With media like TV, video, or social, it’s incredibly hard to break through the noise created by both the volume and the effort that goes into content quality.

But the lack of innovation in the email space (partly hampered by code restrictions) makes it extremely easy to get recipients attention.

Exhibit A
For example, what do you notice about this email header from Grand Cypress?

If you’re like most people, the fact that it’s an animated GIF.

Now think about that for a second. Had that image been shared on Twitter and I asked the same question, you would have had to think long and hard about some unique attribute.

But because it came via email, you noticed. So did I. And I’d suspect the people who received this email noticed it too.

Tradeoff
At 643.1kb, a GIF in an inbox comes with challenges. The first two on the list would likely be:

• Many marketing emails are viewed on mobile devices that aren’t always on super-fast connections
• Some spam filters are triggered by large file sizes or image heavy templates

But even so, from what I’ve seen the downsides are usually smaller than the increases gained from the clever use of a GIF.

It’s great to see a golf resort giving this tactic a try.

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