Marketing: 7 Ideas to “Slider” your email campaigns

Add a touch of interactivity to your email campaigns, “compact” your content while improving readability… A slider (now integrated into our email builder) is an excellent creative tool for marketers’ emails. What practical uses does it have? Here are 7 ideas for incorporating sliders into your emails.

Three times more conversions: that’s what you can achieve by switching from “static” content to interactive (AMP for Email or otherwise) or animated (GIFs, videos, or any other animated elements) content, according to a study by Zembula.

Among the interactive content available for email marketers, there’s one clear star: the slider (also known as a carousel). According to Litmus, it’s the most commonly used technique among email teams that have already experimented with interactive emails, ahead of “burger” menus, “reveal” elements, and quizzes.

How can you effectively use sliders (which are now part of Dartagnan’s email builder) to make your email campaigns more impactful? Here are 7 ideas to test out…

1. Showcase a product from every angle: leverage your email campaigns

A new product or service to present: what’s the best image to use? Should you show the silhouette, the fabric, a detail… everything?

In an email, where space is limited, campaign managers often face tough choices. This is likely why sliders are so popular among email teams: they allow for diverse product presentations:

• Detail materials or components, as shown in our example below.
• Show the product from different angles, with zooms, wide shots…
• Present different options (colors, patterns), as we show with the credit card below (but you can do the same with a blouse or a bicycle!).

What applies to the “product” also applies to the service.

Why not use a slider to present in a more complete (and more fun!) way:

• a TV or radio program
• a series of exhibitions
• a selection of trips (as in the example below)

In summary? For a product launch or an exceptional announcement, think carousel!

2. “Gamify” a Collection

By simplifying the integration of sliders into your email campaigns (they are as intuitive and quick to adapt as a “classic” image block in our email builder), Dartagnan allows you to go further creatively.

For example: why “just” one slider and not a combination of several sliders? This can be an engaging way to present a “total” look from a new collection (as in the “head-to-toe” carousel example below), but you can also imagine allowing your recipient to combine several photos of a trip if you are in tourism, a starter-main-dessert menu in food, a collage of inspiration in décor, etc.

In short, this layering of slides in your email campaigns allows the user to build their own selection, somewhat like trying on an outfit by mixing and matching clothing.

A great way to “gamify” an email campaign by adding a “do it yourself” dimension that should hit the mark!

3. Simplify your complex offers

Are you operating in a field where the offer is complex and requires detail, such as banking-insurance, travel, SaaS, etc.? Or are you thinking about presenting your service in a more digestible and engaging way in your email campaigns (how your click & collect works, how to return an item, etc.)?

In short: do you want to detail an offer point by point or step by step in your campaigns? A slider will precisely allow you to:

• “Break down” your message into small content blocks,
• Arrange them with a logical progression,
• And therefore make the offer easier to understand.

The example below, with fixed content on the left and a slider on the right, is a good illustration: the main message remains constantly visible, and the recipient navigates through clearly presented sub-offers… A clever way to adhere to UX principles in your email that will lighten your recipient’s cognitive load:

• Atomize the content,
• Materialize the progression,
• Manage the hierarchy of information.

4. Tell your story

You probably have a welcome message among the email triggers you’ve set up? This email, sent as soon as someone signs up to your database, is a golden opportunity to establish initial contact. It’s a chance to introduce your brand, its values, its services… and its story.

Well-illustrated and engagingly written, this timeline also allows you to include some compelling details: your geographic expansion (e.g., the date of your 100th store opening), your innovation capacity (e.g., the year you launched a groundbreaking product), and reassurance elements (e.g., the day you reached your millionth customer or thousandth order).

In summary, adding sliders to your email campaigns is the best way to share your entire story and solidify your brand image with your customers.

5. Repurposing your social media stories in your email campaigns

With a few rare exceptions, social media managers and email or CRM teams work in isolation—and that’s a shame. After all, these are the two most potent communication spaces (both in terms of acquisition and customer relations), and the teams pursue the same goals:

• Creating engagement and brand attachment,
• Attracting potential customers,
• And then retaining them…

Often under the pressure of a fast-paced production schedule and constantly searching for innovative formats and strong messaging, social media teams generate a wealth of content—especially stories: behind-the-scenes looks, weekly recipes, skincare routines, tutorials… the possibilities are endless.

So, what is a story? Essentially, it’s nothing more than a slider adapted to the environment and codes of Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn…

Copy-pasting it into your next email campaign is thus far from rocket science! The benefits?

• You extend the lifespan of content that is inevitably ephemeral on these social networks,
• You harmonize your messaging across different media.

6. Amplify your other communications

Stories can easily migrate from your preferred social network to your newsletters. However, they are likely not the only type of content your marketing teams produce. Most advertisers also distribute:

• Original content (inspiration, advice, etc., in photo or video format) across their various social media accounts,
• Co-created content with influencers or user-generated content from clients’ accounts,
• Blog articles (tutorials, case studies, etc.).

Newsletters are an excellent channel for amplifying these communications, as they target an audience that has opted in and is therefore presumably more interested in what you have to say. Previewing your latest article, linking to your Instagram, YouTube, or Facebook page are common elements in newsletters.

Why not give these contents a bit more weight? A slider is a great way to generate more clicks:

• To your blog, if you have a robust editorial presence,
• To the social network where you and your community are most active.

The two slider examples below provide a good idea of how you can effectively “recycle” your content in your emails.

7. Highlight the benefits of your loyalty program in your email campaigns

Email and loyalty programs are a lasting love affair. With its direct and personal connection between your brand and its customers, email is the king of customer relationship channels and the best tool to convey (or remind) the benefits of loyalty…

How? By showcasing the advantages of your loyalty program with a module (like the one offered by Dartagnan) that can be reused in various email campaigns:

• Welcome emails,
• Post-purchase emails,
• Newsletters leading up to special events…

These are all opportunities to increase the number of more profitable and engaged customers who join your program.

Once again, the slider is the ideal format to detail what you have to offer:

• The promotional gestures you offer based on a certain amount of purchases or points,
• The benefits reserved for loyal customers (e.g., free or discounted delivery),
• Special occasions (e.g., birthdays, private sales),
• Referrals…

Using the principle “one slide, one benefit” as shown in the example below, your “loyalty special” slider will have even more impact! You can even apply the same logic to highlight essential e-commerce reassurance elements (e.g., guaranteed delivery times, return conditions, customer service contact).

Other ideas for your email campaigns?

Want to dive deeper into mobile campaign design? Check out the article Dedicated to mobile design.