Unless you’ve spent the last 30 years meditating on top of a mountain, you probably know what a GIF is. Yes, you know! That little humorous animation that punctuates your exchanges with friends and colleagues!
Fun and direct, the GIF has gradually become the unexpected asset for effective communication. That’s why today, it’s perfectly possible (and even recommended) to integrate it into your emails. Yes, even your professional emails!
Let’s explain right away how to create and insert a GIF into an email.
Now considered a legitimate means of communication, the GIF is indeed used by people of all ages in various environments, including professional ones. No surprise, then, if you receive a GIF from your grandmother trying to promote her new homemade pie business!
Clear and fun, the GIF can be particularly effective in your professional communication. The benefits of using a GIF in a professional email are numerous:
That being said, as you know, a good professional email doesn’t rely solely on well-chosen GIFs! Check out our article on writing a professional email for more tips on this subject.
Convinced of the GIF’s potential in an email? Let’s now explain how to use it properly to fully channel its communication power.
Emails, especially professional ones, often contain a lot of information.
To help your recipient properly absorb each piece of information, it’s good to space out your content, but also to include illustrations like images or GIFs.
Due to its fun and dynamic nature, the GIF grabs your reader's eye and allows them to take a break from reading. It’s also a visual representation of the ideas expressed in the body of your email.
In this way, your recipient’s mind, both rested and refreshed, absorbs the information better! Who would have thought that a little cat falling off a shelf or a raccoon riding a bicycle could convey an idea?
However, be careful not to overuse the GIF in your email. Moderation is key to avoid fatigue and maintain a professional tone!
Whether it's to illustrate a point or promote a brand video, integrating a video might seem tempting. The only problem: it’s technically heavier and more complicated!
The video format is generally too heavy for your email, and there’s no guarantee your reader will click on the link to an online video.
Integrating a GIF into an email is an excellent way to leverage the visual power of video, without the weight or the link. Whether you want to bring your text to life or provide a preview of your latest video ad, the GIF is a great ally.
Plus, in the case of a longer video, nothing’s easier than adding a link to the video on your GIF!
A professional email must remain clear and engaging from start to finish, while also representing your brand well. Typically, it will include a professional email signature, and if necessary, a communication banner.
Since the email signature is an ideal space for non-intrusive messages in the form of email banners, a GIF can definitely fit there. It’s a way to attract more attention from your recipient. So, don’t hesitate to add an animated image, with changing visuals, moving titles, or a button that changes size/color.
Now you know why and how to use a GIF in an email. However, you also need to know how to create one. Here are 5 simple steps to do it!
First step: determine the purpose of your GIF. Despite its fun nature, the GIF has the power to become a real communication tool and should be treated as such. For your message to be well received, it should be chosen based on its specific role in your communication strategy.
Some goal ideas for your future GIF:
Second step: select a GIF bank or creation tool. If you specifically want to insert a GIF in your signature, there are several email signature tools that perform well (if the goal is to standardize and integrate your GIF in multiple signatures, consider using Letsignit).
There are many GIF banks, including Gifing or Motion Elements. A simple search gives you access to thousands of GIFs (and other content such as videos) suited to your needs.
Be aware, some banks require registration (often free) to download GIFs.
Some banks also include a tool to create custom GIFs. This is the case with GIPHY, a reference in the GIF world that has already conquered social networks like Instagram or Facebook Messenger.
The first image of your GIF is the most important to select. It’s the one that “catches” your recipient’s eye. It will also be the only one to appear if your GIF takes a while to load or turns out to be dysfunctional!
When creating your animated GIF, be sure to select a clear, engaging first image that aligns with the primary goal (see step 1!).
A GIF that “freezes” is a bit like a joke falling flat… When a GIF doesn’t animate, the message isn’t delivered, and clearly, the desired effect is not achieved.
To ensure your messaging supports your GIF and it animates properly, make sure to optimize its size.
Happy with your GIF? Fantastic! Before you use it, a few last-minute checks are necessary.
Even the most efficient email services like Outlook can have difficulty supporting a GIF. So, to ensure it works, send a test email to your own address.
You can also use an email tool to preview your email with the GIF.
Goal set, GIF ready, it’s time to insert your animated creation into an email!
To insert a GIF into an email, the process can vary from one email service to another, but it remains simple in all cases. Let’s start with the basics…
You copy-paste dozens of things every day, but for some mysterious reason, you can't paste a GIF! In fact, your difficulties are justified because the operation isn’t always possible depending on the source of your animated image.
For example, it’s not possible to copy-paste from the GIPHY bank. This one only allows you to embed your GIF from a link to copy.
For some other banks, downloading is possible. Once your GIF is downloaded, you can do a simple copy-paste, just like you would with text or an image.
From your messaging service, you can also use the “Insert image/media” option and simply select your GIF from your computer.
To insert a GIF into an Outlook email:
To insert a GIF into a Gmail email, two options are available.
To insert a GIF into an email from your Mac messaging service, it's very simple! You can simply drag it into the body of your email. And there you go!
You can also insert it by clicking on the little paperclip at the top right of your toolbar and selecting the GIF from your computer.
If you're in a company and want to integrate a communication campaign or message in the form of a GIF across all your employees, Letsignit's email signature tool can help you!
With our email signature creation and management tool, you can not only standardize all your employees' signatures but also easily add a GIF to all signatures. Why not use the power of email signatures and the benefits of GIFs to communicate impactful messages?
We hope this article has helped you discover more about the world of GIFs and emails!
Looking forward to seeing you in our next blog posts or to discuss email signatures.
Yes, with the 'Campaigns' offer, it is possible to track the number of clicks on the email signatures of all your employees in the 'Statistics' area of the platform.
You can then access a detailed or global view of the number of clicks on the email signatures of each employee. You can use the search option to target a specific signature or a given period. Finally, you have the possibility to export all statistics to an Excel document.
If you launch campaigns with banners inserted in your email signatures, you can also access their performance via this same space.
With Letsignit, you can easily add social network icons in your collaborators' email signatures and link to your company pages. Also, our "attributes" feature allows you to manage personalized URLs for each of your collaborators such as their individual LinkedIn profile.
And that's not all: you can add links to an appointment-setting application, allow your customers to leave reviews easily, and integrate our 'Chat on Teams' widget to let anyone start a discussion via Microsoft Teams chat.
It’s up to you! As an administrator of the Letsignit platform, you choose whether or not to grant modification rights to your employees. These permissions are managed on an attribute-by-attribute basis, which means that you can decide to allow the employee to change their phone number, but not the address of your premises, for example.
This feature applies to all attributes in your directory, including custom attributes created on Letsignit. When your employees change one or more attributes, your directory is obviously not affected.
It often happens that employees make their email signature their own: custom format, bad fonts, colors inconsistent with the brand standards... all of this has an impact on your brand!
A consistent visual identity is considered authentic and outperforms a perceived weak one by 20%. And, your customers are 2.4 times more likely to buy your products.
With Letsignit, take back control over your brand identity by standardizing all your email signatures. Our tool has many features that allow you to customize your signatures by department, by audience or by subsidiary. Not to mention the possibility of carrying out campaigns within your email signatures thanks to our Campaign offer.
What is the user experience like for our employees?
In both cases:
In short, they have autonomy in their email signature, but you keep control on the field, signatures, and banners they can edit or use.
With our "multi-signature" feature, your employees can benefit from multiple email signatures. No technical manipulation is required. Thanks to our Add-in for Outlook or the desktop app, they can change their email signatures as they wish with just a few clicks.
Regarding the creation of email signatures, you can make several variations such as:
Everything has been thought of to go further in the personalization process based on the recipient of your emails.
If sending emails has an impact, non-optimized email signatures also have an impact. An unsuitable format or an image that is too heavy considerably increases the size of your signatures... and therefore, your emails.
As a responsible economic actor, we contribute to reducing our CO2 emissions and those of our customers in several ways:
As we are increasingly involved in sustainability initiatives, our priority in 2023 is to develop even more green IT functionality.
If sending emails has an impact, non-optimized email signatures also have an impact. An unsuitable format or an image that is too heavy considerably increases the size of your signatures... and therefore, your emails.
As a responsible economic actor, we contribute to reducing our CO2 emissions and those of our customers in several ways:
As we are increasingly involved in sustainability initiatives, our priority in 2023 is to develop even more green IT functionality.
