How to Design For Email Marketing

What is Email Design?

Email is a powerful marketing tool. It is the most direct, cost-effective way to reach your customers. Designing an email is a creative process. It requires balancing visual design with content and functionality.

The Emails Resolution Size

The first thing to consider is the resolution size. When designing an email, it is important to make sure that the design is not too high of a resolution because the email will take too long to load and the customer will get irritated and close the email. The ideal size of the whole email should be between 75KB to 102KB

Using pngs is a great way to keep the images small while keeping high quality. Video and animations should be made into gifs for the same reason.

Designing Emails For Screen Size

Designing for the right device size is crucial for email marketing. Some images will have to be created in two sizes one for desktops and one for phones. When using text in images keep in mind the width of your column as well as how large your font size is. This is where creating two sizes is important so that the content is always readable.

Email Design Composition For Readability

Emails must be well-designed in order to be readable, and easy to scan and understand. Starting the email off with an image is a great way to get the reader's attention. Especially if there is a coupon or sale being promoted.

Hierarchy is important to help the reader get through the information quickly. Long multi-paragraph sections will make the reader pass over it and will fail to get the information you are providing. The best way is to break up the text into sections, the most important at the top, and funnel the less important information down. Headers, subheaders, changing the size, boldness, and kerning of text, and placing images or icons in between sections are all forms of hierarchy and are very effective at grabbing the attention of the reader.

Colors, Fonts & Images To Use In Email Design

In order to create an email that is both professional and readable, you need to use the right colors, fonts, and images. Like everything with branding the colors, font, and image style you use should reflect the company's brand guidelines to have a cohesive brand throughout the business.

Fonts in emails can be challenging because not everyone’s computer has the creative fonts of your branding. Most email marketing platforms allow fonts to be added but it's not always a sure thing that the reader will see the email in that font, so for a backup font choose one that is easy to read and matches your branding style.

Finally, make sure that you are using your company's style images preferably ones that are clean with no distracting backgrounds. These images are the best for text overlays or promotional graphics. Images play a big role in the overall look of the email and the aspect customers will pay attention to the most.