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When it comes to email marketing, some people just do not get the big picture. Literally.

Below is an example of an email as it came into my email inbox this morning. It is from a place that I have stayed before, Diamond Resorts (kudos for continuing to market to me after the initial sale.)

I like that they have continued to send me special offers but to be honest, most of the time I just plain miss what their special offer is because by default Outlook does not show the images in their newsletter. As you can see in this screenshot, I can not see the special offer and overall there is no excitement or reason to turn the images on.

 

The offer can not be seen at all and none of the overall branding of the resort is present. No use of their corporate colors or any other special touches or call outs that would entice me to open this newsletter.
As a person that is passionate about email marketing, I feel like it is my job to remind everyone to design their newsletters to look good with or without images turned on.

Below is an example of a corporate style newsletter with the images turned on and then next to it, with the images turned off. As you can see, the company colors are still intact thus giving it some branding but more importantly, the subscriber can still actually use the newsletter.

With a little upfront planning you may actually see your open rates increase if you start offering your emails in a manner that lets your subscribers see more of the content.
By the way, here is what the newsletter looked like with images turned on. Very nice design.

 

Tell me what you think, do you typically turn images on for a newsletter you can not see, have you seen a business case that would encourage you to design this way?

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