Like everyone else I get 100s of 1000s of emails a day and only choose to open the ones that are relevant to me and aren’t spam.  Well in my time at eBay we were always trying to get around Spam and Image blocking with our users.  To do this we applied various treatments like having some basic text in the email before the imagery so that even if it was blocked the user had an idea of what they were about to receive in addition to tweaking the subject line.

Well over the last few months I’ve been following the UFC and their emails to see if they are following best practices.   Below is an email I received from them back in April regarding the schedule of events for their UFC 97 event.

Great email.  Images completely blocked by my Gmail filter and no body of text to even give me a clue of what this email contains other than the subject line.  Fast forward a few months later and look how far they have come.  I received the below email today and I have to say what an improvement.  Take a look at the image blocked version, when the images are visible and the inclusion of links to Twitter and various other promotions.

As people get more and more email on their iPhones and in their email clients it is imperative that without allowing images to be downloaded they can consume your brand and your message.