Email marketing is one of the most effective and affordable strategies out there to connect with your clients, build your brand, and drive results. It’s a platform that is often forgotten and seems to play second fiddle to social media, but email marketing (newsletter, EDM marketing, however you like to call it) should play a seriously important role in your business’ multi-platform marketing strategy.
So why email marketing?
In 2020, around 98 percent of adults in Australia stated that they used the internet to access their e-mails according to a survey done by statista.* Among them are your ideal target consumers, quality leads and prospective clients that you can work to reach and convert through email marketing. To ensure your emails stand out and grab the attention of your ideal target audience, your email design needs to be on point.
When it comes to email marketing, longevity is one of the main reasons why it’s such a powerful marketing tool. Once you have someone’s email address, you can market to them in the long term. That means you can send marketing emails when you launch a new product, when you have an important announcement about your brand, or when you have an upcoming promotion.
And the more you learn about your customers through their interactions with your brand, the more personalised you can make your email marketing strategy. For example, you can send customised emails based on their birthdays and purchase behaviour i.e. previously viewed products and purchase history.
Why is design important when it comes to email marketing?
The way your email newsletter looks is just as important as what it says, which is why email marketing design is so important.
Although your email marketing design is going to depend on a few things such as your business’ branding and the type of email that you are sending (product announcement, service update etc), there are a few email marketing design best practices to keep in mind when you create your newsletter:
- Reinforce your brand through templates, fonts, and colours
Consumers crave consistency and that means, they want to know what to expect when they open your email, but that doesn’t mean that your emails would be boring!
Marketers need to be agile in their approach to email marketing so they can maximise opportunities for when it is relevant to send an email to customers. By utilising a formulaic approach to design while taking into consideration your business’ branding, your marketing team can cut down on design and revision time and get the final product out in a more efficient manner.
- Always add your Call to Action
Don’t forget the ask but keep it simple. Anyone who receives emails are most likely busy, and they are often checking their inboxes while also doing something else (hello, multitasking!) such as waiting in line, on public transportation, or while taking a quick break from work. That’s why it’s so important that email design has a singular focus, along with a single call-to-action (CTA).
According to Wordstream’s study, emails with a single CTA increased clicks 371% and sales 1617%.**
- Lead your Customers
Your email newsletter’s layout should create a sense of visual hierarchy that directs your readers to the most important design elements, like your CTA or to the product.
When choosing your layout (including which elements to include, what size to make each element, and where to place them), think about what kind of results you want to drive from your email—and then choose a layout that helps to deliver those results.
- Incorporate unique visual content.
If your customers open an email and only see paragraphs of information, it will more likely be harder to hold their attention and keep them interested while you deliver your message.
Instead of putting in chunks of copy, try to incorporate on-brand and engaging images, videos, GIFs, animations, etc. to break up the written content and create a memorable experience that will stay longer with your audience.
- Use a responsive design.
A responsive design means your email changes format to fit the screen it’s being viewed on, whether it’s on a desktop, laptop, or mobile device. That means anyone will be able to read your emails with ease no matter where or how they are viewing them.
By incorporating a responsive design, you’ll be able to enhance user experience and improve email retention across all devices.
- Design an email signature.
Great email signature design is another way you can establish a professional and personal feel over email. Email signatures shouldn’t just include your name — they should contain other defining and memorable characteristics about you, your role, contact information, and company.
Here are some specifics you can include in your email signature:
- First and last name
- Contact information (and secondary contact information)
- Job Title / Role
- Company Name
- Link to your meeting calendar
- Social media links (e.g. LinkedIn profile)
- Photo
- Industry disclaimer or legal requirements
Do you need help with your email marketing?
As Adelaide’s most #SeriouslySocial specialist digital marketing agency that teaches email marketing strategies on a regular basis, we know all the secrets when it comes to optimising your headlines to increase your open rates, and other critical factors in your campaign’s success.
We will work alongside you to ensure that your email marketing databases are well segmented, and can be utilised effectively to not spam your customers, but to provide them with useful information that is of interest, based on which stage of the purchasing cycle that are at with you.
If you’re not sure where to start, or you’re wanting more from your current email marketing, give us a call or drop us a line – we like to start with coffee!
References:
* https://www.statista.com/statistics/712099/australia-internet-activities-of-adult-users/
** https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2015/06/10/digital-marketing-stats
