When it comes to building a customer relationship, getting in touch with your audience, and driving sales, email marketing is a powerful weapon that’s within your arsenal. But if your emails are not awesomely designed, you may completely miss the mark.
The good news is that there are ways to get read and rise to the top. That’s where best email design comes in.
Effective email design directs the eye, catches attention, motivates the reader to positively respond to the call-to-actions (CTAs).
However, all these are just the tip of the iceberg. Here, we provide you some of the best email design do’s and don’ts to achieve high inbox delivery!
Best Email Design Tips [Do’s and Don’ts]
Do: Make Your Content Easy to Read, Understand, and Action
First and foremost, your email template should be simple and easy to read so that recipients won’t have to read every word to understand your message and click through your CTA. Remember that people’s attention spans are short so you have to go straight to the point.
As much as possible, keep your message short and in case a deeper level of discussion is required, you can just pick up the phone.
What’s your main point in sending that message? Figure out that main reason and remove the extra content that falls outside your main point.
Next, focus on one CTA and make that your main attraction. If you give your readers too much to do in one email, you are also giving them an excuse to get to it later, leading them to close your email eventually without clicking that button. Stick to about 20 lines of text or even less in one email and keep the paragraphs short.
Don’t: Overdo Text and Images
Too much text and images make content appear spammy and one of the many reasons why emails are being blocked by Gmail or other ESPs. Not to mention that emails with a lot of design and text will also bring your audience’s attention away from your main message.
It is important to maintain a good text: image ratio in your emails. For us, that would be 80:20, meaning 80% text and 20% images in an email campaign. While all spam filters have different criteria set, the 80:20 ratio appears to be a safe bet.
A good text to image ratio is also so important because some email clients blog images by default.
A good email marketing practice to swear by is to have enough text in the email content to inform your reader about the purpose of your email or that even if they have turned off the images in their email, you will still be able to convey your message.
Do: Incorporate White Space/ Negative Space
White space is a powerful visual tool in email design. It is defined by white areas, striking silhouettes, and contrasts.
Smart manipulation and awareness of this design element give your readers the time to breathe for a while and keep their eyes intrigued and focused.
Negative space is also important on smaller screens. And since most of your subscribers will be reading your email through their phone, you should avoid a visual frenzy that will only pollute your message.
It is wise to spread out your text and images with a healthy amount of space between the characters, headers, visuals, and blocks of text for smooth content consumption.
Don’t: Go Beyond 650 Pixels Email Width
If you truly want to make your email banners click and keep your audience engaged, make sure that you maintain the recommended email banner width.
The maximum email banner width is 650 pixels while the maximum height is 90 and 150 pixels for the header and footer. Keeping the width of your emails under 650 pixels will also ensure that your message always displays in the vertical preview pane (especially in Outlook).
Do: Use a Responsive Email Template
A responsive email design template is about providing content that is customized to your user’s device. It means that your email changes, depending on the size of the screen it is being viewed on.
Your subscribers will read your email with ease, whether they’re using a mobile device, laptop, or desktop.
Don’t: Use HTML Bullets
Bulleted lists are useful for content hierarchy as readers can easily and quickly read the key points in your email. However, when used in HTML bullet points, they won’t look too well in an email.
We suggest you use a plain text alternative instead, such as asterisks (*), or dashes (-) to make sure that your recipients won’t see missing or broken HTML bullets in their email message. Designing templates for your company’s email marketing campaigns can make your message appear more effective and professional. Whenever you need to send emails, follow these tips to make sure your best email design is on point and get the most out of your campaigns!
Belayet Hossain is a Senior Tech Expert and Certified AI Marketing Strategist. Holding an MSc in CSE (Russia) and over a decade of experience since 2011, he combines traditional systems engineering with modern AI insights. Specializing in Vibe Coding and Intelligent Marketing, Belayet provides forward-thinking analysis on software, digital trends, and SEO, helping readers navigate the rapidly evolving digital landscape. Connect with Belayet Hossain on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin or read my complete biography.