Sick of terrible click-through rates on your email marketing campaigns? Inject a dose of visual style and impact with email marketing infographics.
Email marketing has been around for about as long as email, and it remains pound-for-pound one of the most effective forms of digital marketing in use by businesses today. A study by marketing trade organization DMA found that more than half of marketers say they typically get back at least 400 percent of what they spend on email marketing.
And the benefits of infographics extend to making information sticky, driving audience engagement and reinforcing industry leadership, among many others. So, if you’re thinking these two communication methods make a naturally dynamic team, you’re right.
Let’s take a look at what makes email marketing important and powerful and, hopefully, provide you with enough inspiration to bring your creative email marketing infographic ideas to life using Venngage’s Newsletter Design.
Want to learn more about other types of infographics? Read our blog on the 9 main types of infographics or watch the video below:
Click to jump ahead:
- Why is email marketing important?
- Why do I need email marketing infographics?
- What are the benefits of using infographics for email marketing?
- Which types of infographics are best for email marketing?
- Inbound marketing infographic examples
- Infographic ad examples
- Affiliate marketing infographic examples
- Email marketing stats infographic examples
- Email marketing infographic for nonprofits examples
- Email marketing infographic best practices
Why is email marketing important?
Email marketing matters for the same reason that every other channel matters: You need to reach customers wherever they are. But email has advantages that other digital marketing tools don’t, and one of the biggest is its sheer scale.
A Statista report claims that in 2020, four billion people use email over the world. This figure is set to grow to 4.6 billion in 2025.
Another Statista report on email use points out that approximately 306 billion emails were sent and received every day over the world in 2020, and this figure is projected to increase by over 70 billion in 2025.
Only 7 percent of U.S. adults say they don’t use email or the internet, according to Pew Research Center data. No other platform comes close to that level of adoption (see usage rates for other platforms in the line graph below).
Why do I need email marketing infographics?
Visual content should be a focus regardless of the platform. Yes, your marketing emails should contain informative and energizing text, but what’s true on your website, blog or social media is also true for emails.
Infographics are 30 times more likely to be read than content that consists only of text—they can and should be used for any of your marketing communication needs, including social media, digital marketing, content marketing, SEO, and now email marketing.
Related: 67 Engaging Email Newsletter Templates and Design Tips
What are the benefits of using infographics for email marketing?
Any email marketer who spends their days staring at open rates knows that what they need are tools and methods that will stop recipients from automatically deleting whatever they send.
Infographics have a slew of big benefits but the most relevant for email marketing purposes are their ability to instantly engage the reader, summarize big takeaways and enhance information retention.
According to Mailchimp, only about 22 percent of emails marketers send are ever opened. Email open rates vary by industry, and as the infographic above shows, even small changes can make a big difference.
Also see: When Is The Best Time To Send An Email Newsletter?
Importantly, though, while the majority of marketing email recipients don’t read every email they get, unsubscribe rates are quite low, so the reality is that most consumers are open to giving marketers a chance to show they can provide consistently engaging content.
Which types of infographics are best for email marketing?
Just about any type of infographic could be an ideal addition to your next marketing email, depending on the topic and your industry.
A nonprofit could use a timeline infographic to tell the history of their cause to new subscribers, or a workplace wellness provider could share statistics about overall health and fitness in the form of charts and graphs. Here’s an example of an event timeline that could be used for an event email sequence:
The infographic below explores an important email marketing tip, particularly as it relates to infographics used in marketing emails. Most people read emails on mobile devices, so before you begin crafting email marketing infographics, keep size and orientation, whether horizontal or vertical, in mind.
Consider designing multiple versions of your email marketing infographic, which can help you ensure your marketing email is well-designed, and it can be beneficial for generating multiple design types. You can also repurpose these visuals as social media infographics:
Inbound marketing infographic examples
In most cases, email marketing campaigns are considered inbound marketing because reputable marketers will only use someone’s email address if they’ve consented to receive messages.
Inbound marketing infographics, including those that can be used entirely or partially in marketing emails, run the gamut of types of infographics, and they’re ideal for pretty much any industry.
That’s because while infographics encountered in the wild are usually free of obvious commercial ties, it’s also easy to add branding elements like logos, colors and fonts. In fact, we recommend this when including infographics in your marketing emails so that the materials feel cohesive.
You can easily add your brand assets to Venngage using Venngage My Brand Kit, and use your branding elements in any infographics or visual communication designs you create with Venngage:
Here’s a look at some ways you can use infographics in your marketing emails and other inbound campaigns.
You can use external data gathered from trusted sources to discuss an idea, trend or topic that’s related to what your company does.
Or consider straying a bit from an obvious connection to your business by capitalizing on a cultural obsession.
Email infographics are also ideal for sharing results of internal research or surveys, especially if you’ve used your subscribers as test subjects. People love to see themselves represented in data, even if it’s indirectly.
Infographic ad examples
Website advertising click-through rates, or the percentage of people who see the ad and click on it, are notoriously low. According to the most recent estimates, click-through rates for Google Search fell by 44 percent between 2019 and 2020.
People tend to read over ads, and ad blockers make it even tougher to get eyes on your material. Email marketing infographics can be more overtly promotional and still remain effective.
A long infographic like the one above, which does not contain a logo until the very bottom, could be used on its own in an email marketing campaign.
While it’s true that anybody opening your email should already know it’s from a brand or a business, if you’re going to be overtly commercial in your infographic, it’s helpful to empower people with information like this example does. That way, they’ll feel rewarded for having opened the email rather than being duped by it.
Affiliate marketing infographic examples
Just like any other type of marketing, affiliate marketers can similarly benefit from using infographics in their marketing emails, social media posts, blogs and any other type of content they produce.
Here are some tips to try in your affiliate marketing infographics:
One of the biggest tools affiliate marketers have is creating a connection with their audience. That’s why food blog posts are so long; affiliate marketers need to create an emotional connection in order to build an audience.
Another way affiliate marketers can engage with their audience is by busting myths that plague their regular readers. Keeping up with comments on blog posts is a helpful way to mine for pain points, but you can also create a myth-busting infographic from your own expertise.
Affiliate marketing infographics are also an excellent way to participate in a cultural or lifestyle trend.
There’s a wrong way to do advocacy, but for affiliate marketers, one way of creating a lasting personal connection with an audience is to show them the issues close to your heart.
Email marketing stats infographic examples
We’ve already touched on the sheer volume of data points and metrics the average email marketing campaign generates, so why not take advantage of those hundreds of spreadsheet cells and creating email marketing stats infographics?
Whether you use tables, charts, graphs or other visualizations, statistics about your email marketing performance are natural fits for infographics.
The internal audiences who need to know these metrics have the same human brains we all do, and we all respond to visual communications. They can be sized for email or spread over multiple slides or pages, as in this example.
Email marketing stats infographics can be brief, focusing on just a few crucial data points. When creating an example like this one, use no more than three data points in order to keep the basic dimensions.
Email marketing infographic for nonprofits examples
Mailchimp’s study found that while all industries had an email open rate of about 22 percent on average, nonprofits do a bit better, with an average rate of about 25 percent. But that doesn’t mean your nonprofit email marketing campaign couldn’t use a boost in the form of infographics.
Not sure how to get started creating your email marketing campaign? Check out the tips we’ve learned over the years.
Email marketing infographics for nonprofits should be simple and powerful, and sharing a few key statistics is an excellent way to engage your mailing list.
Update campaign progress with an email marketing infographic for your nonprofit that will set forth a bold agenda to help tackle a crisis.
Email marketing infographic best practices
Are you ready to get started creating your email marketing infographic? Before you bring your ideas to life, check out a few best practices we’ve developed for marketing emails, especially the last bit of advice, which is creating engaging images.
Whether they’re for external audiences or internal ones, if you’re using data you have generated, it’s wise to get as granular as possible. That way, you can generate surprising or especially useful insights with your email marketing infographic.
Email marketing infographics don’t have to be all things to all people, and you can implement infographic techniques in a subtle way, like the third page of the white paper below, which uses a modern take on a pie chart.
Match your brand’s overall style and tone. This example employs gradients, which aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, but email marketing infographics should be clever and inventive.
Consistency is key, so be sure that as you craft your email marketing strategy, you’re considering all the ways it will come to life. Do you have enough variety in fonts, colors and icons in order to make an email marketing infographic successful?
In the example below, we see an application ideal for an established brand, while the bright, bold style below provides a more youthful, maximalist take on the same material.
Take cues from good advice for email marketing in general by keeping things short and to the point.
In summary: Like chocolate and peanut butter, email marketing and infographics are two great communication tools that go well together
Engage your subscribers or internal audiences by creating email newsletter infographics that are inspiring, informative, entertaining and thought-provoking.
Venngage’s Newsletter Design and My Brand Kit make it easy to create various email marketing infographic templates while still ensuring consistent application of your brand.