How to Design your Email Marketing Campaign

When it comes to digital marketing, email marketing is one of the best tools any content creation team can have. Emails are easy to make, cheap to send, and can reach a large, targeted audience. The main downside with emails is the abundance of competition businesses face in the consumer’s inbox. On average, workers receive 121 emails per day, and that’s not including personal emails.

The only way to beat the competition is to stick out from the competition. The best SEO experts know that one of the most effective ways to improve a businesses’ email marketing campaign is to improve the design of the email. Email design can be incredibly effective by catching the reader’s attention and creating a more engaging user experience overall. Here are the most effective ways to improve the design of your email marketing campaign.

Find a Template that Fits Your Content

Getting the right template for your email marketing content can be tricky. There are thousands of different email templates but only some are going to resonate with your audience. Further, you shouldn’t use the same email template for every email you send out. Newsletters should look different from promotional emails not only, so your readers know what to expect when opening your emails, but so the content of the email is paired correctly with the right template.

Before choosing an email template, you should have your content written out. This will let you choose a template that’s best for your email marketing goals and not just something that catches your eye. Further, think about your audience and what might resonate with them. If your audience is older, flashy colors and complex shapes may be overwhelming whereas it might draw in a younger audience.

Incorporate Your Brand & Your Brand Story

Now that you have an email template to work from, the next step is making it your own. Every piece of content creation, especially your emails, should be telling your brand’s story. A digital marketing team can achieve this by using brand colors, themes, and images throughout the email, so readers become more familiar with the brand.

One common mistake that the best London SEO agency warns against is overusing the brand colors and images. Digital marketing teams should use the graphic elements of a brand whenever possible, but there is a balance that should be maintained. Overusing certain colors or using every color and image in every email can become overwhelming and counterproductive. Emails should still feel clean and professional no matter what.

Use Design Elements to Your Advantage

The design elements sued in an email marketing campaign can not only draw the reader’s attention but can help guide the reader along a specific customer journey. The common issue with emails is that most people spend only 10 seconds reading an email. This means that businesses only have 10 seconds to catch the reader’s attention before all the hard work is for nothing.

Using various design elements, digital marketing teams can draw in readers to specific parts of the emails and ultimately achieve the goal of the email marketing campaign, whether that be website views, education about new products, or buying additional services. Here are some basic principles every digital marketing team can live by when it comes to using design elements to improve email marketing campaigns:

Create a Hierarchy of Points for the Reader

Digital marketing teams can use different types of typography to create visual hierarchies that let readers quickly scan the email for the most important bits. For instance, making sure your main points are larger and bolder than the explaining text can help draw your readers to the content that resonates with them.

By doing this, content creation experts are essentially creating a treasure map for readers to search through for the bits of information most important to them. This activity leads to increased engagement and can encourage readers to continue reading the rest of the email in search of more treasure.  

Use Eye-Catching Elements to Lead Readers through Long Emails

When businesses want to educate consumers on new products, services, industry trends, and more, the emails tend to be a bit long. While readers may only spend 10 seconds on your email, businesses can increase the dwell time per email by leveraging graphical elements to draw the reader’s attention. London SEO specialists suggest the following:

• Use contrasting colors for the background and font/foreground so the content is easy to read.
• Use borders to separate different parts of the email so readers can quickly grasp the outline of the email and go from section to section.
• Using text alignment to make certain passages stand out will naturally draw the reader’s eye to important parts of the email content.

Make Your Call-To-Action Stand Out

Every piece of content creation should include a Call-To-Action (CTA), especially emails. Every email should have a goal, and that goal should be clearly defined and highlighted within your email. Whether you’re asking readers to sign up for a newsletter, check out holiday deals, or schedule an appointment, the CTA should be easily found in your email.

Keep It Simple

Despite all the advice on creating a masterful email, the most important is to keep the email simple. Digital marketing teams should aim for a balance of aesthetically pleasing, informative, and easy to read.

All your content should not fit into one email, that is why you have email marketing campaigns. Your story and mission will be accomplished over the course of dozens of emails that should be meticulously planned, and not just one. Therefore, individual emails should aim to achieve one simple goal and give the email content and chance to shine.

Is There a Perfect Email

The short answer is no. While some digital marketing teams claim to write the perfect email, the fact is that no email will resonate with your entire target audience. The best approach is to test out different email designs for different purposes and see what works.

In general, when it comes to email design, keep it simple and relevant to your brand. Your emails should tell a clear story that can be improved by using design elements to your advantage. Nothing is more boring than a simple block of text, so make sure to add something to your emails to make it pop and catch the reader’s eye in those crucial ten seconds.