Email Design: The Ultimate Guide for 2022

You collected the right content material and you are ready to start crafting a new email marketing campaign; however you don’t know where to begin or which design template to choose? Or are you a newcomer on board with digital marketing tools? Do not worry; you are on the right page to begin with the process with actual email design tips and examples. Please keep on reading for the most useful Email Design Tips and Guidelines of 2022!  

First of all, it’s a surprising fact that sending email still maintains its throne as a marketing tool, even on a global scale! Every year more and more e-mail accounts are opened and the amount of sent mails rise every other month statistically. And there are more fascinating facts about emails! As we mentioned before in our blog posts, a report of financeonline.com declares that “in 2024 the number of email users is predicted to reach close to 4.5 billion.”  Therefore, keep in mind that sending bulk emails and targeted email marketing is still a trending method among marketing specialists and content creators. 

However, discovering the best email design may not be so easy as expected. Firstly, you should definitely know what to say exactly in a simple and neat manner. Focus on one (1) main matter, simplify the subject line, summarize the essentials, do not give away all the details to keep the recipients’ attention and curiosity awake and finally create a CTA (call to action). Within the scope of these fundamentals, now you can choose the most appropriate design, outline your content and craft your email. 

Let’s begin with the basics.

What is email design

 

What is Email Design?

It is always important to learn the concept before fulfilling it. Therefore email design can be categorized as a workout structure for organizing the whole concept of and email itself. The roof idea collects all together the essential items starting from the subject line, headings, the body part, colors & fonts, till the CTA and footer. A well-organized email design will probably affect the visual world of the receiver and create an impact to take action such as clicking to your site!  

Importance of Email Design

The quantity of individuals who open & respond to your email marketing by clicking to the links will be the first indicator for the effect of your campaign. Because there are some metrics such as open & click ratios in order to measure the influence of email marketing campaigns. Although individuals may open and read your emails because of its attractive  appearance, this prettification is worthless if it cannot inspire them to act. At that point you can increase conversions with email design. Please keep in mind that email design means beyond the color or font choices. This is one of the most important aspects of email marketing. Because you can increase conversions with email design and it's important to catch readers' attention in various ways. 

For instance, visuals like images and videos have a huge impact on human brains, and the popularity of social media applications like Instagram or Youtube is an indication of this.  You should consider email design as a whole if you aim to persuade the recipients to purchase any product, get attendance to an event or try out a software, Like Mailsoftly! 

Do not forget that the email design has the power of enhancing the conversions if you use it with the right clues and tips. Receivers' attention is the main key to use that power in the positive direction.  Once you get the attention and catch the reader to discover your content, you should lead them to an exact CTA, call to action in other words. These can be either  a strong offer such as “ Get 20% Off!” or a curious “Read More…”,  an appetizer “Sign up for Free!” o just simply “ Contact Us!” buttons. However the opportunities are not limited only to these. 

A noteworthy email design which is empowered with strong CTAs also create a relation between the brand and the reader. You can give priority to the email design step at your email marketing campaign together with unique content. Because it is the promotional face of your brand at the inbox of the recipients who may be a potential customer as well. Do not forget that email design related to email marketing determines the communication attitude of your brand. 

Therefore, please keep on reading for other tips and clues to improve your communication assets. 

Attractive Email Design Tips and Templates

Tips for Enchanting The Email Designs

  • Highlight your Campaign at the Doorstep;  the Subject Line!

Think about the subject line as the entrance of a physical store. The enterenca should be clean, neat and attractive in order to get the attention of potential customers and it should also present a welcoming atmosphere  for your visitors. With the help of a notable subject line the receivers of the emailing will be invited inside. You should make the receiver take the first step into your mail by a hintful and an interesting subject line. More, you can use emojis within limits to create a sincere touch; but do not exaggerate.  

  • Maximize The Conversations by Personalizing The Emails 

Personalization in the marketing strategies is still a relevant feature, especially for email marketing. By means of bulk email sending providers like Mailsoftly, it is possible to send emails with the specific name and surnames of targeted recipients. You can check Mailsoftly’s feature page for more details. People are intended to create conversations if they are referred to directly or in person. Therefore, takae the advantage of that archaic aspect of human nature. On the other hand, that is not the only way to touch each individual separately. Segmented email sending is another popular topic of 2022 marketing trends. Within the scope of developing technologies, an email marketer is able to segment the contact list and target groups according to  their behaviors towards emails. It simply means, as a marketer you can monitor and group the customers in relation to their actions such as purchased or unpurchased items, registered events or online courses, the ones who do not upgrade the membership after free trials or unsubscribers! The segmentation is an endless ocean depending on the data you collect from your recipients, visitors and customers. So why not segment your contact list and take bulk actions according to these huge data? This is also a part of the personalization of email marketing as well. 

Email Design Layout Tİps

  • Choose the Email Layout Representing The Brand

If the contact segmentation and the subject line is ready, let’s choose the most convenient email layout for your brand. Please keep in mind that email layout is different from the email design process itself. Email layout determines the columns for texts, the header, the placement of visuals (photos or videos) , the padding etc. Assume it as a frontpage design of a newspaper. The email layout can be chosen according to the amount of text or visuals you prefer to use. For instance, for an informative newsletter there may be much more texts compared to a “New Arrivals!” promotional email of an online store or you may prefer to use trailer videos for an entertainment event newsletter. Therefore the brand, the content and representation of these drives the email layout process. Email layouts also cover the color and appropriate font decision as well. Design the colors of the email layout regarding the brand awareness, do not mix more than 2 fonts (one for headings, one for paragraph texts) and remember that “simple is the best '', in principle. 

  • Copywriting a Neat Email Body

Crafting an original and striking email copy becomes the hardest part for most people; unless you are an expert email marketer or content generator. Sometimes people feel stuck while expressing the true or relevant sentences or statements. Do not get panic or confused; think simple. There are tools or guidelines for best email copies specifically for body part of the emailings. More, with the help of rising AI technology you can get help and inspirations from content creator bots scanning all over the written texts online. Think smart and try to get the boots of the email receiver before crafting your content. On which grounds a good email copy will attract your attention, for instance on holiday sales? Or a corporate newsletter, or an event invitation? You can take the advantage of videos to create much more engagement through emailing, if your content is related to that medium. Do not hussle with long paragraphs or expressions, be direct to your readers. Of course do not use copyrighted materials for visuals. Choosing the right image is not always enough; you must follow the rules for copyrighted materials as well! One more point is do not fill up the content only with images. Choose and use them strategically and leave space for written text. In addition to all of these, you can always check your texts for spelling or grammar mistakes for free, which is a marvelous gift of the internet in the 21st century. Now you have no excuse for failing at the copywriting step! 

  • Assure the Responsiveness

 Using responsive landing pages for websites became a rule for UX/UI designers since the
domination of mobile devices and tablets. Researchers prove that the number of internet users who are intended to check and read their emails from smart phones are increasing steadily; so as a mail sender for marketing or PR reasons does not matter, your email design must be responsive for all devices in use. Otherwise, your campaign may lose potential leads and customers unless people are able to read your emailing properly. This technical issue is also vital for brand awareness. Do not lose the subscribers of your brand due to those minor mistakes which have hundreds of solutions. 

Assure the Responsiveness

  • Eye-catching CTAs 

CTAs, call to actions are the most ancient items of the digital marketing process after all. “Download Now”, “Sign Up” or  “Buy Now” buttons have been inviting internet users to take action for decades. So why not use the power of them in your own email marketing strategies? It may not seem nice to tell (or order) people what to do, however CTA buttons and expressions are there to create curiosity, eagerness and leading the reader for the next step. Be nice to the reader and choose the most appropriate CTA expression in relation to your content and campaign. This may be just a “Join Us Now!” button for commuting the people or “Start For Free '' button for a membership registration as well.  Assume CTAs as a win-win items. 

  • Include The Footer

Footer parts are sometimes neglected even on websites and blogs! However, footers consist of valuable overall material for your company and brand such as contact details, social media links and and even support emails for customer satisfaction. Footers are also functional for the data protection regulations such as terms & conditions,  privacy policy and unsubscribe links. No one demands to lose contacts via unsubscribe links however it is obligatory to ask the subscribers to leave or not… Anyway, you can also take action towards unsubscribers in order to improve your service or product. 

  • Testing & Checking from A to Z

Mass mail sending is a huge process regarding the amount of the recievers’ email addresses. It may be just 25 people or 500 hundreds depending on your campaign type. However, none of the digital marketers dream of sending a false email with unbroken links, unresponsive design, or old content! Humans can make mistakes but it is in your hands to double or triple check the processes  in order to minimize the errors. Testing features help mail senders to check their whole email design from A to Z more than once. By means of a well functioning email testing you check on the various browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, Opera, IE etc; and different sources like PC, tablets or smartphones. Create a tester contact list including yourself and other teammates. It is always beneficial to test an email design by more than one person. Besides general appearance, at body parts you should check if all the links are working properly, the loading time of email design especially for visuals and overall content material. There is a common mistake if you create a new campaign via copying the previous one: Content editors usually forget to update the calendars or week of the year on the right corner of the email designs. Be sure you are not sending a newsletter dated a week ago 😉 

  • Conduct a Minimal, Simple Email Design

Minimalism is still trending for a majority of people; even the concept gained acceleration after the global Covid-19 pandemic. Every minute is much more precious for us now; no one is eager to spend hours and hours on reading promotional marketing mails. Therefore, a mail marketer should pay attention to the general overview of the crafted material. If you adopt being minimal but also magnetic as well from the very beginning of the process, the mail design is going to be finalized within that concept. Minimal email design roots from pickup the optimal mail layout and reaches out to summarizing the content in a neat way. You can check email Design opportunities of Mailsoftly immediately to start with your marketing campaign project! 

Below you can check some of the selected email design examples : 

Email Design Examples at a Glance: 

Welcome/ Subscription Email Design Example: 

This is a neat and well-organized welcome email design example with “Thank You” heading, two different fonts; attractive images of products and 2 CTAs leading the reader to the website. “ABOUT US'' is also critical to provide additional information about your company or brand. 

Welcome Email Design

Example for video usage: 

As we mentioned before if your unique content needs to use video do not hesitate to add them to your body part. Here is an example of embedded video usage into an informative newsletter about an education institute. It is probably attractive for candidates to explore the campus area via actual videos. Below you can check the simplicity of supporting texts and CTAs as well.  

Newsletter with Video

 

Email Design examples for online shopping, and sales seasons :

The colors of email design have a pattern with appropriate suggestions from the color scheme. The colors exactly match with the makeup products itselves. You can check the suggested headings for sales opportunities and Brand Name usage at the very top of the Email Design as well. Each design has the CTA buttons leading to the purchase landing page.  

E-commerce On Sale_Template

 

Exclusive email design template example specific for Black Friday Sales. 

Fonts are exclusively attractive and Black Friday, being the biggest online sales festival globally, is the only topic of that email design:

Black Friday Sale Email Design Example

 

Corporate informative newsletter email design example:



The colors and fonts are chosen in a formal way with the aim of representing the company officially in the eye of the reader/receiver of the email campaign. That is a one sheet summary of a firm explaining the history and business fields of the company and some other strategic details as well. Please check the simple footer for the contact info of the company.

For more design tips and email design examples please check our feature page on Email templates.