Images in email can be a powerful means to help sell a product or idea. They are particularly useful in fashion and other retail industries where images truly sell the product.

The downside of images is that up to 60% of customers now have images disabled. That's quite a cohort!

This doesn't mean you shouldn't use images, it just means you should be super savvy about how you use them.

Three things to remember:

• Design around images if you can. This example from 500px shows what I mean. It's almost more attractive without images enabled! Get smart and put your email design skills to the test.

• Use ALT tags correctly. If you have a HTML image tag you can include an attribute called 'alt'. This allows you to define text that will be seen if the image doesn't load. Mr Porter do a great job of using ALT tags in their email marketing. This is why they make over a million pounds a year from their emails.

• Use text instead of images everywhere you can. It is still not uncommon to see titles and bold sections of text as part of an imgae. Although templates limit what you can do with backgrounds, having key sections of your email written in plain HTML text is the sensible way to go. Here's an example of an email that doesn't do this. If images are disabled, this email is useless.