With today’s over-saturated digital landscape, email marketing is still a powerful way to get messages to people, right into their email inbox. Statistics show that over 361 billion emails are sent every day, and email revenue is expected to reach $17.9 billion by 2027.
People check emails at work, at home and particularly on their mobile phones, so it is a way to get your message pretty much anywhere.
Rather than pushy sales emails, arguably, the best email communication is a newsletter. It is an opportunity to inform and help your readers who have usually signed up and agreed to accept emails from you.
But getting your newsletters into someone’s inbox is one thing, you need to make them enticing, look good and be memorable, else they’ll end up in the recycling bin.
Smartmail can help you design eye-catching email newsletter templates that will be clicked through and acted upon, helping you connect to your customer base and generate income.
The best time to send an email newsletter will depend on a few factors including:
Why Design Matters
Hubspot has some excellent advice when it comes to designing an email newsletter, don’t feel like you have to make it full of color, logos and pictures. An email newsletter can easily feel cluttered, so you need to emphasize white space, and have concise copy so you don’t over-fill that white space.
Minimal and well-written copy is vital. You don’t want your readers staying in the newsletter, you want to offer them an idea of a story, and then get them clicking through to read more.
White space is important as it gives the feeling of space, and on mobile devices, it allows easier navigation on a smaller screen.
Always think- less is more, with both the design layout and the content for your newsletter templates. Your target audience is already bombarded with electronic communication
Types of Newsletter Templates
Newsletter design trends for 2024 include minimal designs with simple lines and lots of white space, so the copy is featured and is the hero of the newsletter. However, in line with this, bold colors, and adding a surprise splash to grab attention are growing in popularity.
Hyper-personalisation is a growing trend as well. Presenting content to a reader based on their likes, saved lists in your store etc, and some AI-driven personalisation, is making content incredibly contextualized to the recipient.
Accessibility and inclusivity are also emerging trends, which makes sense so more people can consume your content. This trend includes dynamic newsletters that can adapt to light and dark modes on mobile devices, deliberate color contrast choices and fonts that are easy on the eye.
While these are emerging trends, you don’t need to incorporate all of them to make the perfect email. Stick to your branding, ensure the content is strong and easy to consume.
Top Email Newsletter Templates for 2024
Here are some top newsletter example designs that have crossed our paths this year:
tl;dr – MarketingThis newsletter amusingly sets itself up by the title, which is a contraction for ‘too long; didn’t read’. You already know that it’s going to be a short newsletter, with short news grabs. The design is also a perfect example of good white space, making it easy to navigate and read.
It is a daily newsletter with curated content, which you can click through to find out more and read more. Or not, if it’s too long for you.
It is driven by Saijo Geroge, who is an SEO consultant with a bucket load of experience.
It promises a 5-minute read, which fits in with the fast-paced lifestyle we all live. The look is clear black and white, a modern interpretation and homage to newspapers from the past.
It claims to be unbiased, and has over 3.5 million readers. You get 3 headlines, then shorter headlines in categories such as sport, business & Markets, Politics and more.
The Nerdy Parent – family and raising children
This is a funky-looking newsletter for parents to help educate their kids, engage their children mentally and through play, and to enjoy life with their kids.
The art style is very childish illustrations which brings a sense of whimsy to a newsletter for adults. The language used is also youthful and engaging. There is a lot of white space with some bright, colorful imagery too. It is inviting to read.
Crafting Compelling Content
You may have an awesome looking email template, but it won’t get you any results if it doesn’t contain content that is compelling and enticing people to click through to find out more.
The rule of thumb is 90% educational 10% sales content for a newsletter. Your list of readers is going to expect you to sell something to them, so you have tacit permission to mention your latest product, or your 40% off sale.
Make sure the content you are including is relevant to your readers, otherwise, you will have no readers and, more likely, people unsubscribing.
Give your readers helpful tips, recommendations, stories and advice. If you can help them with your products and services, fantastic, but you don’t have to SELL that to them, as they will likely work it out for themselves. TIP- marketing is most powerful when your clients figure out they need you on their own, without you telling them.
Email Newsletter Design Best Practices
Here are some solid design best practices to help you create an email that will inspire your readers and have an impact.
Start with a Clear Hierarchy
There are three main parts for a newsletter- Headline/Subject line, body copy and CTA.
The Call to Action can sometimes be repeated down the email, but don’t overdo it.
What is the most important news story you want your readers to notice? That will be the focus of your headline and subject line, what draws someone in to open your email.
Keep it Concise and Scannable
Don’t overload the reader with walls of text. Have big, bold headlines they can select, and a preview paragraph. This allows people to skim through, pick what they want to read, and invest more time, often clicking through to your website.
Choose a Cohesive Layout
Be economical and deliberate with your design. Make it easy for readers to navigate your newsletter, make it a logical layout and not cluttered and confusing.
Branding
It doesn’t matter whether your email newsletter is primarily full of new product announcements, general company news, or promoting an upcoming sale; Your branding needs to be consistent. The colors, font, and imagery need to reflect the personality of your ecommerce business and be instantly recognizable to your customers and would-be customers.
Don’t force your business’s branding down your readers’ throats, however. By keeping the general design consistent with your branding, it should be clear as day to your readers which company’s newsletter they are looking at.
Make Images Relevant and Impactful
With the limited real estate of an email newsletter, and what we’ve said about white space, your imagery needs to be chosen wisely. You don’t need imagery with every story included. Interestingly, sometimes the fewer the images the bigger an impact they can have on your readers.
Optimize for Mobile
41.9% of people open newsletters on their mobile phones, and that number is always growing. You need to optimize your content for mobile phones, a smaller space, plus dark modes.
If you’re not sure how to do this, don’t worry! Just reach out to the SmartMail team today.
Pay Attention to Color and Typography
Some fonts are easier to read than others. Small fonts on a mobile device can be terrible, even with the pinch and zoom option.
Also, consider the background color your copy is on, or the color of your newsletter as a whole. If it is too bright will this make it difficult to read? Do you have too many colors? Do the colors match your brand?
Include Clear Call-to-Actions (CTAs)
If you’re going to all this effort to foster a list, create a newsletter and send it to potentially hundreds and thousands of your fans, you want it to have a purpose. A clear call to action, an explanation of what you want the reader to do after they’ve invested time in your content, is vital.
Make it contextual. If you’re educating your audience, ask them- do you want to know more? If you’re selling, ask them to Buy Now.
Tips for Creating the Best Email Newsletter
1. Segment Your Audience
Not every newsletter design is intended for every subscriber, customer, or website visitor.
Segmentation allows you to personalize the content of your newsletter for the particular interests, demographics, behaviors, and other important factors of your audience to increase engagement and Call-To-Action conversion.
2. Offer Value
Newsletters don’t need to be filled with exclusive offers and limited-time discounts to provide value to subscribers. (Though both are great ideas too!)
Valuable content such as how-to guides, product recommendations, and interesting industry news can be very engaging to a wide spectrum of recipients.
3. Be Consistent
Your newsletters should be sent on a regular basis to establish consistency and also to build a sense of anticipation and expectation.
Whether you opt to send out a newsletter once a week, month or even quarter depends on your business and subscriber base.
4. Be Clear
From the clear and concise subject line indicating the content of the email to the straightforward nature of your newsletter design, being clear in the intention, purpose, and value of your newsletter will increase engagement and build greater customer loyalty.
5. Time It Right
The best time to send an email newsletter will depend on a few factors including:
- The target audience
- The location of your subscribers and business
- The industry you’re operating in
As a general rule, these are the optimal times for ecommerce and business newsletters:
Weekdays – especially Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday as people tend to be most focused and engaged on these days.
Mornings – emails in the afternoon often get missed or are relegated to the bottom of the inbox when checked the following morning. Anytime between 9:00am and 11:00am is optimal.
Maximizing Engagement with A/B Testing
How will you know if your design is effective? Or if the content you’re sharing is what your list wants to read? A/B split testing. You create two versions of your marketing and send it to two different audiences.
After a set time, you compare results. Take the one with the better results, refine it again, and run another A/B split test. You keep doing this until you’re satisfied you have the best results possible. Then, going forward, all your newsletter campaigns will be similar to the best results.
Need some more newsletter design ideas? You need SmartMail!
Email newsletters are an essential and rewarding tool for ecommerce businesses to use. The best newsletter designs can improve your bottom line, enhance brand loyalty and help your business grow.
While we’ve outlined some best practices and provided some newsletter design examples, if you really want your newsletter to stand out and convert subscribers into customers, make sure to speak to the SmartMail team today.
We do everything business emails, including newsletters, and we’re happy to offer you a free email audit, so you can find out how we can help you too! Click here to find out more.
FAQs
You can upload a PDF to the cloud, host it somewhere, and then share the link through your email list.
There are many factors to consider when thinking of ‘correctly’.
- The subject line needs to be engaging and not cliche to avoid the SPAM folder.
- You need to minimize the size of files, such as images or videos, so your newsletter will be delivered.
- Make sure you use standard fonts, so when your email is opened it looks and reads like you intend.
- Check and double check the spelling of email addresses. If you can, if you ever get an email bounced back for an incorrect email address, follow up with the person, or remove them from your list database.
