Using background images with email marketing
Designing for email marketing can be a frustrating experience, whether you are complete novice, experienced designer or developer, the same set of limitations affect all of us.
The technology employed for email design has always been based on a fairly old framework. Behind the scenes your design would be put together using tables, which is an old web design technique that has been around since the year dot.
As lots of email marketing software employed this framework, it meant that mailers could look a little drab as designs had to be limited by the capabilities of the framework used to render it.
Web design techniques have come such a long way in the last five years, most companies have really great looking websites nowadays that take advantage of some great dynamic features and elements.
As viewers, we’ve become accustomed to expecting more, modern web designs have raised our expectations of what should be considered the norm.
Email marketing design has not really moved forward at the same rate, this means that lots of mailers that hit our inboxes can seem drab and a little lifeless. This isn’t the fault of the designer, more so the limitations of the software used.
Background images play quite a significant part in this. When we are talking about background images, we are talking about an image sitting behind something else. This background image could have a text box over layed, a strap line - or it could be used to fill 100% of the viewer’s email reader as a borderless background.
Background images are a staple of web design, but using this with email marketing was limited by both design software and the capabilities of the viewer’s email reader.
In recent years though, much has changed, now lots of email readers support the use of background images. With the major players such as Applemail, Gmail and a whole host of others all updating their email browsers to support background images.
Say hello to great looking designs...
cBuilder 3.0 now gives you the ability to use background images, this is a great addition to the software that we are really excited about. The use of background images - behind you text or spanning full width is available for the structure blocks that email blaster uses.
It’s now really easy top quickly import your own images, or browse through the millions of royalty free stock images included with email blaster.
This really adds a whole new dimension to your email marketing. Creating that wow factor has never been easier. Using background images is a great way to really make your mark in your viewer’s inbox.