You probably already know you should be doing more email marketing. The return on investment is huge, and it’s one of the best ways to build customer relationships. But every time you go to write an email to your prospects and customers, you hesitate. After all, how are you supposed to compete with all these beautiful, highly polished email campaigns that you see every day?
If so, you’re not alone. Email design can feel overwhelming, like some sort of secret skill that only the best marketers have mastered.
However, email design doesn’t have to be complicated. You don’t need a degree in graphic design or a massive marketing budget.
A clear message in a clean, consistent layout will perform far better than a confusing email filled with fancy banners and complex widgets. In most cases, your email marketing software is more than enough to create captivating emails that get your customers’ attention.
In this article, you’ll learn what good email design looks like, why simpler emails often perform better and how to write a high-performing email.
Benefits of simple email design
People’s inboxes are full of bold, visually impressive emails, with animated graphics and elaborate layouts. For global companies with big budgets, those kinds of emails are quite effective at grabbing attention and keeping their brand top of mind.
But are they effective at building one-to-one connections?
In contrast, think about the emails you enjoy reading. They feel as though they came from a real person, even when they come from a business. That’s a small business’s biggest advantage: your emails can feel personal in a way that those global brands can only imagine.
Good email design complements your message, making it easier to understand rather than burying it behind fancy graphics.
That doesn’t mean design isn’t important; professional designers bring real skill to a project. However, an overly complicated design can make your emails feel more like an advertisement than a useful message.
On the other hand, a clear message, with a clear call-to-action, in an easy-to-read layout that’s been mobile-optimized, is going to be far more effective. And the good news is you already have access to the skills and tools you need to create emails that do just that.
What professional email design actually needs
There are lots of different elements that can go into a branded email design. For most small businesses though, three brand basics are enough:
- Your logo helps readers recognize your business. When your readers see your logo pop up in their email, it reminds them who you are and (hopefully) all the good experiences they’ve previously had.
- Your brand colors add familiarity to your emails. Using the colors associated with your brand helps readers recognize you and reassures them they’re in the right place.
- Your font can impact the way your message is received. Many business owners don’t give it a second thought, but different fonts affect whether your message feels modern or classic, formal or friendly.
The chances are that you already have those in place, so you don’t need to worry about creating any fresh assets.
Then, just use Transpond’s Campaign Builder to add those elements to your emails. The Brand Analyzer scans your website and automatically pulls your logo, colors and fonts through, all ready to use.
You can then save those choices in your global brand settings. Set them up once, and they can be applied to every email you write, giving you a consistent email design without any extra work.
How to create professional emails, even if you don’t have design skills
Once you’ve got your branding in place, Campaign Builder helps you turn your message into a polished email. Here’s how, in three simple steps:
Start with an email template
A template is a ready-made email layout that you fill in with your own words and images.
With Campaign Builder’s professionally designed template library, you don’t have to stare at a blank screen trying to work out where everything should go. Instead, you can choose a template from over a dozen different categories, so there’s bound to be one that suits your message.
The layout decisions have already been made; all you need to do is produce the copy and drop it into the email marketing template in place of the sample content. And if writing isn’t your area of expertise, Transpond’s AI Content Assistant’s there to help.
Build your email with drag-and-drop elements
A drag-and-drop editor lets you build your emails visually. Text, images, headings and buttons appear as blocks, which you can then click on and freely move about the page.
For example, imagine you’re writing an email to announce your new product. The template’s great, but you want some extra images to show off how good the product looks. Just click on the image block, drag it to where you want it to show up in your email, then upload your product image.
It’s all done in a couple of clicks, with zero coding skills needed.
Check how your email looks on different devices
According to a recent DMA report, 79% of people use their phone to get emails from brands, shops and websites, so your email design must look good on small screens. However, there are other devices too, like tablets, laptops, and desktops with widescreen monitors. If you don’t want to alienate your audience, you need to make sure your email appears properly on screens of all sizes.
Fortunately, you don’t have to worry about every potential screen your email might appear on. Campaign Builder does the hard work for you, using responsive designs that automatically change the layout to fit the screen.
If you want to double-check how things will look on different devices, you can use the preview feature to see how the layout will look on desktop, tablet and mobile. You can also send a test email to a chosen email address or preview how it will look for specific contacts.
Try it out for yourself with a free Transpond account today.
Five email design principles to use in every message
Before you hit send, use these five simple principles to make your email clearer, easier to read, and more likely to get the response you want.
1. Give each email one job to do
Every email should have one primary purpose. Before you write a single word, ask yourself what you’re trying to accomplish. For example, you might be trying to book a meeting, make a sale, or simply start a conversation.
While it might be tempting to try and use one email for multiple goals, that usually ends up diluting your message and confusing your reader. A focused email is easier to understand and act on.
2. Use one clear call to action
A call to action (CTA) is where you tell the reader what you want them to do next.
If you’ve followed the above advice and chosen one goal for your email, your CTA will naturally follow on from that. So, your CTA could be something like “Book a meeting”, “Buy now” or “Get in touch”.
Some people hesitate to include a CTA in their emails because they worry it will sound pushy, but a good CTA isn’t about pressuring the reader. Instead, it removes the guesswork and makes it easy for interested readers to take the next step.
Make the CTA stand out, either as a button or a clear link, and use wording that explains exactly what happens after someone clicks.
3. Make the message easy to scan
It’s nice to think that most readers avidly read every line of your email. The truth is that they’re more likely to be skimming through it, probably on their phone, with a hundred distractions in the background. The DMA report also found that people spend an estimated average of just 11 seconds looking at a brand email.
By making your email easy to scan, your recipients can quickly grasp what it’s about and whether it’s something they need to give their full attention to.
For example, rather than giving readers a long wall of text, use short, snappy paragraphs with plenty of space between them. Use descriptive headings to signal what each section is about and make sure any buttons or links are obvious.
4. Write a compelling subject line
Your subject line is the shortest part of your message, but it’s also the most important. The subject line is one of the biggest factors in whether your email gets opened or ignored.
Keep it short enough so that the whole line shows up on small screens. After all, the best subject line in the world won’t help if half of it’s cut off. As a general rule, aim for under 50 characters.
As for the line itself, aim for something that you’d genuinely say if you were speaking to the person face to face. Avoid any clickbait or misleading claims; they might get the message opened, but a reader who feels tricked is more likely to block you than buy from you.
Ultimately, the best subject lines give the recipient a real reason to open the email. What will they learn? What’s the value to them? How will this email make their day better?
5. Add relevant personalization
Tailor each email to the person reading it. The easiest way to do this is with merge tags. A merge tag is placeholder text that Transpond replaces with information from each contact’s record.
For example, you might use the {{FirstName}} merge tag when writing your email, which Transpond will then replace with each recipient’s name. You can use merge tags to add any information that you’ve collected, such as the recipient’s job title, their location, or even their favorite sports team.
Personalization goes beyond adding someone’s name. Almost 81% of consumers say content tailored to their interests was important when deciding which emails to open. Using a recipient’s name is great, but if they don’t feel like the rest of the message is relevant, then it won’t do you any good. Best practice is to use segmentation to divide your audience into smaller groups based on shared interests, characteristics or previous actions, then send each group only the messages that are related to them.
Bonus tip: Before you hit send, try reading your message out loud. Do you feel comfortable saying it? Does it sound like you? If so, great. However, if it sounds more like a press release, or it’s too salesy, then it’s time to rewrite.
What really matters to your email recipients
To be clear, we love a beautiful email design. Bespoke professional design can still be appropriate for major brand launches or unusual creative projects.
However, it’s not necessary for your day-to-day email marketing. The lack of a professional email designer should never hold you back from reaching out to your prospects and customers.
In fact, when you have an email marketing platform that handles the branding and layout for you, you then have more time and budget to spend on the places that make your emails more effective. You can focus on understanding your customers, choosing relevant topics and creating useful offers.
You can write a message that’s truly worth reading.
Get more email design tips from our free marketing guide
Great-looking emails are one piece of a working marketing system. The SMB marketing blueprint covers the rest: organizing contacts, automating follow-ups, and the five emails every small service business should send.