Introduction

Our inboxes are flooded daily with emails from everyone that wants our attention. In your personal you may receive promotional emails from your favorite brands, reminders from your child’s school, and confirmation receipts from your Amazon order. At work you may receive emails from your boss, sales-related emails, and updates from the latest Forbes article. 

 

How do you select which emails you will read and keep, and which ones go straight to the trash?

The visual appeal of your email can impact how your audience interacts with the content. You want your readers to Your branding should remain consistent throughout all of your marketing efforts, including your email marketing design.


 

What To Consider When Designing Your Next Email Template 

Branding, Color, Font, Copy, Images, Videos, the list goes on!   Your branding should remain consistent throughout all of your marketing efforts, and. Your email marketing design should reflect this .  Hubspot has reported that, 41.5% of brands say that email marketing is very critical to business success. 

 

Color Scheme

The choice of color in your email design impacts the emotions that your prospective customers will feel. Research shows that when you select a color for your brand, you want it to align with the message you are looking to convey. Your color scheme selection also needs to be consistent so your brand is identifiable.

Here’s an example:  take a look at this image of an email newsletter for Target

 In looking at this newsletter, you can see the choice of color includes a few shades of Red. Red is the primary color for the Target brand. The color red is associated with  feelings of excitement, passion, energy and action.

Predictive’s drag and drop editor makes it easy to apply your brand’s color scheme to all of your marketing email content.   You can choose the precise colors and shades for your brand. Be sure to save them along the way by creating building templates to create email messages with a consistent look and feel.

 

 

 

Choose The Best Font

 

If your text is too small, it will be extremely difficult to read. If your text is too large, it can become too distracting. Font size and style can be used to create unique characteristics for your brand.  When selecting your fonts you should maintain a consistent style across the headers and the body text. You also want to make sure that the text is not difficult for s for your audience to read.

 With the Predictive Editor, you can select the exact with the size and style of font to fit your brand. Here’s an example of the options inside the editor :

 

 

 

 You can adjust the color, the font style, the padding and spacing of the text to match your design needs. You can also preview how your fonts will look across different devices and mail services..  Most style guides recommend using Bold, Italics and Underline font styles sparingly.

 

Optimize Your Images

When designing your email templates, keep in mind that humans are visual beings. We communicate and learn better through images specifically. It is important to include meaningful visual elements, such as an image of your brand or an embedded GIF.

For best results use embedded images. These are images that are included within the html text content of your message-are more effective than images attached to the message. If you send images as attachments, and you run the risk of your images not being seen. Attachments require the receiver to take an extra step, and download the content. You want your readers to have simple experience.

 There are 3 different formats that work best for images in email campaigns: JPEG, GIF, PNG.

Remember to select images that are relevant to the written content being shared.

 

The Predictive Editor allows you to to optimize the image so it fits the style of the email template by adjusting the width, height, and alignment. You can also links and alternative text. Here is an example:

  

 

Have A Clear Call-To-Action

The intent behind every email campaign you send out should be clear. The goal is for your readers to take action. Here are the most common actions most brands want their readers to take:

 

  • Buy Something

  • Follow the brand on social media

  • Book an appointment

  • Download a piece of content

 

In order for your readers to take action, you need to make one of those statements clear and enticing.   One way to do this is using a button. Remember, again, that humans are visual beings! 

Using a button will help to draw attention to the action you want  your reader to take.

 

Using beautiful colors and fonts to create your button is not enough.  You also need to keep the content inside the button short and simple.  For example, if the goal of your email is to capture registrants for an upcoming webinar. Try using keywords like “Register Now” or “Reserve Your Spot”

 

Don’t Forget The Footer

How many people truly scroll to the bottom of an email and read every single thing that is in the footer of an email template?

So far in 2022, Oberlo has reported that there are 333.2 Billion emails sent and received everyday. A large percentage of those emails are being funneled into spam, sitting unread, and if you are lucky, some reach the top of the inbox.

If your reader has made the decision to open your email, what is the best way to keep them interested in exploring more information about your company?

There are a few elements to consider when designing the footer of your email.

  • The Company/Brand Logo

  • Contact Information (keep this simple: Phone Number, Email Address, and if there is a physical location of the company, be sure to include the physical address)

  • Social Media Icons 

  • Links (Blogs, Webinars, About, Help)

 

Here is an example of how you can design the perfect email campaign footer using the Predictive Editor: 

 

 

Conclusion

 

Designing email templates involves a high level of creativity with the right tools. If you concentrate on implementing the five design elements we discussed above, you will be on your way to making email templates that are appealing and attractive to your target audience. Consider doing your own research on your favorite brands to get inspiration and creative ideas for your next email campaign.

For more information on how you can improve your email marketing campaign design and improve your email deliverability in Salesforce, book a demo now with Predictive here.