Two Places to Find Graphics for Messages

Inbox Ideas | Email Marketing Tips by AWeber

Posted by Marc Kline

Images provide a great opportunity to break up the text in your message and add a powerful visual component to your copy. In our Intermediate Webinar, Justin and I cover how to insert an image into an HTML message.

It’s easy to do, but where do you get your images from? You can’t just snip them out of a magazine or pull them off of someone’s website, and drawing up your own requires quite a bit of work without a graphic design background.

Read on to explore two ideas on where to get the images for your messages.

Your Website

One reason to use an HTML version of your message in the first place is to help to brand your messages with a similar look and feel as your website. Why not use some of the same graphics to increase the familiarity and accentuate your copy?

Of course, using your logo is a great idea, if you have one on your website. Many e-mail programs use preview panels, so that when subscribers are scanning through their email messages, they may see the logo and based on their familiarity with you, open the message.

Otherwise, if you run a restaurant, do you have a picture of one of your favorite dishes? A real estate agent? Do you have a picture of one of the properties you’re writing about? Consider throwing a relevant picture from your site in for good measure.

All you need to do is take the URL address from your image using our image tool to place it in your message. I encourage you to sign up for our Intermediate Webinar for a walk through, or just check out the blog article we posted with step-by-step instructions.

Use Stock Photography / Illustrations

Can’t find a suitable graphic on your website, or want to use something more specific than what you’re finding there? Consider using stock photography. There are several great sources out on the web with varying price ranges and policies (be sure to review any licensing agreement they offer to be certain you can use the images in your messages).

An example is istockphoto.com. Check them out and do a quick search for something related to your business.

For instance, if I type in ‘fine wine’, I get nearly 2,500 images to choose from. Currently, for the low-resolution image you’d need, you’d be looking at a dollar per image, licensed for your use, and royalty free.

Feel free also to explore others or check with your graphic designer for other ideas. Perhaps they have their own library of images for you to use, or maybe they can draw you up something personally.

One Pause for Caution

Before you decide to make your entire message on big image, consider that the spam filters that process messages measure the amount of pixel space of images in HTML messages as compared to the amount of content.

Images are a great way to help to accentuate your copy, but they shouldn’t overwhelm it.

With that in mind, take a look at your messages and think of places where a picture might illustrate something words cannot do justice and place in images that spice up your copy.

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8 Responses

Lori Titus
April 19th, 2007 at 11:14 am

I use http://www.clipart.com for my stock pictures. They include clipart as well as some stock photos. They have a sister company that provides higher resolution photos, but clipart.com has always been adequate for my needs.
Dave Thomas
April 20th, 2007 at 10:32 am

Great article. Here are some other sites I’ve used where you can get free or very low-cost images for your web site or html emails:

http://www.freephotosbank.com/

http://www.everystockphoto.com/

http://www.adigitaldreamer.com/gallery/index.php
Glenda Watson Hyatt
April 21st, 2007 at 4:34 pm

I recently discovered http://www.sxc.hu/ for free stock photos.
Sally
April 22nd, 2007 at 4:19 am

Excellent post(s) thanks for all the great links!
David
April 22nd, 2007 at 5:41 am

Hi Marc,

Referring to your comment about the spam filters at the end of your post - what’s a healthy mix of HTML Vs Text? Is it percentage driven?
Boris Mahovac
April 23rd, 2007 at 8:08 pm

Hi Dave,

If you’re using AWeber, check your message’s SpamAssassin score before sending. E.g. if your message is 40-50% HTML it will score 0.9 points.

I try to keep my HTML lean:
- remove unnecessary tags;
- remove unnecessary spaces, tabs, indents, etc.;
- keep URLs as short as possible, so, instead of

yoursite.com/ezine/files/images/standards/ezine_logo_700×50_pix.gif,
try
yoursite.com/img/logo.gif

On the other hand, your text will, by default, always be shorter that it’s HTML version. What I do is add to the text portion as much as I can without going overboard. E.g. if you have separate boxes for separate articles in your HTML, or use rulers (i.e. <HR> tag), replace those with long sequences of tildas ~~~~ or hyphens —. This will add to the length of the text, and also make it easier on the eyes.

I hope these tips give you some ideas on how to balance HTML vs. text.

Happy e-mailing!
Debbie
May 8th, 2007 at 2:04 am

Great post. Great image sites to refer to.
Ivan Piskov
November 14th, 2007 at 1:52 pm

I don’t write plain text messages.

Internet is a media, so there must be a visual elements. We have heard it thousand times that internet users don’t read but they scan the text.

That’s why basic HTML is a must.

Concerning images within the email body – makes no sense – the visitors have subscribed to receive extended and enriched addition of what they can read on the main website. Otherwise, why bother to subscribe …