Nielsen Norman Group’s usability study (Email Newsletter Usability— Third Edition, June 2006) determined that users, once engaged, spend an average of 51 seconds on each newsletter in their inbox.
51 seconds. With such a short time frame, how do you want your subscribers spending their time? Ensure your email is designed to guide a subscriber’s attention through the email to the conversion opportunity. If the conversion is to a website, it’s critical to create a consistently-branded experience from the email and through to the landing page.
How do you create that brand experience? Well, first remember that email is a different playing field than web. Logo, colors, look and feel – these are all very important elements that should transfer to your email design. However, email does not need to look like a carbon copy of your website. Email widths need to be considered separately from a website (we recommend 600-650px wide). Navigation in email should be modified appropriately, and content should consist of short, relevant snippets that link to full articles hosted elsewhere as a web page, landing page, or PDF. Maximize your space with elements that engage your customers, not overload them with information they might or might not use, and give them opportunities to interact with the brand via links, surveys, email response, and more. More importantly, track responses in order to continually evolve and tailor your program. Subscribers rule, after all. Lastly, brand standards are important to maintain, but always use web safe fonts when possible – optimization is key in the decision to open or delete in an environment where most emails are delivered to images-off inboxes by default.
To summarize, though your email should be designed for maximum performance and consistent display in email clients, it is critical that your brand emails look like they have the same “parents” – your website and other marketing collateral. For more tips on brand synergy, rendering and all things email design, download our Email Design whitepaper.
This historic local community's communications demonstrate excellent brand synergy.
Andrea Smith
Design Consultant
ExactTarget Campaign Solutions Team
51 seconds. With such a short time frame, how do you want your subscribers spending their time? Ensure your email is designed to guide a subscriber’s attention through the email to the conversion opportunity. If the conversion is to a website, it’s critical to create a consistently-branded experience from the email and through to the landing page.
How do you create that brand experience? Well, first remember that email is a different playing field than web. Logo, colors, look and feel – these are all very important elements that should transfer to your email design. However, email does not need to look like a carbon copy of your website. Email widths need to be considered separately from a website (we recommend 600-650px wide). Navigation in email should be modified appropriately, and content should consist of short, relevant snippets that link to full articles hosted elsewhere as a web page, landing page, or PDF. Maximize your space with elements that engage your customers, not overload them with information they might or might not use, and give them opportunities to interact with the brand via links, surveys, email response, and more. More importantly, track responses in order to continually evolve and tailor your program. Subscribers rule, after all. Lastly, brand standards are important to maintain, but always use web safe fonts when possible – optimization is key in the decision to open or delete in an environment where most emails are delivered to images-off inboxes by default.
To summarize, though your email should be designed for maximum performance and consistent display in email clients, it is critical that your brand emails look like they have the same “parents” – your website and other marketing collateral. For more tips on brand synergy, rendering and all things email design, download our Email Design whitepaper.
This historic local community's communications demonstrate excellent brand synergy.
Andrea Smith
Design Consultant
ExactTarget Campaign Solutions Team
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