Create email marketing campaigns that stand out and inspire action.
Email is an essential way to communicate with an audience. But it’s crucial to get the design right. Almost 40% of emails are viewed for about eight seconds orless, so make it quick and easy for readers to see what’s important about your message.
Increase click-through rates and inspire action through compelling email design. Make it clear to the reader what you want them to do with strategically structured email content.
Make sure your emails are easy to read for a busy audience. Use designs that developers can build with html and carefully curate content to ensure it shows up well on multiple email clients. Text should be broken down into larger headlines and smaller digestible chunks. White space, or areas empty except for a simple background color, ensures your content doesn’t feel crowded or overwhelming and helps emphasize important elements.
Be clear about where the reader will go when they click. If the email requires multiple calls-to-action (also called CTAs or action buttons), organize them in a hierarchy. Use colors that pop to signify which action is most urgent. Your main CTA should be higher up in your email, with secondary CTAs coming later. Text-link CTAs or buttons with a simple outline can be effective secondary CTAs.
Use web-optimized images that load quickly. Images for emails rarely need to be wider than 800 pixels. Include descriptive alt text in case images break or your reader is using a program for the visually impaired. Animated GIFs can add intrigue to your message, but note that too much movement can create loading issues. Look for on-brand images that fit with your brand identity as well as the overall color scheme of your email.
Your email layout should encourage the viewer to keep reading. Build a wireframe to plan out the visual elements of your email to ensure there’s a downward flow. An inverted triangle works well for a simple notification email, a zigzag shape for a stylish e-commerce email, and a neat and tidy column for an information-packed email newsletter.
Weave your brand’s visual identity into your email designs to strengthen your organization’s brand recognition with each send. Use brand-consistent design elements, like your logo, color palette, typography, and other building blocks from your brand kit. Model your emails after your website as well as any landing pages your email leads to. Once your team has developed an email design that works, create an email template to save time when designing future emails.
Kick-start your team’s design process by exploring these different types of email styles shared by creatives on Behance.
Ready to begin designing emails? The apps available in Adobe Creative Cloud for teams are one great option. Take a look at what you can do with Adobe apps to create effective emails.
Learn methods for creating cohesive marketing materials with Adobe Illustrator.
See how you can create and save color palettes with the Adobe Color Themes panel in Illustrator.
Discover how to jump-start a sleek email by opening an Adobe Stock template in Photoshop.
You can use Adobe XD to share your email designs, review them with your team, and collaborate with other designers. Creative Cloud Libraries makes it easy for your team to collaborate with the most up-to-date logos and assets for every project across different apps and devices.
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