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Why You MUST Include Text in Your Marketing Emails

The saying “a picture is worth a thousand words” isn’t always true. When engaging in email marketing, though a plain text email is far too simple, you should never send an email that is entirely made up of photos. It’s all about striking a balance between creating well-designed, on-brand emails and including just enough text to avoid running into inbox issues. Here’s why:

Your images could be blocked.

As a result of security settings, personal preferences, and some spam filtration systems, images will be turned off for many of your email subscribers. If your email is mostly made up of images, it will appear broken or empty. This not only makes your message fail to be impactful, but also comes across as unprofessional. Keep in mind that 43% of Gmail users have their images turned off!

Your email could end up in the spam folder.

One of the most common reasons spam filters capture emails is because of a low text-to-image ratio. Since spam filters can’t read images, emails with too many images are automatically flagged as spam. Using text as the primary body of the email ensures that the text-to-image ratio will pass the threshold and your email will be delivered!

Your email will have a slower loading time.

Images impact file size: the larger the image, the longer it takes for an email to be uploaded, downloaded, and opened. This is especially true when your recipients have a weak Internet connection or are checking their emails with cellular data. As a result, if your email is taking a while to load, your customers are likely to click away or delete the email before getting the chance to read it. That could be a major loss!

Your email may not be accessible to people with disabilities.

Accessibility is key these days, and when your email is filled with photos, your visually-impaired subscribers will be left out. Tons of people use voice assistants to read their emails out loud to them, and these voice assistants do not recognize Alt Text and other HTML features. This goes to show that live text has way more value in emails!

Your emails may not be compatible across platforms.

Your email might look great on your computer screen, but this does not guarantee that it will translate on someone else’s device. This is especially true with images. If the parameters change or the image shrinks, the elements within the image, including text, will change too. Your subscribers may not be able to read your message at such a small size. Sticking to text in your email campaigns largely eliminates this possibility– a text body is the most compatible across all devices!

Your emails won’t be searchable.

Sometimes your subscribers will find something valuable in your email and want to return to it. If all the text in your email is found in the images, it is likely that the subscriber will not be able to find what they are looking for.

What should you do instead?

Everything in moderation.

Striking a balance between text and images helps increase delivery and open rates more than anything else. Good email template design is essential for obtaining opens and clicks, so including a variety of text and images will help create a more appealing and organized design for subscribers. It’s fine to utilize images and graphics! Just make sure there’s enough text too.

Use background images with live text.

This gives you the best of both worlds. It keeps your emails colorful and well-designed while also making the text visible, even when images are turned off, and accessible to all.

Include Alt Text.

Alt Text is a description of the photo that displays when the image won’t show. In emails, you can style your Alt Text so that the email still looks good when the photos won’t load.

Optimize for mobile.

Optimizing for mobile goes a long way. Your images should never be wider than 600 pixels in order to load properly on mobile devices. After all, 46% of emails are opened on mobile devices!

Want help implementing these strategies into your email campaigns? Our team of experts can help you out! Contact us today.

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