Email Design Best Practice: Start sending exceptional mails

Designing an exceptional email can be daunting. You may be thinking to yourself: “I’m not a designer, I’m a business owner and I’m not sure where to start.” Don’t worry - we’ve got you covered with a comprehensive list of everything you need to consider to ensure your email follows best practice. You’ll be sending exceptional emails in no time.

Decide what the purpose of your email is going to be

First things first, we recommend that our clients only send emails when they have something to say. You want to make sure that you are adding value to your subscribers lives and not clogging up their inbox unnecessarily. Therefore the first step is to define what the purpose of your email is. A good email is always focused and speaks to one idea or theme. What is your goal? Do you want to welcome a subscriber or tell them about your new amazing product or service? Keeping your goals front of mind makes it much easier to design your email.

Your email layout

You’ll want your email to functionally help you achieve your goals, but that doesn’t mean you don’t want a beautiful design. A good place to start would be by using a template. We have many templates available on our platform to help you get started. Some of our clients also like building their own and draw inspiration from other brands’ emails that they like.

Whichever approach you take, you can easily create beautiful emails with our drag-and-drop builder which gives you all the customisation elements you need.

Don’t forget about your branding

Your brand is your first impression to your subscribers, don’t forget to make sure it’s visible in your emails. With so many phishing and scam emails being sent out, making sure your branding is consistent is integral to connecting with your audience. Simple ways you can get this done is:

A few elements to include to help your audience recognise your brand are:

• Your logo: Make sure it is visible
• Your fonts: Use fonts that are in line with your brand
• Your tone: Keep your tone in line with your other marketing messages
• Colours: Incorporate colours that people associate with your brand
• Images: Use the same image styles people have come to expect from your brand.

Spend time crafting your subject line:

Subject lines are extremely important when it comes to email marketing. It’s the first thing your audience will see and use to decide whether or not they want to open your emails. There are many tips to write compelling subject lines, but the main thing to do when it comes to subject lines is to do testing to see what resonates with your audience best and keep testing to optimise.

Your body copy

Planning what the body copy of your email will contain may feel daunting. A study done on 1000 emails found on average that emails contain about 400 words. You don’t need to write 400 words of copy but you should add information that would be useful to your reader. Make sure you keep it short and to the point as long copy can deter your reader from taking the next step (such as going to your website and buying your product). A long email may also deter a reader if they are short on time.

Responsive design

Coding your emails to account for responsive design can be an intensive and time-consuming process. A lot of people read their emails on different devices which means you need to ensure that they render beautifully no matter what device your reader is using. Our state-of-the-art email builder makes it easy for you to build responsive emails, and the toggle feature helps you see how your email will look on mobile and desktop. This makes it easy for you to ensure your emails look amazing no matter what device your reader is using.

Leave a bit of breathing room

White space is your friend and ensures that your elements don’t look cramped and squashed. You can give your elements some breathing room by including spacers, adding padding around elements and adjusting the margins in text blocks. Make sure to keep your padding and margins consistent to ensure a cohesive look.

Calls to action

Calls to Action (CTAs) are what you use to guide your reader to take next steps. Common CTAs are “Read More,” “Buy Now” or “Shop The Look.” Don’t be afraid to try different CTA’s and help your reader know exactly what you want them to do next. You can customise your calls to action in our platform and ensure your reader has an easy way to get to your website.

Links

Depending on the type of business you have, you’ll want your reader to find out more about your product or go and buy it on your website. Links can help you get them there. It’s important to make sure that all your links work and are added in the right place before you send out any emails.

Grammar and spelling

Use correct grammar and spelling in line with your brands tone and voice. A badly written email with grammar and spelling errors can lead to severe brand reputation damage and can cause readers to unsubscribe. Having good grammar and spelling in your emails also acts as a trust cue, letting your subscribers know subtly that they are dealing with a reputable brand. It’s a good idea to get someone to proofread your emails before you send them out to look for any errors

Footer

It may feel counterintuitive to add too much information to your footer, but it can really cement your relationship with your reader and make sure they feel safe and secure when dealing with your brand. It’s also really important as this part of your email is the last thing your readers will see.

Some basics to consider including is:

• A quick link to your website
• Your physical address
• A link to unsubscribe
• Your registered company name

You may also want to include a nice statement about your brand or your values.

Email marketing doesn’t need to be complicated or involve lots of code and time. With Mail Blaze as your partner, you’ll be able to connect with your audience easily and empower yourself with our easy to use email builder that makes email marketing a breeze. We’re here to help you send exceptional emails and we’d love to chat. If you have any questions feel free to reach out at [email protected].