How to Design Eye‑Catching Marketing Emails

What is email marketing design?

Despite how easy it is to write an email, email marketing is more complicated than you may have thought. When you send an email out, there’s a chance some people won’t see it because it will go to their spam folder. Even if your emails make it to readers’ inboxes, people might not click those emails if they don’t see a subject line or something else that grabs their attention. Email marketing design is the process of carefully crafting and designing emails to make sure they’re eye-catching, easy to read, and not full of fluff.

For the most part, email marketing design is about the actual appearance of your emails more than the content. There are lots of different ways you can lay out text, images, and other important information, and the way you design your emails determines how quickly they catch the eye, how readable they are, and more.

There are tons of benefits of learning email marketing design, especially if you have an email newsletter or another email campaign you’re working on. People don’t spend a lot of time reading emails, especially if those emails aren’t personal or expected. A well-designed email helps you convey all the important information and highlight that information so that it’s easy to read. A good email design guide can help you learn how to use email marketing to boost your brand, attract new customers, and build rapport with customers.

Email marketing design fundamentals

Just because you’re not an email marketing master doesn’t mean you’re out of luck. There are tons of great resources that can help you learn email marketing design, including guides and courses you can follow along with. Even learning some of the basic email marketing design fundamentals can help you craft better emails that are attention-grabbing and easy to read.

Stick to your brand

First and foremost, your emails should sound like they’re coming from your brand. The goal of email marketing is to strengthen your brand and build a list of subscribers who are interested in your products or services. Don’t be afraid to use your brand’s voice and tone, make sure you include your company logo, colors, name, and anything else that helps solidify your brand.

Write a good subject line

If you want your emails to catch readers’ attention, you need to make sure you’re starting with a catchy subject line. Your subject line should be short and sweet, but it should also be attention-grabbing and give the readers an idea of what your email is about. This is your very first chance to grab people’s attention, so always make sure your subject line is good before you send an email.

Personalize emails

People don’t want to feel like they’re being spammed or sold to, so try to add a personal touch to emails. Even simply including customers’ names instead of using “valued customer” or a similar term makes your email feel more personal. And with email automation tools that allow you to automatically include customers’ names in emails, this is a lot easier than it sounds.

Include visual elements

Staring down a wall of text can be intimidating, so it’s important to find ways to break up your emails and make them a little easier to read. Including visual elements such as graphics and videos is a great way to break up the text of an email. Even better, you can use graphics to contextualize your email, such as including a chart or graph that shows how much better your new product or website is going to perform.

Just remember, you don’t want to overload your emails with visual elements that hinder readability. Keep it simple, but spice things up a bit when you can.

Be clear and concise

Most people have a lot of emails to deal with on a daily or weekly basis, which means people don’t have time to thoroughly read long emails. As tempting as it may be to include as much information as possible, try to keep your emails clear and concise so you’re not losing readers’ attention. Introduce the topic of the email, tell readers what they need to know about that topic, then use a call to action to close out your email. Short and sweet is the way to go when it comes to email marketing.

Use responsive designs

Bad email design can make your emails nearly impossible to read on some devices, but you can avoid that by using responsive designs that can adapt to fit different devices and resolutions. One easy way to make sure your designs are responsive is to use email templates, which you can customize to fit your content without sacrificing responsiveness.

End with a call to action

At the end of your emails, you should include a call to action that encourages the reader to take action. You can encourage readers to contact you to learn more, visit your store to check out a new product, or sign up for the new program you’re offering. While a call to action is a good way to encourage readers to take action, you don’t want to sound too pushy.

Include an unsubscribe button

As important as a call to action is for business emails, the unsubscribe button is just as important. In fact, FTC law states that you must include a clear unsubscribe link or button when you’re sending commercial emails. This allows readers to stop receiving emails if they’re no longer interested. Make sure your unsubscribe link or button is easy to find.

A/B test your emails

The last thing you want to do to ensure a successful email campaign is to A/B test your emails. You can do this by sending one version of an email out to half of your subscribers, and another version to the other half. Once you’ve done that, you can look at the results of each email, such as how many readers are responding to your email or making a purchase based on what they’ve read.

A/B testing is an important part of figuring out what works for your subscribers, that way you can focus on delivering quality content.

How to design the perfect email

Understanding how to design a marketing email means following the best design practices. The best email designs are concise, easy to read, attention-grabbing, and readable across various email clients. Here are some tips to help you improve your campaign email design.

Mailchimp design tools

If you find email marketing design difficult, Mailchimp design tools are a great way to make things easier for yourself. With Mailchimp, you can choose from a wide range of templates, including newsletters and other email marketing templates. You don’t need to know how to code or do anything fancy with these templates.

Mailchimp also makes email marketing easier through automation. With Mailchimp, it’s easy to deliver personalized emails to all your subscribers to make them feel more important. We even offer webinars, Mailchimp Academy, and other resources to help you learn more about email marketing and how to get the most out of your email marketing campaign.

Design attracts more customers

It’s no secret that internet marketing can be incredibly lucrative for businesses, and that includes email marketing. With a solid email marketing design and an effective campaign, you can attract more customers, inform current customers about new products, and build a list of subscribers that you can use to grow your business.

If your emails are missing the mark a bit, Mailchimp can help. With Mailchimp Academy, you can learn the basics of email marketing design and how to design better emails. Mailchimp design tools such as our classic builder allow you to find templates and edit them to fit your needs. If you want to take your email marketing campaign to the next level, try Mailchimp today.