It’s important to stay on top of email design trends and other factors that can affect how well your email marketing performs. Email design isn’t just limited to what’s in the inbox either. It includes your call to action, what landing pages you send your customers to, and more. Pay close attention to the following email design trends.
1) Email Is More Visual – Today, due to faster internet technology and smartphone technology, you can make your email messages more visual than ever. You can included images and even video, making the email that much more interactive and interesting to the viewer.
2) Responsive Design Is a Must – It’s more than just small screens, it’s all types of screens that your customers are going to use to view your email marketing messages with. Therefore you must engage in responsive design that allows your messages to respond to the viewer your customer is using.
3) Optimize Subject Lines – The first thing that your viewers will see is the subject line of your message. You want it to be accurate as to what’s inside but you also want it to cause the reader to need to click to see what’s inside. If you just name it “April Widget Newsletter” it’s not going to be that enticing.
4) Branding Is Essential – All the wonderful email newsletter templates that autoresponder and newsletter software provides is great, but it’s important that you think outside the box and up the ante by personalizing your newsletter. Even if you’re sending text-based newsletters and information to your subscribers, consider your brand and the elements that will make your email stand out from others. It could be the template design, but it could also be the return email address that brands your email newsletters.
5) Use Advanced Personalization – Consumers are savvy and learn fast. They realize that you are using a software program to personalize their email message with their name. They know this because everyone does it, and you asked for their name and it shows even if it’s misspelled. Use other advanced methods of personalization with better market segmentation so that the message is more personal – and not just the greetings.
6) Focus on Real World Design – If you know, from reading the metrics, that most of your readers tend to click on links “above the fold” because they are reading emails in the preview pane, then you also know that you must put your most important information right on top. Design your messages to reflect how people really view and interact with your email messages.
7) Develop a More Connected Writing Style – Many email marketing messages lack style. Most of them really do seem like a robot wrote them. Let your personality show through in your email marketing messages so that the consumer can feel connected to you like a real person. Email marketing messages should read like a personal letter to a friend, not an article in a magazine.
8) Improve Your Landing Pages – While not directly related your email messages, your landing pages are very important because you provide links to these pages in your email messages. If your readers click through to a lackluster landing page no matter how well designed, personalized, targeted and focused your email was, you’re going to miss out on conversions. Everything that has been said about email can now be transferred to the landing pages.
Designing email messages, along with anything that your reader clicks through to see, with real world users in mind, will help you overcome issues related to different screen sizes and technology used to access email. It will also make your email look current which will help your list members take notice.