Your copy is rock solid. Your freebie is enticing. Your email is ready…or is it? How to design a good email isn’t always common knowledge, so look no further.
If you’re not up-to-date with the stunning emails companies are cranking out these days, you could look like spam (no pressure!). But with the help of a few tools and basic rules, you can create emails that are stunning and easy to digest for the reader!
Basic Rules
Here are a few tips that will make your email look great and help your readers digest the information easily.
1. Hierarchy
Put the more imperative content toward the top and make your way down. An easy way to mark something as important is to make the font larger. It helps to pair it with an image and use an accent color to draw attention to it.
2. Fonts + Branding
Use consistent fonts with your branding. If your email platform doesn’t allow you to import your brand fonts, you should select fonts that coordinate from those provided within the platform. Once you have your fonts determined, it’s important that you use the same fonts throughout all your emails. This is a great way to make your email look like yours!
Include your logo, add a custom email signature, and stick to your brand colors. These components will help people quickly recognize that this is an email from your business!
3. Layout
Try to avoid a single column throughout your whole email. Split it up with double columns, half-width, and so on. This adds some visual interest to keep things fun!
4. White Space
This one is so important. It’s easy to cram all the information into one block of text, but this can be overwhelming to read. Instead, break down the information into bite sizes and give each element plenty of “breathing room” (this simply means having blank space throughout the layout to give the eyes a place to rest when transitioning from one piece of info to another.) A simple spacer between text blocks can do wonders!
Helpful Tools
Sometimes you want to do something a little bit more custom than what a basic email platform can provide. In these instances, it’s a great option to build elements outside of your chosen platform and bring content in as a jpeg – a sneaky way of raising the aesthetic and standing out from other emails flooding into inboxes! This allows readers to receive the content in a more appealing way.
Note: Don’t overuse this, as an email with a lot of images will load more slowly and may deter readers from sticking around. For this reason, it’s a good idea to not put critical information into these elements.
1. Canva
This free online tool is a great way to quickly create a graphic that looks professional (because Canva hires really good designers to build templates for you. Thanks, Canva!). If you don’t find a template that fits your vibe, it’s a simple program that can be easily learned with the help of a quick YouTube tutorial, allowing you to make custom images in a snap.
2. Emails in a Nutshell
If learning how to design a good email is just too overwhelming, or you don’t want to take on yet another task, it’s time to take advantage of Emails in a Nutshell. It’s a good thing to know when to ask for help when it’s not in your wheelhouse – or if you simply don’t have the time to do it yourself!
The Wrap Up
If there’s one thing we know for certain, it’s that boring emails are a thing of the past (or at least they should be). Having the right tools and knowledge at the ready will allow you to [almost] effortlessly capture your audience’s attention. Whether or not you’ve already been sending emails, you can still incorporate these best practices on how to design a good email. Let us know how it goes!
And don’t forget, you don’t have to do this alone; Emails in a Nutshell is the perfect option to have an email newsletter and a welcome email sequence set up for you.
