Pictures in your emails – your marketing messages, articles, and blog posts – they increase readership and response rates, right?

Well, maybe. 

And then again, maybe not.

The default setting in most email programs is to not download pictures.  Your reader has to specifically request that the pictures be downloaded before he or she can see them.  Otherwise, all they see is a little placeholder icon.

Yes, the default settings can be changed.  And yes, your reader can add you to the “safe senders” list, which in most programs causes pictures to be automatically downloaded.

But do you want to bet they’ve done that?  Are you willing to bet your precious message – the material you’ve worked so hard to develop and write – on your belief (or hope) that they’ve done that? 

Here are three things that can happen.

1. If you embed any part of your message in an image (a picture), you immediately lose some of your readers. Because if they don’t download your picture – and many of them won’t - they can never read your message. 

   If your whole message is in the picture, you’ve totally lost out.  (See the example below)

2. You also risk losing readers if the picture is the first thing in your message. Why?  Because if they’re looking at a preview of your message (i.e., not full-sized), or if they don’t have their email reader maximized on their computer screen, they may see just the picture (or the picture placeholder, if they haven’t downloaded images).

   Remember:  the purpose of your headline is to get someone to read the first sentence … and the purpose of your first sentence is to get them to read the second sentence.  If they can’t see the first sentence, there’s nothing to catch their attention and draw them in to the rest of your message.

3. Finally, if your picture isn’t immediately and directly relevant to your message, it’s nothing more than a distraction. Just think of the last Super Bowl you watched.  Remember all those great ads?  Fantastic images, right?

   Um … do you remember the products those images were supposed to get you to buy? 

Here’s an example

This is the entire message:

The email subject line was “Now is the time to stock up on art supplies.” 

I’m not an artist.  I’m not interested in art supplies.  ::delete::

Turns out this was a promotion for their one-cent frame sale.  Now, I am a photographer, and I do my own framing and matting.  So I am interested in frames and a one-cent sale on frames – lemme at it!

But the only reason I know it was a promotion for their frame sale is because I was writing this blog post.  I needed an example to show, and this was the one I fished out of my deleted items folder.  (Of course, it didn’t help that it has a truly lousy subject line.)

See what I mean?

I’m not saying don’t use pictures.

I’m saying, use them carefully and intentionally. 

Remember that what you see as you design your email, article, or blog post isn’t necessarily what your reader will see.  Design according to what they will see and what they are likely to do – not according to what you see, or according to what you hope they’ll do.

You’ll have much more success that way.

Ideas?  Thoughts?  Comments?  What’s been your experience, either in sending or receiving emails with pictures?