Email marketing has arguably the highest ROI of any marketing channel at the moment, making it very valuable for companies of all shapes and sizes… yet only if it’s done right. Sure, you can throw an email campaign together fairly quickly and shoot it out to your customer database, but if you don’t put some serious thought into the design elements of your campaigns, they could get lost in the clutter.
Here are five very easy design principles that will help you maximise the potential of your email marketing campaigns and stand out from the crowd (your competition) to gain great results that will make a real difference to your business.
Tip #1 – Make sure your emails are easy to read
Increasingly, people have very short attention spans, and your email campaigns should cater to this. Ensuring a clean, fresh email design allows your key propositions to shine, allowing the reader to be engaged with the content to the call to action (CTA) – and this makes it more likely that people will click through to find out more. The ‘Inverted Pyramid’ model is a proven technique to follow:
- Create a succinct headline that highlights the key message of your campaign.
- Write brief supporting information that is benefit-driven and builds a compelling case.
- Have a CTA button that makes it very clear what the reader needs to do next.
Tip #2 – Stay true to your brand
Brands have personality just like you do, and interacting with that personality is how relationships are built. Consistency in colours, style and tone is critical when designing email campaigns, and it’s essential to use fonts, colours and imagery that match your website and align with your other brand assets. Creating a style guide for your business will ensure that everyone across the organisation (plus external contractors) is able to adhere to your brand design elements. An ‘on-brand’ email will immediately let subscribers know that the email is from you, from their first glance.
Tip #3 – Make your email campaigns accessible across all devices
According to Australian research into mobile devices usage published by Deloitte in 2017, over 60% of people access their emails via a mobile device, nearly all of the time. Today it’s really a case of smart everything, everywhere. This means that it’s never been more important to make sure your emails are optimised to fit to whatever device your subscribers are using to view your email campaigns. This includes mobile phones, tablets, and laptops, as well as the minority who still use desktops to do this. Another relevant issue is to design with multiple wide-screens in mind, in terms of pixels in images.
Tip #4 – The content should serve your customers
When crafting copy, it’s important to tap into the mindset of the person reading your email campaigns. To think from their perspective, always remember that “what’s in it for me” needs to be addressed. Simple, clear messages and a succinct CTA allow the reader to easily absorb the email’s content. The biggest mistake you can make is trying to put too much into a single email, which runs the risk of overwhelming and confusing the recipient. And instead of a hard-sell, deliver value without hype, through product or service education, ‘how to’ advice, case studies, useful information, and news.
Tip #5 – Strike a great balance between text and imagery
A well-designed email campaign strikes an ideal balance between images and text. The imagery should attract attention and spark your reader’s interest and entice them to read and find out what your business has to offer them. Emails that are too text-heavy or image-dominant affect your open rates and can be blocked by some email systems. They’re also a real barrier to engagement.
Next steps
Fine-tuning your email campaign designs will allow you to get noticed, connect effectively with your customers, and inform them about the products and services you offer. Need a little bit of help? The team at Orion can help you design email campaigns that make a difference – and we can also write them so your propositions shine for optimal results. Get in touch and we can get the ball rolling.
