Designing Your eMail

I purposely titled this blog “designing your eMails” as I have a firm belief that each eMail has a unique purpose and each purpose should be designed differently. For example, you might have an eMail specifically designed as a newsletter, or as an order confirmation, promotion, or even as an advertisement. However, before I write about some of those unique purposes, you must remember this: designing and writing your eMail must be done with your customer and his/her interests in mind. Make it personal, make it concise, design it based on its purpose, and remember that this eMail has a unique purpose … to drive the reader to an action (either to a website, social media site, make a contact, etc.).

Creating a Template from the Top Down

Let’s begin with simple layout. The header immediately gets the attention of the reader and tells them who you are and what is the purpose of this eMail communication. I personally am bothered when I open eMails in my Outlook viewing pain and the header takes up more than 15% of my preview pane. Why would you want to hide the content of your eMail, so try to remember to keep it short and sweet. In addition, the header is easily forgotten for important link placement, so make sure that you include links on your icons, select graphics and even eMail navigation. Finally, don’t abuse this space with too many links, but remember the “keep it simple stupid” methodology.

Tabs or sub-headers are a great way to promote your website and drive traffic to it without having to use your valuable real estate in the body of your eMail. Make sure that you don’t use fonts that are larger than the body font. Some people differ with me on this comment and some companies have guidelines that are just the opposite; however, I believe that most people will scan an eMail in just a second (I also believe that most of them just scan a preview) and if 1/3 of your screen is wasted with a header and a sub-header or tab navigation, you will have lost that valuable moment to capture the reader’s interest in your eMail topics.

The Juice, Spark and Selling Point … The eMail Body

The next part of the eMail is the body. The body will change in design and appearance based on the purpose of the eMail. For example, if you are designing an advertisement or a promotional eMail, you want to use large images and limited text placed in specific areas. Another example would be a newsletter. A newsletter would need to divide the body into multiple areas with text, images and be designed in a common format and layout for consistency. As most newsletters have multiple topics/articles the design clearly separate each article and the text should be written in a short format designed to grab the attention of the reader and drive them to a website for more information.

Summary

I’ll focus more on different eMail purposes and designs in the future and will write more in my Twitter account this week, but I can’t stress that if you don’t pay attention to your design at the beginning the reader will become confused by the multiple designs that you send, your eMail build time will be significantly long and will become extremely difficult to analyze for future enhancement. Finally, the next blog will focus on writing your eMails, but until then, don’t forget to send me your comments or questions and remember to follow my Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/ebizlessons or by searching for the fanpage "eBizlessons" on FaceBook for daily updates to complement this blog.