Stop putting charts in emails
In pharma marketing, our clients often want to put their charts and graphs in every digital piece, including email — in theory this makes sense! Those charts can be very persuasive. The problem, though, is that charts and graphs in email are generally just not a good user experience, and are very unlikely to drive engagement — in fact, they're likely to do the opposite.
The challenge
Our charts usually come from print pieces — already designed, vector files that are just being scaled down and repurposed in other tactics. For email, in the desktop view, our chart can be no larger than around 550 pixels wide — this often means the text, data, etc in the chart is just too small to read. Too small to read = zero value to the user.
For mobile, the chart will almost certainly be too small to read. Remember, in email, we can't/shouldn't swap in a different version of an image for mobile. (See A perfect email.)
Users will just scroll right past an unreadable chart. And remember, ~50% of users won't see the image at all, as their mail server hides images in marketing emails by default.
All this sounds pretty grim, but we have two great options:
1. Redesign the chart mobile-first. We rarely do this, because clients tend to see it as an expensive and redundant exercise, which is a shame. Also, some charts in pharma are just so complex that there's no way to design them into a nice narrow ~350-pixel-wide space.
But, if we are able to do this, then this mobile-friendly version of the chart can appear at full width on mobile, and then for desktop it can either be centered or scaled up. Problem solved!
2. Embed a thumbnail, link out to the chart. The chart already lives on the brand's website, right? And on the website, it's probably much larger than what we can show in email; maybe 1000 pixels wide — much more readable, and a much better user experience.
So, rather than display the chart in your email, display a thumbnail of the chart, with a CTA (call to action) to view the full-size chart on the website. It's important to make it visually clear that this thumbnail isn't meant to be read; one way to do this is to superimpose a magnifying glass or other icon onto it; something that signals to the user that they can tap/click to expand.
Now you're giving the user access to a chart they can actually read — and you're getting a click-through for your client. (Tap/click = measurable success!) By removing your wonderful chart from the email, you've made the email more successful!
This is a great example of a fairly sophisticated thing I try to teach people all the time: emails are not like mini-websites or anything else! They really are their own thing, with their own best practices for content and engagement.
– Manning
Questions/comments? Feel free to contact me at manning@manningkrull.com. I update these articles pretty frequently — best practices evolve over time as the world of digital quickly changes, and I always welcome insights from others.