How to create the perfect email newsletter

Email newsletters play an important part in maintaining a modern brand image. Professional newsletter design shows that your company is credible, builds relationships with your users and generates interest in new products, services or events.

Most customers receive dozens of emails every day so your newsletter has to stand out. Every detail matters from the email subject lines to what the customer sees the moment they click on your newsletter.

To help you, we have gathered the best tips, with newsletter examples, on how to create the best looking newsletter design.

1. Create and Maintain a Solid Brand Style

Your brand must maintain consistency across every avenue that it uses to engage with its customers. This includes your website, social media pages, email and, of course, your newsletters. Before sending anything, construct newsletter examples and look critically at every element. The font, colour scheme, image choices, design elements, all of these and more need to match those used by your brand elsewhere.

2. Simple Layouts are Better

When it comes to newsletter design, you want to find the simplest way of displaying your content. The same is true of your email subject lines. Typically, your newsletter design should incorporate one column for each major subject. The focus is on readability and mobile-friendliness. Do not use more than three columns.

3. Emphasise your Call-to-Action

A call-to-action is when your email or newsletter asks your users to do something specific after reading. This could mean visiting a store, reading more about the subject on your site, visiting your social media pages etc. It needs to be shown clearly in such a way that users understand that they are being asked to click on it. The link can be attached to a button, words or an image. Just ensure that you are using punchy concise language like “CLICK HERE” or “VISIT OUR FACEBOOK”. Call-to-actions are very common and there are plenty of newsletter examples that can help you come up with ideas.

Try not to use too many CTAs. Longer newsletters can repeat the same link several times and it is possible to have different CTAs within the same email. Just bear in mind that most users are only going to follow one CTA so if you really want them to follow multiple links, consider spreading them across multiple emails. Email subject lines are a great place to include the first CTA of a newsletter though remember that they cannot function as links.

4. Balance your Images and your Text

If you use too many images and not enough text in your email, it may be automatically flagged as spam. Additionally, some email clients block all images as their default setting. This means that any key information must be contained in your newsletter’s text. It is part of why email subject lines are so important. Your clients must understand what your newsletter is about and why they want to look at it even if their email client is preventing them from seeing any images.

5. Be Careful with Background Images

When checking out newsletter design, you will find that a lot of newsletter examples contain background images. These are often presented in such a way that they look impressive however they do not always work in reality. Firstly, not all email clients support background images. Secondly, users with unusual resolutions on their devices will not see the backgrounds in the way you want them to. Always make sure that there is a solid colour that your newsletter can default to if the background image is not displayed so the text can be easily read.