The Ultimate Guide to Email Design Best Practices

Email marketing isn’t going anywhere. In fact, for every $1 you spend on email marketing, you can expect a return of $42, and that number is only growing faster each year. But how do you get people to actually read your messages and, ideally, convert? The answer: email design. 

As a marketer, email is an essential ingredient for the health of your business. To thrive and cook up a campaign that’s worthwhile, keep up with the ever-changing email design best practices. In this guide, we provide the lowdown on email design and optimization so you can leverage the email design best practices of 2022 to wow your customers and boost conversions. 

What is email design?

Email design is the development of an email through strategic designing that ultimately engages and resonates with your business’s target audience. Your email design should be eye-catching and optimized for all email subscribers. 

How can great email design benefit you?

Strong email design has the ability to significantly impact your email marketing metrics. An engaging, attention-grabbing email brings plenty of benefits to your business including: 

• Increasing audience engagement and excitement
• Building brand awareness and recognition
• Establishing credibility with audience
• Boosting conversion rates

Email design helps both your business and your audience, it’s a win-win.

Email Design Best Practices

Expert graphic design skills aren’t needed to create impactful email designs, just follow along with these best practices and you’ll be banking on the benefits that we shared above. 

Email Layout and Structure 

The way you structure your email will depend on what type of message you’re sending. A transactional email, an email newsletter and a DEM email (direct email marketing) are all very different and your layout needs to reflect that. In this section, we’ll explore email types and other practices that address email layout and structure. 

Email Types

• Welcome Series: New customers or visitors? Introduce your business with 3-5 engaging emails.
• Re-engagement: Send emails to inactive subscribers to draw them back into why your product or service will fulfill their needs. 
• Promotional: Promote your product or service with the customer in mind. How can you help solve their problem
• Seasonal: The holidays bring people together. Take advantage of this open door to connect with your customers during holidays throughout the year. 
• Survey: Ask your customers for feedback. Send a survey to gauge how they feel about your product/service or on specifics like new features you recently launched. 
• Events (Webinar): Share details of big events your business is putting on like webinars, IG lives or even workshops. 
• Drip Sequence: Automate a limited number of emails to your customers on set times based on their specific actions
• Updates/Announcements: Transparency is key. Share your product updates, important changes or announcements and new feature launches with strong communicative emails.

Now that you have some options of email types to send, here are a few tips to keep in mind as you begin to structure your messages:

Email Layout

The layout of an email has a big impact on whether people will actually read it. Keep the following in mind as you consider your email layout options:

• Modular structure. An email with a modular structure is mobile responsive and adaptable. It ensures that recipients can view the message on any device.
  
  Tip: Your email should also be no more than 600 pixels wide so people don’t have to scroll horizontally.

 

• Orientation. The orientation of your email needs to cater to peoples’ reading habits. To make your email scannable, try using an inverted pyramid layout, Gutenberg diagram, F-pattern or Z-pattern (see detailed descriptions below).
  
  Tip: Clear subheadings and bulleted lists can help.

 

• Rule of three. Another way to keep your email layout simple and skimmable is to focus on three main email design elements.
  
  Tip: Focusing on the headline, body copy and CTA keep emails visible and clear. 

Email Orientation

When it comes to email orientation, try these layouts:

Inverted pyramid email layout

An inverted pyramid email uses an upside-down triangle as its guide: It grabs your attention with a broad headline, explains more with a few lines of copy and then narrows in on the main CTA. This MealPal email showcases an inverted pyramid layout.

Subject line: STOP waiting in line and get 40% off

Gutenberg diagram email layout 

The Gutenberg diagram divides your email layout into a grid with four sections — primary optical (top left), strong fallow area (top right), weak fallow area (bottom left) and terminal area (bottom right). People’s eyes generally move in this pattern as they read, so using the Gutenberg diagram can ensure your email is easy to skim.

Source image

Z-pattern email layout

The Z-pattern email layout is effective because the zigzag pattern follows the path most readers’ eyes will take. Z-pattern messages are a great option for simple emails without much copy, where you’d like to highlight the CTA. Here’s an example of a Z-pattern:

Subject line: Load up on all your grooming essentials

F-pattern email layout

Another common scanning pattern is the F-pattern, in which readers’ eyes move across the page in the shape of an F. With this pattern, people tend to catch the top headline, any bullet points on the left side of the page and subheadlines across the page.

Subject line: New arrivals | Sets to love

Email layout is an essential step in email design best practices. Choosing the right layout can make an enormous difference in how likely your customers are to convert.

Email structure

Now getting into email structure, it’s important to have these main elements optimized in your designs as well. 

Header

A good email header gives the recipient important information about the sender, including the subject line, sender name and send date. Your preheader text is also a great place to include information that entices the reader to click. We loved the preheader text from this Pai Skincare email: “Bye dryness, hi hydration.”

Subject line: NEW hydration minis are here

Body

The body text of your email should be engaging and personal, accurately representing your company’s personality and making a connection with the reader. Be clear about what you’re asking the reader to do and stay focused on your main message. This message from Harry’s establishes the point of the email in the subject line and keeps the body copy aligned with the theme. The copy is clever and fun to read, getting the point across without being too promotional.

Subject line: Save some ?, try a new look

CTA

The header and body of your email should lead the reader straight to the CTA button. Create a sense of urgency if you’re having a sale, and prep a specific landing page for this CTA. When you design your CTA button, make sure it’s bulletproof so it will render correctly in any inbox. And keep in mind that using descriptive CTA text instead of a generic phrase (“click here”) can encourage readers to opt in. Moleskine uses the words “Personalize now,” which helps the reader envision themselves purchasing the customized product.

Subject line: Unique notes

Footer

For brands, an email footer usually includes social media links and the business’ physical address, as Skillshare does here. Solopreneurs or CEO’s might craft their footer as more of an email signature with personal contact information. The footer of your email is also required by law to include a visible unsubscribe link.

Learn more helpful footer tips in our blog post outlining best practices for email footer design.

Visual Design Elements 

When the structure of your email is ready to go, it’s time to consider what design elements to include.

Typography

Typography is an important part of your company’s visual branding. For the body of your email, use a font that’s easy to read. Consider font color, spacing and size. Don’t use more than two fonts, as to keep it on-brand so customers read it as professional. If you decide to use a custom font, preview the email on multiple devices. We love the simple but effective typography in this Tuft & Needle email.

Subject line: Save 10% on new sheet covers

Color

Color is essential when it comes to how your customers view your brand. Use a non-white background color to make your email look like one cohesive image. Then choose accent colors (such as the shade of your header or CTA button color) based on your brand colors and the email’s overall color scheme. For example, MealPal uses a pale blue background and adds a pop of color with the orange CTAs (which match the company logo at the top).

Subject line: NEW: groceries for 40% off with MealPal Market!

Animated content

GIFs and videos are popular when it comes to email design best practices. Animated GIFs can grab a reader’s attention with humor or they can demonstrate how to use your product.If you choose to include video in your emails, create educational content and post it on your website or YouTube. Many ESPs don’t allow videos to play in messages, so sharing the video link is best.

Subject line: We’ve got Mother’s Day all wrapped up

Optimize Your Email 

Your job doesn’t end once your email is structured and designed. You must also optimize the message to make sure everybody can read it.

Responsive template

A responsive email template ensures that your message will change size to be viewed on any device. Since nearly half of all email opens take place on a mobile device like a smartphone, creating responsive emails is essential. Here at BEE, we have hundreds of responsive email templates that you can use to make sure your email design is mobile-first. Other ways you can make your email responsive: Include your primary CTA above the fold (like Petco does here) and preview or test the email before sending.

Subject line: Local pickup in 1-2 hours with new Petco curbside

Accessibility

Many people consume online information in different ways due to varying physical, mental or developmental abilities. For example, someone might use a screen reader that verbally reads them the text on the screen. To make your emails accessible to everyone, use real text instead of images and structure the layout of your message so it’s simple and easy to read.

• Size all text to 14px or larger
• Add alt tags to your images to accommodate anyone who might not be able to see the photos or graphics; this text describes your images and is visible when the image cannot be shown (as shown in the image below). 
• Keep your contrast high so it’s easy for readers to distinguish the elements of the messages. Who Can Use, a tool that shows you how people with visual impairments view different colors, can be a huge help in making your emails accessible.

One other email accessibility best practice is to keep your image size small (around 600px). You don’t want your email to be too “heavy,” with large images that might not load on all devices and ESPs. Small images are best.

Subject line: “Super steel” breakthrough makes for stronger and tougher alloy

Inclusiveness

An inclusive email is one that takes into account the many ways in which your audience is diverse — from gender and race to ability, culture, age and more. Your customer base isn’t made up of just one type of person, so your marketing emails shouldn’t address only one type either. Do your photos show people of different races, genders and abilities? Does your language reflect the reader’s location and any potential cultural differences? If you’re not sure, find someone who can look over the emails and let you know. Your company can also focus on hiring people with diverse backgrounds to help create content that’s truly made for everybody.

Subject line: Your practice, made softer-than-soft

Test your email

Don’t send your email without testing it first to make sure you catch any mistakes. Testing your email can confirm whether your message is mobile responsive. It also gives you a final chance to take in your color choices, images and text all together. When you design with the BEE Pro, you can easily test your email when you’re through designing by sending it to yourself or previewing it on mobile (both found under the “Actions” tab in the upper left-hand corner of the editor). Most ESPs have built-in testing options too.

In addition to testing your email with an internal review, consider running A/B tests where two groups of subscribers receive slightly different emails. By doing this, you can see which variations of the message get the most opens.

Single CTA

As much as possible, stay focused on the message you want to send. Multiple CTAs in an email can actually hurt your conversion rate — having too many choices is overwhelming. Think about your primary goal for conversion (is it most important to you that people visit your website or social media?) and add that link to a single CTA. Then use CTA button design best practices to make your call to action as effective as possible.

Subject line: Hello, holidays! From our FreshFarm to yours 

Wrap-Up: Optimize Your Email Design With BEE Pro

Ready to create some effective emails? Try BEE Pro. Our hundreds of drag-and-drop, customizable email templates can give you a launchpad. Or opt for a blank template to design your own email from the ground up — no coding knowledge required. Put the email design best practices you’ve learned into action and start designing today.

 

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