By now, everyone knows that email marketing is essentially sending bulk emails to capture the attention of your potential customers. That’s why the way you approach your email marketing design is crucial to the success of your campaign. In this post, we’ll cover the key factors that will make your email marketing campaign as effective as possible.
So, let’s dive right into the list of ingredients you’ll need for this recipe.
Key elements of effective email marketing design
Always ask for permission first
This is critical: anyone receiving your email campaign should be informed that they’ll be getting marketing emails from your company. You need to get their consent—whether through an online form, a form filled out in person, or, if you must, at least by asking via a formal email.
It’s incredibly annoying to get emails from companies you’ve never heard of, with offers you don’t care about. Here’s a shoutout to those PERSISTENT folks who keep spamming us about homebrewing beer.
Craft a compelling subject line
Let’s be honest. We’re constantly bombarded with emails from companies trying to sell us something—most of which we never even open. That’s why choosing the right subject line is so important; it’s the first hurdle your email has to clear.
If you’re offering something valuable and make that clear in the subject, your chances of getting your email opened go way up.
Offer something of value
Your email campaign will be much more effective if it provides something genuinely interesting to the recipient. You can offer discounts on your products, special deals, or free downloads. People love free stuff, great deals, and being the first to know.
Focus on visual marketing
Please, don’t send a novel in your email marketing campaign. Keep it visual—people don’t want to read a wall of text. Give them just enough information, and if they want to read more, they’ll pick up a book.
Be original with your campaign design
Along the same lines, try to stand out from your competitors. Use visual tricks, wordplay, or anything that helps you grab the attention of your potential customers. In future posts, we’ll share a roundup of creative and original email campaigns that have inspired us—feel free to use them as examples or inspiration.
Always provide an unsubscribe option
It’s essential to include an unsubscribe link in your email campaigns. First, for legal reasons—it’s absolutely required. But it’s also about ethics and professionalism. You can’t expect your recipients to stay subscribed forever just because they once thought it was a good idea. Obviously, it doesn’t need to be flashing neon, but make sure the unsubscribe button is visible—don’t hide it in tiny 9px font.
Track your results
Finally, it’s important to track the results of your email marketing campaigns. This will help you identify which areas need improvement so you can make adjustments quickly.
On average, here’s what you can expect for open rates, clicks, and unsubscribes:
- Open rates are typically around 20%
- Clicks: 2.6%
- Unsubscribes: 0.22%
If you want to see more detailed stats, check out the following link for user behavior by industry sector. The data is provided by MailChimp, the leading software for email marketing.
https://mailchimp.com/resources/research/email-marketing-benchmarks/