When a reader opens an email, the first thing they notice is the design. If they like it, they read the text and ideally take the target action. If not, they close the email without even scrolling to the end. So to make the first scenario more likely for your company's campaigns, it's essential to work on the visual design first.
In this article, we'll explain how to design newsletters. We'll also share a tip that will help you put together high-converting emails in 15 minutes.
The main thing is the email's structure
When you design a newsletter, your task is to smoothly guide the reader toward the call-to-action element. You can use various design approaches for this.
The inverted pyramid. This is a principle for structuring an email that works equally well in both text and design. The core idea is to arrange blocks in order of decreasing emphasis. That is, a wide banner with the reader's main benefit should come first, followed by a text block with details, and finally a call-to-action button.
An example of the inverted-pyramid design principle from M.Video. The blocks are arranged in decreasing order, so the reader moves smoothly from the beginning to the end of the email.
The optimal number of columns. Subscribers respond much better to single-column emails — this is especially true for smartphone users. That's because it's more convenient to read emails where information flows one after another, rather than jumping from side to side. This nuance doesn't apply to product grids — slightly different rules apply there.
The grid in email design. A properly built grid with products or any other content lets you draw the reader's attention to the most important information.
You can see how grid layout works in an example campaign from CDEK.
The second important aspect of email design is text formatting
Here's the main rule to remember: one email — one idea. Don't cram every possible promotion, great offer, and discount into an email, the way Lamoda does in some of its emails.
Besides the hodgepodge of offers, there's another mistake in this campaign's design: in the subject line, the company writes «Secret 22% discount», but places information about that discount only on the second banner — which is only visible after scrolling.
When formatting text visually, don't forget about formatting itself: use headings, highlight information with bullet points, and break the text into paragraphs. Because customers won't read a solid wall of text, like the one HSE uses.
The third design element is illustrations
Images in an email aren't there just for looks — they're mainly there to create a clear, well-organized structure for the campaign.
One content block — one image. This helps focus the reader's attention and avoids overwhelming them with excess information. If your email has a lot of text, it's better to break it up with icons and other small elements rather than full illustrations.
Choose an email background that won't blend in with the image's background. If the image shows a light sky, the email background should be darker, so the illustration's edges remain visible.
Don't leave images «floating». Campaigns often use photos of people cropped at the waist — in this case, the cropped edge should blend with a line or other objects to disguise the incompleteness of the image. Here's how Megamarket did it.
To sum up
There are many nuances in designing email campaigns, so if you build every email from scratch chasing perfection, you can spend an entire workday on it. It's much easier to build a great master template once — it will cut down email prep time and account for all the details of your brand style. Plus, it will let you create emails without a designer's help. Pretty great, right?
If you want your competitors to look up to your emails, come get a custom template design for your campaign at Letteros.
Check out our best master template projects via this link.