Design means far more than just the visual
I’m sure you will agree that companies send out emails with the object of marketing their company. They then get a designer to create the email without consulting the marketing guys. So we recommend that they (and you ) get those two people together and, with their different ideas, pull together to create a newsletter that is not only visually appealing but one that is targeted to your readers.
The visual:
Whilst looks are important, they are not the be-all and end-all. Looks are only important to recipients who OPEN your email. More important is what they see before they reveal your email - the [from] and [subject] lines that display in their inbox! If it doesn’t appeal they may not reveal – in fact they may delete it altogether.
When designing your newsletter we recommend that you consider the reader – what you think is current, exciting or easy to use, may not be their opinion. It’s important to consider what makes them tick. Getting that right is the difference between having your email read in detail or assigned summarily to the deleted items folder.
Best Practice:
It’s always best to follow industry best practice with all your marketing campaigns, but as these are guidelines, not rules, you may find yourself on an odd occasion wanting to do something really different with your design. Who knows…… maybe it will grab the attention of your readers and make them think that you have the best design team around. And even if it generates a drop in readership you’ll notice that in your stats as well and maybe go back to the ‘old’ design. Handy things those stats!
Here’s a handy article by email marketing guru Mark Brownlow who recommends taking a further look at changing that rule book – it’s well worth a read.
Targeting:
For an email marketing campaign to be effective we need to research our subscribers to discover what is of interest to them. Questionnaires and A/B split testing both help in the research but the best way is to contact them directly; talk to them and bear in mind as they answer, that they are not email marketers and their answers may be geared toward pleasing you rather than giving you honest appraisal
The BIG Picture:
In an ideal world our subscribers open, read and are driven to action and click the links. It’s important then, that the landing page destination reflects the same high visual standard that you’ve set in your newsletter. This attention will enhance your company image and encourage your readers to become customers as they come to appreciate the entire experience.
On the point of experiences, we’ve repeatedly mentioned social media integration – and you’ve no doubt been seeing more about it in other media. If you are now, or are thinking about using social media it’s important to remind yourself that not everything that you share is relevant to your emails and also how clear is your call to action in your email going to be. Taking time to decide on such things as the placing and prominence of the social media icons in order to reflect your presence there.
These are only a small number of pointers to help maximise the impact of your newsletters. Keep them in your mind when designing future newsletters.
Whilst this may have given you more to think about regarding the creation of your newsletter, the actual design need not be so time consuming - check out our super drag-and-drop editor.
Take a few minutes to check out our template library . From classic to trendy - from sophisticated to funky. Check them out, you’ll find one for every industry or occasion.
