By: Matt Nelson

I recently read...

an excellent blog post by Anna Yeaman of Style Campaign about animation in email marketing. I’m sharing some of her insight about animated emails and the examples she compiled, augmented by some thoughts of my own.

                              
Anna’s blog post quite correctly pointed out that animation has gotten quite a bit slicker in the past few years. While overuse of clumsy, distracting techniques rendered animation taboo during the ‘90s, nearly 40 percent of major online retailers today are using animated images in their e-marketing campaigns.

The bottom line: used in moderation, simple animation is a powerful way to ensure your email marketing garners clicks and engages readers.

According to Anna, animation engages readers much more effectively than static images and text. For example:

• Animation maximizes an email’s limited space. For example, you can use it to share a collage of related products or communicate benefits in a compelling and unique way.
• It draws the reader’s eye to content they might otherwise overlook (e.g., messages that aren’t included in the preview pane).
• Demonstrating critical product features that drive revenue and sales is much easier with animation.
• A clever bit of animation helps your email stand out from the pack, particularly around the holidays, when most people’s inboxes are deluged.
• Animation can be used to draw attention to — and drive home — key marketing messages.

A couple of examples
Many of the examples I’ve seen of animation in email that work well involve showing the email recipient (for our purposes, the customer) different styles of the same product. For example, Land’s End created the following email for a sandal that swapped the shoe image several different times, each time showing a slightly different rendition of the same shoe. Basically, the different styles can appeal to different people’s individual tastes. Land’s End: Original Beach Trekker

Another email that I thought worked well was created by Williams-Sonoma. The animation served as a quick, 3-step demonstration for one of its products. The series of images comprising the animation showed in brief how to use a small kitchen appliance to make an edible treat. The goal of the animation was to show just how easy it is to use the product to make delicious foods for entertaining guests. Williams-Sonoma: Breville Pie Marker

Animation in e-mail marketing, in general, is still rare and, as such, it retains a certain amount of novelty. Novelty in a world of cookie-cutter emails can help to grab someone’s attention.

When not to use animation
Since customers read email on so many different devices and email clients, you have to ensure that your emails are compatible with all of those devices and clients — regardless of whether your e-mails feature animation. Other than compatibility, the single-most important factor to consider is file size. Animated emails are larger than static emails. If an email is too large, some Internet service provider (ISPs) will block it, preventing customers from receive your message.

As with most marketing projects, you want to be certain that adding animation to an email help you (and your clients) to meet their goals. Adding animation to something that doesn’t need it can undermine your efforts. In many cases, simpler is better.

Knowing how much is too much
The difference between attention-getting and annoying is largely subjective, so online retailers (“e-tailers”) need to know their audiences and customers well. Most email service provides (ESPs) allow e-tailers to configure similar but separate email templates within the same campaign to test animated versus static content in order to gauge response rates. I’ve seen emails that, while the animation seemed dumb to me, may have worked for the e-tailer for no reason other than I’m not the person they’re targeting.

The following outstanding examples compiled by Anna Yeaman will give you an idea of how animation can be used to drive real results.

Neiman-Marcus: Fendi “Artist’s Baguette”

Neiman-Marcus: The Christmas Book 2010

Harry & David: Easter Surprises

Art.com

Amazon: Kindle 2

Williams-Sonoma: Vintage Football Plates

Have you received (or designed!) an email with great animation? We'd love for you to share in the comments! 

About BKV
Established in 1981, BKV is a direct marketing and interactive agency specializing in helping marketers meet business goals with strategies that generate leads, convert those leads into sales and finally, into established and loyal relationships. The company uses a combination of traditional and digital media along with high performance creative and strategies that ensure we're driving response while measurably growing clients’ brands and sales. With offices in Atlanta and Kansas City, BKV serves local, national and international clients and is a member of the ICOM Agency Network, a professional association of marketing and advertising agencies from all over the world. Want more information? Visit BKV.com or