When it comes to email marketing, you don’t have to be a professional designer to create professional-looking email marketing messages. You can use templates from an email marketing service provider to create your own unique emails. SubscriberMail (www.subscribermail.com) is one such company in which you can have total creative authority, or you can turn over your authority to a pro email designer. You can design your emails to look like one of your flyers or you can use a step-by-step wizard to fill out a template.
If you’re going to create your own email marketing messages, here are some tips to follow to make sure you get great results.
Include your logo on each email in the same location. Keeping your logo in the same location, generally in the header or somewhere near the top, helps you build your brand memorability.
Design with the preview pane in mind. Many of your recipients will have the ability to preview your message in their preview pane. This means you need to get all of your important info and your attention-grabbing headline in the top section of your email. Don’t make people scroll down to get to your message; most of them will delete your message after just previewing the top of it if it doesn’t “speak” to them.
Avoid color overload. You might be tempted to use several colors in your email because you don’t have to pay for printing all those pretty colors, but resist that temptation! Many colors will look too busy and distracting. You should use your primary brand color(s) and maybe one or two other complementary colors.
Don’t use too many fonts. Use a max of two fonts in your marketing emails. You should use one for the body text and one for the headline, attention-grabbing text. Serif fonts like Times New Roman work better for body text than sans serif fonts like Arial. Serif fonts (with feet) are easier to read in a smaller size than sans serif (without feet) fonts.
Get to the point quickly. Many people scan emails for the important info and then delete it without reading it all. Use your headlines effectively to convey the benefits of your product or service.
Keep your text and images separate. Many programs allow you to embed your text into photos, which can look really cool, but not everyone’s email supports images. If the email service thinks your email is spam, or if it doesn’t recognize your return email address, it won’t display your images. A lot of text can get lost and never be seen. Make all of your main points in text.
Include a call to action. Emails that are cluttered are hard to read and can bury the main message. The goal of your email is to get readers to take some kind of action, so clearly include a call to action. This call to action should be on its own line of text – don’t include it in the middle or end of a long paragraph. (You also shouldn’t have long paragraphs – shorter paragraphs are easier on the eyes on screen.)
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Great points in your post. The best advice I ever heard regarding emails was to keep it as simple as possible. Use a simple design following the points you went over above, without any distractions. Remember to keep the message simple as well. Only ask people to do one thing. Simplicity is the key.