9 Email Newsletter Design Best Practices
Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to promote your products and services as well as stay connected with your clients. It is why this form of marketing is one of the most important tools available to businesses. Email marketing allows you to quickly and easily reach target markets without the high costs involved with traditional marketing platforms such as TV, radio, and print media.
An email newsletter is an essential component of email marketing since they are easy to edit, cost-effective, and help increase brand awareness. However, you need to keep in mind specific requirements imposed by mobile apps and email clients. The following are 9 email newsletter design best practices to help you out when it comes to creating your own. Understand what email campaigning is and have a clear strategy to manage your customer engagement.
1. Have a Simple and Clean Design
Email newsletters are not usually as elaborate as web designs are. While the design should be eye-catching and friendly, it should be somewhat simple and basic too. The cleaner the design of your email newsletter, the coding will be more straightforward coding, and the less chance of problems emerging between different email clients and browsers.
2. Keep the Width About 600 Pixels
The accepted standard width for most emails is between 600 and 650 pixels. Lately, there have been instances of more extensive designs, but it is advisable to keep it below 700 pixels to be on the safe side. The height may vary depending on the content of your newsletter. You are free to make it as long as you wish, but don’t overdo it since people hate scrolling down too much.
3. Don’t Include Too Much Text
It is never a good idea to include too much text in an email newsletter since there is a risk of it finding its way to the spam folder. This is one of the most critical email newsletter design best practices since doing this may overwhelm subscribers and prompts them to close the email before actually reading it.
Always use short blocks of text that link back to full articles, landing pages, or product pages. If you do this, you will just be displaying enough information to get your subscribers interested in reading more about it.
4. Include the Important Information in the Preview Pane
You should always remember that some subscribers can decide to scan your email newsletter in a preview pane before deciding to click to read the whole of it. Preview panes are on average between 300 and 500 pixels in height, which is why you should include the essential parts of your email in this area since first impressions matter.
5. Use Google Fonts and Web Safe Fonts
The right choice of font for your email newsletter is an important consideration. You could technically use any font like in an email, but if your subscribers don’t have the font on their devices, they won’t see it. It is why you should stick to core web-safe fonts like Georgia, Times New Roman, Tahoma, Helvetica, Arial, etc. Google Fonts are another great option. Google has a vast directory of fonts that can meet your design needs.
6. Don’t Use Images Only
While it is important to include images to help your design stand out, you should not rely on them solely to sell your product. Some subscribers may not be interested in seeing pictures and may have that option turned off. Always use title and alt text behind your images to ensure that relevant information appears even when pictures fail to load.
7. Make the Newsletter Mobile Friendly
The usage of smartphones has skyrocketed in recent times as has the number of people reading emails on mobile devices. Mobile-friendly email newsletters display optimally between a desktop and mobile device and ensure that it looks great regardless of where it is read. When designing your email newsletter, you should keep that in mind.
8. Use the Right Colour Scheme for Your Demographic
Each age group or gender will respond to different colours. Be careful of the colours you choose for your call to action buttons, font, background colour, and images. Once you have made sure that you are keeping to the identity of your brand, think about the audience. It is possible to improve your results by using specific colours based on your demographics.
9. Regular Testing
Don’t forget to always test your email newsletters thoroughly on all clients and devices. There are several rendering tools available to you such as Return Path, Litmus, and Campaign Monitor. The tools offer a full display of the rendered image on various platforms and clients, which can save you anguish and time.
The Bottom Line
Your email newsletter design will only be a success if it inspires readers to take action, increases customer awareness and loyalty, or generates revenue. This is why it is so important to follow the 9 email newsletter design best practices. It will ensure that your email newsletters render correctly on mobile devices and across all email clients.
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