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Email Design Tip of the Week: Are Words "Text" or Images?

Tuesday, February 3, 2009 by Melinda Baxter

Myth: “I include more text than images in my emails, so address image-blocking in my subscriber’s inbox”

Reality: If that text is included within an image, it becomes a part of that image and is treated as an image. It looks like this:

If that text is placed separately from an image, but is not a web safe font (Arial, Arial Black, Comic Sans, Georgia, Impact, Tahoma, Times New Roman, Trebuchet MS, Verdana), then it is still treated as an image.

I don’t think the Designer for this brand intended this graphic message: 

 


To be viewed like this:

Since the majority of subscribers are viewing our emails with images blocked by default, and are making a decision to open based on a preview pane view, this is a pretty important graphic design moment. What is the advantage of making the subscriber guess our message at this stage of viewing, knowing that 80% may scroll away at this point? Beautiful, engaging, provocative, emotive imagery can be all of those things..... when seen.

I think it is a bit presumptuous to assume an open. Eye-grabbing design that ignores performance in an image-blocked medium has an arrogant attitude, and uses marketing investments poorly. There doesn’t have to be a battle between great brand design and great performance. This interactive medium can extend well beyond the boundaries of the fontiful, image-based world of print ads, with links to product pages, video demonstrations and landing pages filled with content-rich brand engagement. 

 

(sorry – used "French Script" so you can’t read my clever sign-off)

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