The same old boring emails just don’t cut it anymore. In this ever-evolving world where users can easily find something new and exciting around every corner, your email needs to offer something unique to set itself apart.
How do you turn an email into something fun, something your viewers want to go through?
Easy – with interactive emails.
Why should you care about interactive emails? Because they can do wonders for your email campaign. For example, marketers report seeing a The 4 Best Things About Interactive Emails in click-through rates after adding interactive elements.
Are you convinced now? But wait, there’s way more to interactive emails that you still need to know about.
So let’s dig deeper to look at what an interactive email is and the possible different interactive elements you can choose from.
What Are Interactive Emails?
Interactive emails encourage your recipient to take some kind of action within the email and engage with the content beyond simply reading or replying. Interactive elements can include things like quizzes, polls, surveys, and games.
The goal is to get your recipients to interact with the content in a fun and informative way. By adding an element of interactivity, brands can encourage their subscribers to stick around longer and learn more about their offerings.
4 Things That Make Interactive Emails So Amazing
There’s so much to love about interactive emails. They revolutionize how you communicate with your audience and are truly attention-grabbing. With so many benefits, it’s no wonder they’re becoming more and more popular all the time. Here are the 4 best things to love about interactive emails:
1. They’re fun
Interactive emails can be a lot of fun for both the sender and the recipient. They’re a great way to add a personal touch to your communications and make them more enjoyable for everyone involved.
You’ll have a ball working with interactive emails, too, now that you finally have the chance to let your creative juices flow, experimenting with different interactive elements to see which works best.
2. They’re easy to make
There are several different platforms and tools that you can use to create interactive emails. All you need is to find the right email templates or email template design that let you add interactive elements. This means you don’t have to be a tech expert or have any coding skills to get started and come up with something extraordinary.
Finding a suitable template means not only focusing on the design and interactive elements available but also looking at whether the template is mobile responsive. You don’t want to create a beautiful email only to find out your mobile recipients can’t even interact with it.
3. They’re effective
A picture speaks a thousand words. This is why most emails now include images.
But what’s better than images?
Interactive images and other such elements.
Compared to traditional email campaigns, interactive elements in emails have been shown to be more effective at getting people to take action. This is because they’re more impactful and thus more likely to stick in people’s minds.
4. They’re versatile
Interactive emails can be used for a variety of purposes. Whether you want to promote a sale, drive traffic to your website, or just start a conversation, they’re a great option.
5 Important Interactive Email Elements to Know About
You can add several types of interactive elements to your emails to keep them interesting. Let’s look at what these are:
1. Surveys and polls
Surveys and polls are a simple and easy way to collect feedback from your subscribers and learn more about their needs and wants. But no one wants to fill out a lengthy survey that takes them to a new page.
That’s where the interactive element comes in. Keep things simple by adding a poll or survey that your recipients can fill out right from the inbox.
You can also make the polls a regular thing to further improve engagement.
For example, start a “Fan Favorite Product of the Week” poll. This has 2 benefits. Firstly, you get information about what product has the most customer loyalty. Secondly, you also manage to retain customer attention by giving them something to look forward to weekly.
2. Interactive images
An interactive image, as the name implies, is a graphic that enables users to interact with it in some way. This can be done through clickable elements within the image or by embedding the image in a larger interactive experience.
Some examples of interactive images include:
- Image carousels/sliders
- Images with embedded video or audio
- Hover effects (e.g., changing colors or revealing additional information when the mouse cursor hovers over certain elements in the image)
Interactive images can be used for various purposes, such as to showcase products and tell stories.
3. Gamification
A subfield of interactive emails relates entirely to adding games to your emails and is aptly known as gamification email marketing.
Who can say no to a game no matter how old you get? Especially when you’re scrolling through tons of boring emails and suddenly see a game – that’ll even get the Grinch excited.
The games you add shouldn’t be super complex and lengthy, otherwise, you might risk weighing your email down, leading to longer lead times. Try keeping it short and straightforward. For example, a crossword or a simple puzzle.
4. Videos
Videos embedded in emails are one of the most common interactive elements, so they might not be as exciting as the others. But they still get the job done, helping captivate your recipients’ attention and keeping them engaged.
Videos work well because they let you communicate a ton of information but in a manner that’s easy to consume. Your readers won’t have to go over a whole text-based email to make sense of what’s happening. So videos actually let you get more information across than a typical email would.
5. GIFs
When you’re afraid a whole video might overload your email but want to add something more than a static image, just add a GIF. A GIF is a perfect way to add some movement to your email without committing to an entire video.
GIFs keep it short and sweet, helping you break mounds of text by adding a fun element in there. If you’re talking about a product or feature, GIFs are also a great way to show how the product works.
Unlike videos, there’s nothing wrong with adding more than 1 GIF to your email. Since they’re smaller in size and aren’t as distracting, you can add 2 or even 3 GIFs in some cases – as long as they’re not too flashy and don’t take away from the main point of the email.
What Interactive Element Are You Going to Use?
So many interactive elements to pick from, we wonder which one you will go for. Whichever one you choose, just remember: only use one such element per email. Use too many, and your email will look too cluttered, with your recipients’ attention being divided between too many moving parts.
Keep that in mind, and you’re all set. Have fun and happy experimenting!
