Trying to avoid your marketing emails landing in the spam folder? One way to make sure your subscribers don’t mark your emails as spam is to find the right balance with color and design.
Too much and your emails can look spammy – too little and they’re not engaging enough. It’s a tough balance!
Stick around and I will show you how to strike a balance and learn how color and design should be used in your emails.
Advantages of Using Color And Design
Email continues to be one of the best ROI marketing channels. Color and design could be your competitive edge. Read on to find out how you can apply this today!
Color Theory
Studies have found that a product’s color influences 60% to 80% of a consumer’s purchasing decision. This means that the right color will not only help strengthen your brand but it could also result in more sales.
Based on an Adobe study of the world’s top 100 brands, blue showed up in 33% of these top brands and red showed up in 29%.
This is no surprise – red typically is associated with energy and excitement while blue is thought to be cool and calming.
What does this mean for your emails?
- Be consistent.
- Use your existing brand colors.
- Keep the design simple and pleasing.
- Highlight your brand’s strengths with the correct colors.
- Use contrasting colors to make actionable items stand out.
What Fonts to Use
The ideal fonts are those that appeal to your customers and that will be supported across multiple email platforms (desktop and mobile).
Common web-safe fonts include: Arial, Georgia, Helvetica, Times New Roman, and Verdana.
Fonts that can be read with smaller sizes and are pleasant to read also include: Lato, Open Sans, and Roboto.
A word of caution: be careful with custom fonts as they may not be supported by all browsers or email providers.
Best Practices
As you continue building your email marketing there are 3 best practices to keep in mind:
1. Keep Accessibility in Mind
Have you ever biked down a sidewalk? Pushed a stroller in your neighborhood? Made through downtown with your luggage?
Chances are you benefited from something called curb cuts.
[curb cuts image here]
These curb cuts (where the sidewalk slopes down to meet the street) did not get their start until the early 1970’s.
It all started on a few curbs in Berekely California where Michael Pachovas and a few friends rolled up a night in a local neighborhood and replaced raised curbs with ramps.
Despite threats from local police they weren’t arrested and soon these curb cuts took off all over the US!
Soon, the positive effects were felt. Originally designed with wheelchairs in mind, families with strollers, cyclists, and people traveling with luggage all began to benefit from this new innovation.
Along the same vein, when you design your emails with accessibility in mind there may be positive side effects. Make your emails accessible and you may very well see unintentional side benefits.
2. Make It About The Reader
Charlotte Beers, former CEO of Ogilvy & Mather. She said something about brand that has been permanently etched in my brain.
“A brand is created when a company EARNs the right to have a relationship with their customer.”
As with the rest of your marketing, email should strike a balance between creating a personality and creating a relationship.
You can do this by doing three things:
- Go above and beyond to provide value to your reader.
- Be open and vulnerable. No person is perfect, and no brand is either.
- Create tradition – a semi annual sale, a father-daughter event, whatever it might be. And be consistent.
3. KISS
Keep it short and simple!
No matter what design you pick, colors you use, or fonts you select the same rule applies. Keep it simple.
Too many busy images or too much text can make an email intimidating. It’s up to us to make sure that the reader actually wants to continue reading.
A frictionless email experience with a clear call to action and copy tied to the images used throughout will provide your subscribers with the best experience. And as a bonus, generate more sales.
Wrap It Up Alex
Color and design makes your emails stand out and helps direct readers’ attention to important messages or calls to action.
After you’ve optimized your content for desktop and mobile and created compelling content consider adding color to make your emails even more successful.