Checklist Of A Good Email Design 

A good email design plays a crucial role in the outcome of the purpose it is created for – conversions. Every email you send on behalf of your business must be perfectly crafted to drive awareness and increase your sales.

Hence, you must follow email design best practices to help you achieve your email marketing goals. Remember that the first impression is always the best, and you never get a second chance. A good email design will grab your readers’ attention and keep them engaged.

Checklist for Making a Good Email Design

1. The Header

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An email header is the subject line, recipient, and sender, as well as the HTML header in the body of the email. However, here, we’ll talk about the part of the email header inside the email.

The header of your email is the most crucial part as it is the first thing that any recipient sees when they open the email. Most designers don’t give much attention to the header as it has limited space for design. However, the header is as important as the rest of the email. Also, the recipient needs to know who the sender is, and this is the space that can be utilized to establish a consistent brand identity.

A good email design will always have a well-designed email header. Here are a few do’s:

● Ensure that the header is brand-identifying. It fortifies the ‘from’ field so the reader can’t doubt the sender’s identity.

● Ensure that the header is handy and versatile. A good header generally works with all types of email campaigns.

● Come up with a tasteful and simple header. It should be clutter-free, easy to read, and not crammed with information.

2. Logo and Colours

The first things that hit the eye when anyone opens an email are the colors and a distinct logo. Hence, you should pay sufficient attention to these design elements since they allow your readers to identify your brand easily. More often than not, people open an email as soon as they recognize the distinct color and logo, which is imprinted in their memories.

Using striking colors evokes distinct feelings in your target audience. Customers generally remember a brand based on the emotional reactions it evokes. A specific color conveys a special message to the customers.

Red, orange, and yellow are considered vibrant colors because they evoke a sense of excitement, eagerness, buoyancy, and warmth. On the contrary, blue, green, and purple are considered cool colors as they are closer to nature. People notice these colors in their familiar surroundings and can relate to them instantly.

3. Images

The best email designs use images supporting your text to make it more attractive and engaging. If it’s a product you are promoting or launching, add a catchy image and the text to make the email look impressive, and you’ll be surprised by the increase in open rates just because of the image.

The best email layouts can be created using many free online tools like Constant Contact, PowerPoint, and Canva to help you edit your images to make them look trim and attractive. However, go for professional services if you are looking for something unique and can you establish your own brand identity.

4. Email Body

The body design is of the utmost importance in a good email design. Email designers must always remember that with shrinking attention spans, people reading online or on a mobile device merely scan the mail before deciding if they must read it.

Hence, it is crucial to design the body of your email in such a way that it grabs the readers’ attention. Your headings must be legible at a glance, and the best font size to use is 22pt, with color complementing your brand logo and colors. Email messages and body parts should be 14pt, which is not too small or too large, but just about the right size for people of all ages (with or without reading glasses). More importantly, the email body must contain about 3 to 5 short scannable sentences that are easy to read quickly.

5. Call-to-action

You send an email with a purpose; however, you never know if the purpose is served unless some action is taken, and you know about it. It is essential to add call-to-action, which is part of a good email design that helps with conversions and better revenues. It makes it easier for your readers when you tell them precisely what they must do next, be it visiting the landing page of your website, making a call to your store personnel, or simply redeeming a coupon before it expires. Use a prominent button that catches the eye as your call-to-action as it will stand out, and no reader can miss it.

6. Footer

Most people do not pay a footer the attention they pay to a header. More often than not, footers are an afterthought for most marketers. However, it is time you took your email footer seriously as it is a crucial part of your email. Also, regardless of who receives the email, the footer portion of the email remains the same. You must include the following information in the footer of your email: your address, phone number, website link, and hours (store opening times or the availability of support staff).

Prudent marketers add links to their social media pages so that customers can connect with other customers and exchange news, views, and other information. Ensure that the links to each social media platform work perfectly before sending the emails.

5 Examples of Best Email Design

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1. Apple AirPod

Apple came up with one of the best email designs for its AirPods Pro earphones and ensured that it was in line with the brand’s uniqueness and characteristics. Despite being one of the simplest and best emailer designs, it was primarily monochrome and featured a large, high-resolution photo of the product throughout the screen.

With a good email design, Apple’s AirPro email campaign displayed a well-defined character becoming the face of the brand. One of the best email layouts featured well-structured headings that were helpful to the readers while navigating the content.

Contrasting images spring against the dark background with many call-to-actions like “learn more”, “buy”, “compare models,” etc placed strategically to lead readers through the various stages of the sales funnel before converting and convincing them to make a purchase.

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2. Salt & Pepper (Great Jones)

Great Jones is a company specializing in kitchen appliances. With its Salt & Pepper product launch email campaign, it made a statement through the eye-catching animation.

Good email design examples are highlighted with the presence of dancing animation, and in this case, it was the shift between the white and black containers implying “salt” and “pepper”. It accurately describes the product, and the email design also featured “Shop now” as the call-to-action.

Great Jones’ email campaign for “Salt & Pepper” was created for just one product, focusing on the shrinking attention span of customers. That is why the email was so concise and direct. There were no comparisons made to any other products as the entire email campaign was about this product.

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3. Frame.io

Frame.io’s email campaign is one of the best email designs focusing on simplicity and direct marketing. The company planned a product launch to coincide with a conference it was participating in. The company used one of the easiest tactics to invite users to reserve their seats – a simple call-to-action button, placed strategically in the email.

While the background was a dark backdrop for a ring of blue circles emphasising the message as an invitation, the blue circles dominated the image. The email campaign was successful as many people responded and acted by clicking the call-to-action to reserve their seats. Every year, Final cut pro X experts from across the globe congregate at the annual Creative Summit in Cupertino, where they share their skills and knowledge.

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4. Dollar Shave Club

Besides promoting products, a good email design can also be used for up-selling, as in the case of the dollar shave club. It is a beautifully designed email campaign focusing on enticing the customer to add more products to their shopping cart while shopping at the dollar shave club. The pitch was to entice them to “toss more in” into their shopping cart before they decided to hit the “buy” button.

The brand upsells products the customer already has in their shopping cart through the email campaign, so the pitch went smoothly.

This email campaign is one of the few good email design examples, showcasing potential purchases in two separate columns. The highlight was the image with the product and the background in striking contrast. The call-to-action button was prominent in bright orange, making it instantly visible to the user, urging them to click immediately.

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5. Grammarly

Grammarly is very subtle in its approach while it upsells as it is very attractive and personable. Their email campaign in the form of a newsletter “Highlights of Your Year” lists the yearly writing stats. The users immediately experience a sense of familiarity, and they strongly believe that the stats are reliable. Such personalized emails make good email design examples, especially because of the brand’s style guidelines, which are presented with clean white space and soft, soothing pastel colors.

The email is structured in such a way to prompt the reader to scroll down the list of their “achievements” using the grammar checking app. The call-to-action button is placed right at the bottom, inviting the user to upgrade to a premium version to enable them to use the app with no limits on the number of times.

The checklist to make a good email design may not be exhaustive but contains the most important and relevant points that help you craft your email campaign on the right lines. The examples listed above are picked from a vast list and should give you a good idea about how a good email design can help you with your marketing efforts.

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