How to Use GIFs with Email Marketing

• Updated on: 2018-02-02
• Read original article here

Perhaps you’ve noticed amazing email campaigns that have graphics featuring a lot of movement.

Would you like to do the same in your in your next email send?

Creating moving graphics is a piece of cake. I will show you here how to create videos and add them to your emails as GIFs.

First, you should know a GIF is just an image that moves, and you can upload a GIF in the editor as a regular image.

Let’s start making a GIF a video. For that, let’s take as an example next video:

When using a video, we recommend using short videos no more than 10 seconds.

Remember, GIFs will be embedded into your email as an image. People will usually only pay attention for that long. Also, GIFs don’t have any sound.

Start by downloading a GIF app like GIF Brewery or Giphy. Both allow you to record your screen and save the content as a GIF.

With Brewery and Giphy, just open the app and click on Record screen (if you want to demonstrate something) or record video or window.

Now, select the area you want to capture and click on rec button, and don’t worry about errors. When you finish your recording, you can set the start or the end to avoid some mistakes.

Very important: remember our Editor only allows you to upload an image of 200 kb.

Here is the reason: one of every two people read emails from their phones. When they open emails, they are looking for two things speed and readability. Do not make them spend their time loading images.

We do this to ensure the delivery of your email. So, please be careful to make GIFs within that size.

If your GIF is heavier than 200kb, it will be shown as a regular image with no movement.

Here is how you will see an email with the GIF we have created:

Playable is a video email creator. You can drag and drop your 10-second video to the platform and Playable will give you an embed code.

As you can see in the GIF above, you will add the code in a text block. The advantages of Playable are that you don’t have to record a screen, make editions or be worried about image size. Just be careful to select a 10-second video.

If you are a professional, I know you can use Adobe Suite or any other available software to do this, but by trying this way can save you time.

There are many reasons to start using GIFs. Not only do they help enhance a brand’s message with visual content, but they are friendly with mobile devices and can be embedded in your email, and hopefully, readers don’t leave your email to watch it.

Confucius used to say “a picture says more than 1000 words” but Giphy’s Ceo Alex Chung says “the average GIF contains sixty frames, then they’re capable of conveying 60,000 words – the same as the average novel.”

Let your emails become more interesting for your audience and start using GIFs and let us know in the comments how it goes.