audience on a deeper level. They show your products or services in situations that look like real life, and show how people use them in their everyday lives. They’re also used when the product can’t be photographed, like a telephone tariff or software like our email marketing tool. 😊
Lifestyle images do more than just show what something looks like. They also make people feel something and inspire them to take action. Images that fit with your brand’s values can also help people feel like they belong. By using lifestyle and inspiring images in a targeted way, you can bring your brand to life and create an emotional bond with your customers.
Illustrations and Graphics
Adding illustrations and graphics is a great way to make newsletters more visually appealing and memorable. They make the newsletter feel personal and help the brand stand out. Using graphics and illustrations that are well-integrated into the text helps to make the information flow more smoothly and engages the reader more effectively.
Newsletter graphics can help make complex information simpler and easier to understand. Clear graphics get the message across and also grab your readers’ attention emotionally. They also help to keep customers loyal to the brand, as part of the overall design.
Illustrations are more artistic than graphics. They can simplify complex content and convey it in a creative way.
Infographics and Diagrams
Using infographics and diagrams is a great way to make your message clearer and more accessible. They’re particularly effective at presenting complex information in a way that’s easy to understand. Use infographics to show statistics, trends, or key findings in a way that’s easy to understand and looks great. On the plus side: One of the best things about great infographics is that they get shared a lot. That means your content reaches more people.
Where Do You Get Effective Images for Your Newsletter Marketing?
If you’ve ever looked for a header image for your newsletter, you know there are tons of great images online, but you can’t use them because you don’t have the rights.
Image Rights and Licensing
You must ensure that you have the necessary image rights and licenses for the use of images in your newsletters. Use your own images, stock photos, or images for which you have the rights. It’s important to remember that you shouldn’t use copyrighted images without permission to avoid any legal issues.
Here are a few tips for finding images that you can use in your newsletters:
Stock Photo Sites
Stock photo websites have a great selection of royalty-free images that you can use in your newsletters. You can find great images in all kinds of categories, themes, and styles from well-known stock photo providers. When you’re picking images, make sure they fit with your brand’s style and avoid those that are too cliché or generic. Some topics and sectors can be tricky.
Here’s a selection of stock photo agencies:
Chargeable:
Free:
In-House-Photography
If you want unique, accurate images for your newsletter, create them in-house. In-house photography lets you create brand-matching images. Professional photography or graphic design requires resources to produce high-quality results. You can present your message, products, and services authentically and add your own personal touch.
User-Generated Content
Another way to get great images for your newsletters is to ask your customers and followers to share pictures of your products or services. Use the best ones in your newsletter. User-generated content is genuine, reliable, and helps build stronger relationships with your brand by getting customers involved and showing you value their contributions.
AI Image Generators for Your Newsletter Marketing
AI image generators are a game-changer for email marketing. They make it easy to create eye-catching visual content without spending hours on it. These tools make it easy and affordable to create top-notch images that are perfectly suited to your target audience and campaign. AI-generated images are a great way to save time and resources while creating visually appealing emails.
Some popular AI image generators:
These AI image generators are (still) free:
AI image generators don’t offer finished images like stock photo providers do. You have to wait for the result to be generated. This requires some good prompting. A good prompt is precise and not too long. The better your input, the better your result! Your newsletter image will probably need tweaking. Play around with different AI image generators and formulations until you find the one that works best for you.
Why Images Are Essential for Successful Newsletters
Images are really important in email marketing. Picking the right images is a great way to get people’s attention, get them engaged, and make your brand look stronger. Great images can really help you make the most of your newsletter content. Use images to get your message across and make a lasting impression on your readers.
What Else Do You Need to Know About Newsletter Images?
No Time to Read it All? Our Checklist for Newsletter Images
- Use JPG, PNG, or GIF with a max file size of 100 KB.
- Scale the image to 600 pixels wide and upload it at that size.
- Make sure images look good on desktops and mobiles.
- Add alt text to each image.
- Keep your uniform and corporate design the same to make your brand more recognizable.
- Link your images for an improved click rate.
- Limit images in your newsletter to one-third.
- Test your emails on different clients to make sure images display correctly.
