Effective email marketing design

Effective email marketing design depends, in part, on the purpose of an email. Meeting consumer expectations for a particular type of commercial email is essential, so understanding the design expectations for a given email style should be a guiding factor in creating layouts. Email newsletters, for instance, can have a busier and more content-rich layout than simple offers, such as an email announcing a 50-percent-off sale.

Making emails easy to read and act upon is vital to the success of any email marketing program. Designers sometimes place all-important information, such as dates of sales, in an image, to force readers to download all email images. The reason is to obtain a count of who opened the message, which is tracked by measuring downloads of a tiny, invisible image embedded in the email. Although this method makes open-rate measures more accurate, it aggravates users whose email service blocks images by default, and makes reading the email impossible for those using many mobile devices. This tactic is not user-friendly, and effective email marketing design avoids it. Other usability factors to consider are using a font size that is large enough to read, making any links obvious and limiting the size of emails

Designers need to incorporate their organization's logo, colors and fonts in marketing materials. These elements must be adapted, though, to email design. If the organization's approved colors for branded design are navy blue and purple, for instance, neither can be used as backgrounds for emails, since the message would be unreadable. Instead, a related color can be used, such as light blue, with navy blue as an accent.

Good quality control and testing are key to effective email marketing design. All emails should be tested and reviewed prior to going out to check for typos, difficult-to-understand wording or links that do not work. Periodic A/B split testing, in which email recipients randomly receive one of two variations on a email design to determine which is most effective, help ensure that the design meets with customers' approval.

Once testing has occurred, results can indicate that an alternative design was better received than the existing design. Revising design templates in accordance with test results can lead to higher response rates and great reader loyalty.