Cinemagraph GIF – Glam Up Your Email Campaign

Kevin George — January 6, 2017 Follow @imkevin_monk

Have you ever lavished cardamom on your cookies to give it a feel of exoticism? It tastes amazing, doesn’t it? Cinemagraphs are the cardamom if emails are cookies. They make the emails look great and enhance subscriber engagement. Introduced by Kevin Burg and Jamie Beck in the year 2011, they have taken the email marketing world by storm.

According to Experian, 72% of clients who made use of animated GIFs or cinemagraphs observed higher transaction-to-click rates.

What makes Cinemagraphs Special?

Cinemagraphs are principally the amalgamation of an image and video. In simple words, they are live photographs. While maximum portion of the image remains frozen like a conventional still photo, a part of it is animated with seamless looping. Looping in GIFs usually means playing on repeat the same images over and over again.

Cinemagraphs on the other hand create a beautiful illusion that time is going by, through the loop. The beauty is that you would not even realize when the loop starts or ends, thereby instilling a lively soul in brands. Cinemagraphs just take you to that moment and set the world of your imagination in action in a way videos somehow cannot.

Cinemagraph GIFs come handy when you want to enliven your emails without overwhelming the readers.

Support by Email Clients

Email marketers would be pleased to know that cinemagraphs are supported quite well throughout the email clients. That is another great reason why cinemagraphs take away the cake when compared to videos and other CSS animations that are not supported by many email clients.

Cinemagraphs Synonymous to Awesomeness

Check out this cute cinemagraph that would surely bring a smile on your face.

Instilling Life in Emails Through Cinemagraph GIF

Listed below are the most important points to remember if you are looking forward to include cinemagraph animated GIF in email.

1. Know Your Target Audience

Cinemagraphs have grabbed immense momentum in the past few years and we do not deny that. However, including it in each and every marketing email would make the experience monotonous for the readers. Anything in excess is bad. Cinemagraphs are no exception.
According to the product or service you are promoting, you need to ascertain whether the cinemagraph is a good idea for the campaign. It is imperative to understand the taste of your subscribers and send the emails that they want to see in their inbox.

2. Email Client Support

As stated earlier, email client support is inevitable if you want your campaign to be successful. Check out whether there are any loopholes in the email clients or devices used by your target audience.

3. Keep The First Frame Relevant

If the email clients do not support cinemagraphs, they would show the first frame without showing the animations. Therefore, it is very important that the first frame makes sense. It should not include any actionable message or important content that should not be missed by your readers.

4. Don’t Miss Out on Subtlety

Animation file size should be kept to a bare minimum. It should not take too much of time or data to load. Compress your animations and keep them as subtle as possible.

5. Accessibility is an Important Aspect

It is not a good idea to place all the content with a call-to-action in the image. Some email clients have images ‘turned off’ by default. Your email would not bring the desired results or click-through rates in such a scenario. The solution for this is to add alt tags and title descriptions supporting the image so that the viewers can know what your email wishes to convey.

Let us have a look at some of the best cinemagraphs used in email marketing so far.

Bright Wave Email Marketing Agency has used cinemagraph amazingly to convey their New Year wishes.

This email from Mr. Porter which has open fireplace with subtle animation offers an impression of comfort that is the distinctive quality of loungewear advertised in the same.

Needless to say, these successful email marketing campaigns made cinemagraphs all the more popular.

How can you use Cinemagraph GIF for Your Email Campaign?

Cinemagraphs have far reaching possibilities in the time to come. They give a dreamlike visual appeal to emails.

1. Imagine displaying picturesque holiday destinations or sparkling diamond accessories with the help of cinemagraphs. Not only would it offer a perfect user experience, but it would also entice them to take action.
   
2. Luxury brands can also make the maximum use of such animations to represent the premium utility of their products.
   
3. It can be even used to promote videos, product launches and slide-share presentations.
   
4. If you are a company dealing with technical stuff, cinemagraphs can effectively throw light on the processes or behind-the scene stories.

Wrapping Up

Cinemagraphs have revolutionized the presentation of emails and unleashed the creative side in email marketing. Give your emails an edge that can make your brand stand out from the rest. So what are you waiting for? Try out an eye catching cinemagraph in your email campaigns and see the magic of these moving pictures.

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