How to Make Mailing More Beautiful: Top Tips from Designers for 2023

    by Ira Byvalkevich
    17.03.2023

    13 tips
    We believe that more attention should be paid to the email design. Why? The truth is that email recipients often scan information visually and abandon those emails that rather don’t visually appeal than offer them any value. Simply put, presentation is vital. Too dense, saturated or shallow design may spoil the first reader’s impression.

    ‘Email design campaign experts says visually appealing email designs and flawless code are the basis in creating perfect emails.’

    A good email uses design to improve the content. The content of your email really should have some mass. Connecting with your customers through the content in your emails can lead to increased customer engagement and good sales results. So if you feel like you're trying to squish and squeeze your content into a certain format - there is a better way! That's why having great email design is so important — it'll help you to capture their attention and engage your email recipients. Good design also helps make sure you can deliver your message to the target audience as quickly and succinctly as possible.

     

    Top tips from email designers [Update 2023]

    After having surveyed a couple of the most resourceful email design geeks, we have mined their brains for know-how and gathered all the data. Here’s the best of pro-tips they have provided.

    1# Keep it clear.

    Interactive elements, hamburger menus, navigation bars, animated GIFs — it’s all part of the email design mash-up now. Nevertheless, if you use animation, the first frame of the GIF should reveal its essence.

     netflix
    Only show the first frame. Make sure subscribers understand the meaning of the GIF from it.

    2#Stay on brand.

    As a marketer or email designer, do everything in your power to align your email designing with your brand. Create an email template with a header and footer in corporate colours. This saves time. The layout can be used for different types of mailings then.

    Here, each of the samples is made in corporate colours, using their established fonts & adding their logos on the top which makes it a classy branded mail, easy to recognize, and their readers among all the rest:

    branded

    All three - beautifully branded email templates

    3# No single-picture emails.

    It’s not advised to create letters with one image any more. The point is that the majority of providers automatically may send spam emails that are laid out in one picture. No wonder, spam is always done with the minimum input. So, don’t confuse anyone with easy single-picture emails. Add some more. Put more effort into design.


    Such emails are considered unacceptable now. The content may not be visible

    4 # Mind the reading patterns.

    Apply UX principles. Most subscribers are considered to use an F-shaped reading pattern. Here’s how Nielsen Norman Group defines it:

    Users first read in a horizontal movement, usually across the upper part of the content area. Next, users move down the page a bit and then read across in a second horizontal movement that typically covers a shorter area than the previous movement, etc.

    Keep this in mind when posting content to your email and making email templates.

    fpatetrn

    Here’s how an F-reading pattern is defined & used by search engines

    f-shaped-pattern-reading-3-1024x1024

    and here’s how your email is preliminary scanned by the reader

    5# Work out your templates

    When inserting dynamic blocks, make sure that the amount of content matches the size of the layout. If there is more content, the blocks will overlap. If less, there will be a lot of empty space. This basic rule will save your day.

    newcut

    Beautifully filled email space with appropriate density

    6# Make the font bigger.

    Play with fonts, but mindfully. Try to use 1-2 safe fonts in one post. Large line height makes your email stand out, easy and comfortable to read. The ease of reading and the overall impression of writing depends on it. In a nutshell, the font should be larger than 16 pixels, but not less. And ideally, 20 pixels are good for a desktop.

    font bigegr
    Source: https://sparkmailapp.com/blog/dynamic-fonts

    7# Think hard before adding a navigation bar

    Yes, they’re popular & get clicks. But are they a good thing? In fact, they may signalize that the content in the email is not important enough or good enough to get the user to click anywhere else but the navbar. False expectations. Make sure your content is well-targeted. You won’t need any navigation then.

    bodencut

    Navigation bars spoil your email UX rather than bring extra clicks

    In this sample, the information seems to be hidden from the reader behind those links WOMEN, MEN, GIRLS, etc. This makes an impression of much about nothing. Users do not like offers that are hard to reach out to or impossible to get immediately. Websites are made for personal offer search with navigation bars, not emails.

    8# Stick to one-column templates.

    Mobile devices nowadays prevail. Users stick to their mobile devices everywhere anytime. So, with this layout, it will be easier and faster to create a letter for mobile applications. They will look good if adjusted to mobile.

    web mobile emial1

    Even if opened on mobile, the reader’s focus still remains in the centre

    9# Big buttons are good, too.

    People usually use their thumbs to push those buttons. They may be pudgy, clumsy, big, thumbs. So make sure your buttons are large enough to accommodate them. According to Apple’s guidelines, 44 pixels are perfect. Google calls for 48 pixels. Anyway, keep that in mind when designing your buttons for emails.

    big button

    Rather a big & clear bright button used

    10# Maintain visual hierarchy.

    Not every subscriber will read your emails from beginning to end. Bring important information to the first screen so that more people understand what the message is about. Format the text to make it easier to read: add subheadings, lists, break them down by paragraphs. Add good design and UX.

    hierarchy

    Beautifully designed UX template from MailChimp

    11# Do A/B design tests.

    As there may be an A/B tested content, there should be the same tested design. The benefits of A/B testing subject lines or texts and CTAs are well known. Extend this priority to design to get better results.

    12# Stay bold.

    It means that you may either add some elements your competitors do or simply new things. But as you develop your email skills, always try stale design choices if experimentation could produce better results than with your competitors.

    13# Research & learn about email design.

    Feel free to keep learning about design innovations and so much more. Email designers are a small, great friendly community, and a mighty one. There’s so much you can learn from them. Seek great resources and updates from out there regularly to stay tuned into the email design updates.

    Here’s a checklist for useful reading from Mail Chimp email designers on how to embrace scrappy and hacky emails:

    Check them out to see if they may be useful for your daily email designing routine in a variety of marketing purposes. 

    How to make emails more beautiful with Atomic Software

    Find out how to make your emails more attractive and efficient with our Atomic Software solutions. Create wonderful emails and warm up your customers to turn them into leads. Turn your target audience into real customers only by using e-mail and SMS mailing solutions all-in-one. Atomic Mailer is just the one.

    To create a beautiful email:

    1) Launch the program to set up your personalized email templates. Usually, a letter is a continuation of the site. It uses the same fonts, the same logos, and colour combinations. With mail personalization options it will be easier to create emails for subscribers to recognize you among the other incoming mail.

    2) So, enter the message text, your company logo, and design in the “Message Edit window”. The “Insert” / “Email merge data” menu is added where you can easily insert various data fields. This way you preserve the corporate style, & stick to the brand message, etc.

    The elements of a letter include:

    • Sender name.
    • Subject line.
    • A preheader, which is the fragment of the text after the subject.
    • Letterhead with a logo, company name, slogan, link to the website.
    • The body of the letter, that is, everything below.
    • Footer is the last block of the letter with contacts, social media buttons, etc.
    • Don’t forget your Signature.

    pasted image 0

    3) Fill in the Subject line, text of your email, add variables if needed, apply design template and branded elements. Insert social media buttons, etc. You may experiment with your mail contents based on them later on and check if the mailing was a success. 

    4) Apply ready-made responsive HTML email templates with adoptive design, created for Atomic Mail Sender by AtomPark Software. You may save your time & effort till you learn how to design exclusive templates on your own.

    5) You may also check whether your email design & content passes Spam filters. For this Atomic Mail Sender has the Spam Check. Click on it and get a score. The lower the score is, the higher the chance of hitting the Inbox. 

    You may easily preview your email message design by sending one to the active test sender's email address.

    Conclusion

    Email may be hard, even with recent advances. Nevertheless, by using superb Atomic Mail Sender functions, it will be easier to design email beautifully and impress your audience. Universal programs for email newsletter designing like Atomic Mail Sender and great personalization features keeps your email designing embracing scrappy and hacky to improve your email marketing results in no time.

    Use well-designed mailings to increase the click-through rate with us!

    Written by:
    Ira Byvalkevich
    Back to blog
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