If you’re running an online business and you’d like to use your high volume email client to send out newsletters and promotions, ones that really emphasize your brand with the assistance of images, then think again. While it’s ideal to be able to create brand recognition within your emails, building customer loyalty, the fact of the matter is that it’s very unlikely to even be seen by the recipient. Why is this?
The Risks of Embedding Images
When you’re sending out a mass email, you can embed an image within the HTML of the email coding, but you run the risk of your image never being viewed. The reason behind this is that in the past, some spammers and other generally unpleasant individuals have used images to contain viruses, so that once the image is loaded into the email client, the virus is allowed into the computer.
To remedy this risk, most major email clients automatically block the images from loading when being viewed in the inbox, unless the email user clicks the button to make the images visible, or has preset their email preference to always allows image visibility. If you’re bulk marketing services or promotions that are only visible through an image, then there’s a chance your recipient won’t even know it’s there and simply not click through.
How About Attaching Images?
Attaching is different than embedding in that the image or images will be connected to the email itself, and always safely visible by the recipient via the attached file. The downside to this method of integrating images with email marketing is that sometimes large images can be considered spam by a person’s email filters, so the message in its entirety runs the risk of not even reaching the subscriber’s inbox.
The Safest Route
One of the easiest routes to take with your bulk email sender is to have the image on a website or photo sharing site, and then simply provide a link to the image within the email itself. This erases any need for embedding or attaching, and has the highest email deliverability of all the other options.
Though including images within your email messages can be nice, don’t get so wrapped up in it that you allow it to bog down your business efforts. Many successful email marketers, in fact, the MOST successful, rarely embed or attach images to their emails at all. In most cases, the emails are purely textual, so focus on providing maximum value and company branding through how you present yourself via text, leverage your strengths the best that you can, and create happy subscribers, regardless of images.