Approach Your Email Marketing Differently than Alternatives

Your email marketing is yet another extension of your marketing. Ideally you want all of your marketing pieces - business cards, website, print advertising, direct mail - to be as visually appealing as possible. From a design standpoint, it’s tempting to create one template and use it for everything. An effective email marketing piece should not, however, adhere to the design style and layout of your other pieces for a few reasons. Take these factors into consideration when designing for your email marketing.

·Images should support copy; not be the focus of email: As a designer, this is counter to everything we’ve been told to believe. But remember with many email clients you don’t see the images immediately. Your email should still be able to deliver the message even without the image.

·Opt for a single-column layout: Single-column layouts make your emails easier to read on mobile devices. Wider columns will require readers to have to scroll to see an entire message.

·Call to Action design is important: What do you want the reader to do upon finishing this email? Call you? Complete the contact form? Visit your website? This is your call to action. Differentiate your call to action and make it stand out. Perhaps use a larger font, different color, or our favorite big bright buttons that link them directly to the place you want them to go.

·Call to Action placement: The higher up the better. Experts have suggested that placing your call to action in the top left area makes it among the first things the reader will see, whether or not they open the email. We suggest that the call to action always be above the fold.

·Don’t Embed Videos: We didn’t say you couldn’t use videos in your emails, just don’t embed them. Video files tend to be large and they don’t play in every email service. Instead we recommend, taking a screenshot of the video and placing that as a clickable link to the video on your website, landing page, or YouTube.

Despite different approaches it is important to brand your email cohesively with your other marketing. Utilize the same colors, fonts, and design elements. All your marketing pieces should work together not compete with each other. Download a FREE guidethat will give you step-by-step instructions on how to start your internet email marketing campaign the right way!