We all receive marketing emails – in fact, you’ve probably read at least one today. Currently, the average person will receive around 120 emails per day, many of which come from businesses looking to share information about their products or services. With steep competition that is only mounting by the day, it’s becoming harder to stand out from the crowd when sending emails.
The best emails capture the reader’s attention within seconds, instantly alerting them to what you’re offering and why they should be interested. Yet, not every single person will take the time to read the copy on an email. On the contrary, most people will scan it – if they look at it at all. Being able to capture their attention comes down to design elements.
Without a striking design that hooks people, you’re most likely going to end up with a larger pile of bounced emails, or ones with a very low read time. In this article, we’ll dive into the world of email design, exploring exactly how your business can start to use graphic design elements in your emails to create better content.
Let’s dive right in.
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What Are The Winning Elements of Email Design My Business Should Use?
There are two main purposes of sending out emails; the first is to deliver information, while the second is to push a user into taking a certain action. For example, a sales email will share a new product and provoke the user to click a link to find out more. Alternatively, an outreach email might describe your services and then push a user into replying to you.
Depending on your company, the specifics of what your emails achieve will vary. However, the one thing that unites email design across all businesses and mediums is the need for phenomenal design. Humans process visual content considerably faster than written content, meaning your web email design elements are the first thing they will see.
Here are some leading principles to improve the visual design of your email content.
Prioritize Accessible Design Choices
Despite the style of design that you use on your email, your business must make sure to think about accessibility. Without effective accessibility design choices, you will be unable to communicate to a portion of your audience. Equally, there are a number of guidance and regulations that you must follow when distributing marketing content.
Understanding accessibility principles, like using a core color pallet, creating a readable font, and ensuring that the font can be read by machine-to-voice processors, will help improve your chance of the email being read. Beyond this, accessible guidelines for design often match with good design principles.
The core idea of creating visual content that absolutely everyone can read rings true in most circumstances. Using these principles in your designs will help to boost readability and click-through on your emails.
Simplicity Normally Wins Out
If readers cannot discern exactly what an email is attempting to tell them from the first moment they see it, that email has failed. When a reader is confused – combined with their probable lack of genuine interest – they will simply click off your email without reading it. While flashy designs are exciting, they can often overwhelm readers and lead to confusion.
Most of the time, the golden rule is to lean toward simplicity. Be sure to note that this doesn’t mean that you should barely edit or use your graphic design skills when dealing with email. In fact, simple really only means clear.
If you have to pick between several aesthetics, lean toward the one that will get the message across as easily as possible. Whether that’s a minimalistic design or a photo and a short bit of copy is up to you. Just be sure to keep it simple and think about how your email looks visually from the user’s perspective.
Create a Flair of Individuality
One thing that can always set your business apart from its competitors is a personal touch. Personalization is one of the leading trends in marketing at the moment – and for good reason. The vast majority of users would prefer personalized content before mass-produced content. In order to set yourself apart, including additional human-oriented touches will show that your business is made up of individuals, rather than just being a faceless corporation.
For example, you could customize your email signature to demonstrate that you’re offering something unique. Alternatively, you could really show your customers your individual side and include a personal touch like a handwritten signature. On an email, a written signature gives an instant element of authenticity and personality, helping you strike up a connection visually with a customer.
Equally, considering there are now free signature generator tools available, you can add this small but important element extremely quickly. Small touches like these will help to take your visual design to the next level, capturing audience attention and improving click-through rates.
Optimize for Mobile
Before we close out the tips, one of the most important elements to remember is that the vast majority of users are going to view your email on their mobile devices. Currently, around 59% of email users will use their mobile devices to check their work and personal emails. The accessibility that mobiles give allows individuals to stay in touch with ease, rapidly scanning through emails or typing out a response.
Considering the high traffic from mobile users, it is vital for businesses to optimize all graphic design content according to mobile viewers. Instead of creating for the web and hoping it scales down to mobile, prioritize mobile content. If your content looks squashed, extended, or mismatched on mobile, people will click off right away.
No matter how effective your email design is, it’s only as good as how it looks on different devices.
Final Thoughts
Email design is a notoriously complicated field that has very little room for error. With a high level of competition and low user stakes, you need to create compelling visual content that captures people’s attention and lets you stand out from the crowd. Luckily, so much of human interest in content comes from visual design, with effective emails allowing you to strike up intrigue within milliseconds.
Design is a difficult skill to build, but one that you can develop when following the right tips and examples. By using the content and tips that we’ve outlined in this article, you’ll be able to create better email content and win customer attention.
Visual design and emails go hand in hand and will supercharge your email marketing when done correctly.
