Email marketing is still one of the most effective ways to get your message across. However, not all email marketing campaigns are going to work and be effective. You can’t just throw an email together and expect amazing results.

There are many different factors that can contribute to an effective email marketing campaign, but today we are just going to talk about the design aspect. Can email marketing design make or break your email campaign? Let’s find out!

Is Design an Important Aspect in Email Marketing Strategies?

To answer this question, we must first go back to the basics and find out what makes a good design. There are many factors that come into play when it comes to designing an email. Mainly, email marketing is all about keeping your readers and potential customers engaged and excited in order for them to click on your links and convert.

What happens when you send out an unappealing or non-uniform email? Your readers won’t be impressed and most likely turn their noses up at your message. Of course, there are exceptions where people will still continue reading if another factor such as content was very strong or engaging.

However, most of the time people need something to catch their eye. Otherwise, they’ll most likely skip right past your content. You have approximately 8 seconds to grab your reader’s attention before they float onto the next shiny object.

With that in mind, let’s talk about how the design will affect your reader’s minds and get them to read your content.

Design Grabs a Readers Attention

When you think about email design, what comes to mind? There are so many different elements that can go into an email. That itself is the problem because there are too many variables to pay attention to.

You can’t simply ignore any of the parts and hope for a good outcome.

Email design consists of three elements: colors, images, and layout.

All of these are going to help you grab a person’s attention as well as keep them in your content. 91% of people prefer visual content over written content. On top of that, having visuals can increase a design to read your content by 80%.

From these statistics alone, you can see how important design is and how much it can affect your email marketing campaigns.

How Design Affects the Way People Read

Design is the first thing your readers are going to see before they read anything. If your design is not aesthetically pleasing to the eye, then you’re already on a bad start.

Even though there are some exceptions, there are certain rules that come into play with designing an email that will help improve the reader’s experience and encourage them to continue reading your content.

There are three main factors that affect how people view designs. These three components can make or break your email campaign:

• Visual Hierarchy (most important info presented bigger)
• The Gestalt Theory (visual elements organized in space=shape)
• Perception Principle (proximity=similarity)

Each of these aspects needs to be taken into consideration when designing your email marketing campaigns. Having a good visual design will help your reader understand the information.

Design Also Affects Emotions

When it comes to email marketing, colors play a big role in how people emotionally react to your message. Different colors evoke different feelings in people. You need to be aware of the emotions you are trying to evoke in your reader and use colors accordingly.

For example, if you want to come across as professional and trustworthy, you would use blue as your main color. Blue is often associated with these characteristics. On the other hand, if you’re wanting to come across as fun and exciting, then you would use bright colors as your main design palette.

Images also play a part in how readers emotionally react to your email marketing campaign. You want to make sure that the images you use fit well with the content you write.

Make sure you spend some time understanding the connection between colors and emotions.

Successful Email Marketing Tips

Now that you understand the connection between design and your readers, let’s talk about a few email marketing tips for your small business. Make sure to implement each one of these for all of your marketing designs.

1. Focus on the Top of Your Emails

The only thing a person sees when they first open your email is the top half of your content.

In order to get their attention, you need to make sure that the visual elements in the top take up most of your screen space and are bigger than other images or text throughout your design.

People will be able to read the headline from this section which means you need to craft a good one for them so they want to click through and continue reading.

Using a statistic is one of the best ways to grab attention. Just make sure it’s relevant and not something commonly known. Wow them!

2. Make Sure You Have Multiple Visual Elements in Your Email Marketing Campaigns

You also want to play around with different types of visuals in order for people’s responses and emotions to change accordingly throughout your email design.

For example, you could have a headline that uses a different color from the rest of your design to grab people’s attention. In addition to that, you can add an image between the headline and content. This will help break up your text so it looks more visually appealing and helps encourage people to continue reading through your email campaign.

3. Use High-Quality Images in Your Emails

This is one of the most important things when it comes to designing emails for small businesses. People expect high-quality images when they open their inboxes.

4. Use Color for Emotions

As mentioned before, colors will have an effect on a person’s emotions. Use this to your advantage and help to invoke the emotion you want your readers to feel.

5. Proper Layout

Make sure that you have a good layout for your email. You want things to flow and be easy to read. Break content up with emails and shorter paragraphs. Nobody wants to read an essay.

Email Marketing Design for Small Businesses

In order to create an effective email marketing campaign that will resonate with your readers, it is important to take into account the principles of perception, emotion, and layout.

You can see how important email marketing design can be for your business. By using high-quality images, color for emotions, and varied visual elements in your design, you can create a memorable experience for your customers that will encourage them to continue engaging with your content.

If you need help crafting an email marketing campaign, reach out to us. We’d love to help!

© 2022, Chris Duncan. All rights reserved.