On the surface, email works like a charm. Email has outlasted competing content channels from one decade to the next. Every generation relies on it.
And, because the average email delivers over 4200% ROI, there’s a lane to bank on it. That’s why nine out of ten marketers plan to spend more on their email marketing efforts.
The problem? Fifty-three percent of marketers need more than two weeks to produce an email design. By the time they finish, they miss out on consistent opportunities to connect with their audience. Business owners and DIY hustlers don’t have much room in their schedules.
However, there’s good news: Browsing these ten email design ideas will make it easier for you to create one that delivers results.
In this blog post, we’ll cover:
- What email design is
- 10 email design ideas
- Best email design practices
- How to create an engaging email quickly
Let’s get started.
What Is Email Design?
There are two ways to define what email design is:
- Email design is created with the intention of accomplishing a goal you set.
- Email design is the practice that shapes how an email layout physically looks.
Your email design should fit into your content strategy with ease. How you measure the success of your email design should reflect in its performance against KPIs you set.
Why does this matter? Sound email design adds extra juice to channel performance. Twenty percent more marketers experience higher engagement when they send emails with better designs.
Without knowing what separates a winning email design from the rest, your email might get bounced and never appear in the inbox of another recipient again. You end up holding yourself back from taking things to the next level.
10 Email Design Ideas
Discover these ten email design ideas to inspire your next DIY masterpiece:
1. Yellow Mellow
When not enough people remember who you are, set a goal to build your brand awareness with an email design like this that exclusively taps into your official brand colors.
2. Ace in the Coal
Why does this email design get a pass on its dark charcoal background? Sure, the color scheme is on-brand. Yet, what stands out is how its minimalistic style makes it easier to see.
3. Sold Sign Coming Soon
Once a property firm is sold on giving its logo prime real estate on its email banner, it earns local attention and doles out more humble abodes.
4. Online Sales Eggs-perience
On the hunt for a seasonal sales lift? Wrap up your search with this Easter e-commerce discount email. Put a date on how long your promo runs and call it an event to get customers eggs-cited.
5. Versatile Comfort
Never forget: If you’re unsure about how many e-commerce products to list in your email, the rule of three reigns supreme.
Let three 3D item visuals pop off the screen without screeching for too much attention. Then lie back and watch how this email design leads shoppers to landing pages and shopping carts in no time.
6. Rosy Results
When you sell products under $200, there’s not as much of a need to display lengthy item captions in your email. Stagger your item visuals and keep your product copy short and sweet with this email design.
7. Early Stages
Before you rush into selling a product to a lead, spark their curiosity. Feel free to add links to resourceful content and educate them on challenges you provide solutions for.
8. Garden Festival
What do this event invite and the best lead generation email designs have in common? They have FOMO on a call-to-action (CTA) that’s hard to miss.
A larger button in a warm color pulls off this classic email marketing party trick.
9. Deal Sealed
Turned that lead into a customer? Congrats—send a confirmation with this late-stage lead generation email design that thanks them for sealing the deal.
Welcome them and share how excited you are for what’s next.
Newsletters are just modern-day bulletin boards that teachers and administrators use to school us on the latest campus news.
Greens, yellows, and oranges build the foundational blocks of this newsletter email design. Parents pick up what they need to know in seconds.
Best Email Design Practices
Once you set a goal and explore those DIY ideas, follow these best practices for your email design:
Start with Simple Style
Beginners in email design should customize a basic design template that features fewer sections and elements across its layout.
Fine-Tune Your CTAs
Choose a color to your CTA button that complements other hues that surround it. Tertiary brand colors and warm colors like red, yellow, and orange could work.
Nevertheless, if you’re not sure whether or not a warm color throws off the aesthetic, go with a white background for your overall email design.
Save File Space with JPGs
Save images you want to feature in your email design as a JPG or PNG. The more file space your visuals add to your email design, the more likely it is that your email bounces.
JPGs optimize your email deliverability rate because they take up less file space.
Send Test Emails
After you finish your email design, send test emails to one desktop and mobile recipient from each email provider your list members use. Confirm your email design arrives in each inbox and not in the spam folder.
Then, check if your email design appears exactly like you designed it. Click on every link and see if the URL and landing pages are correct.
How to Create an Engaging Email with PicMonkey
Now that you understand how pros bring an email to life, you’re ready to create your email design that looks like they made it.
With PicMonkey, you can create an engaging email quickly:
Quick Steps to Create Your Email in PicMonkey
1. In PicMonkey, click Create new > Templates.
2. Type “Email” into the search bar and select your favorite layout.
3. Customize the email with images, fonts, graphics, and effects.
4. Use the color picker to change colors of different sections, including the background and footer.
5. Click Download on the top toolbar to export your design as a JPG, PNG, or a PDF (a PicMonkey Pro feature).
No matter how much success or failure it brings, your email design marks where the rubber meets the road. Big promises of earth-shattering ROI can’t be fulfilled on just a strong strategy. Whether or not this happens could boil down to your execution and attention to detail.
Still, try not to over-perfect your email design early on. Instead, go ahead and deploy A/B testing to elevate your email design overtime. If you take a few minutes each week to run an A/B test and follow up, you’ll unlock a blend of persistence, urgency, and patience that guides your email performance to glory.
Cover image via D-sign Studio 10.
