Take a design risk and get animated?

Latest posts | Feed | By Mark Brownlow on May 08, 2008

animated framesThe mediocrity of the masses has a powerful pull. Which is why so much "ordinary" writing or design is excused because "that's what everyone else does."

The problem is compounded in email marketing by the use of the term "safe" as in "safe" design. The sentiments are valid: design your emails so they render properly in a range of display environments.

This is a positive thing. But a side-effect is a drift toward uniformity. And the misapprehension that safe means boring. All emails start to look and sound pretty similar. Eyes may soon begin to glaze over.

So perhaps it's time to get a little edgy again, a sentiment echoed by eROI's Jeff; though for different reasons.

This need not mean "unsafe" design.

In recent articles, both David Baker and Loren McDonald suggest using open rates to identify those customers who will likely see images, allowing you to make more (creative) use of graphic elements when sending to that segment.

It's a concept I raised a few weeks ago, albeit to a mixed response.

David goes on to discuss the role of animated images in email, which are enjoying something of a renaissance. Just about every email client and webmail service supports animated gifs in emails.

Animated images had a bad reputation for a while, largely because marketers traditionally used them simply to attract attention. This quickly became annoying.

Anyone who remembers the ubiquitous punch-the-monkey banner ads of yesteryear will have a pathological hatred of animated gifs.

Since email is about delivering value to the recipient, animated images can work if (and only if) they enhance that value. For example by displaying a product in different colors or configurations.

Suzanne Norman has some advice on how to use them in email. And you'll find some inspiring examples from the retail world at Style Campaign and around the RetailEmail.Blogspot blog.

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[This post brought to you by Campaigner Email Marketing]
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