Have you ever read Why We Buy; The Science of Shopping by Paco Underhill? Underhill’s company, Envirosell, specializes in retail marketing solutions. In the book, there's a chapter titled “Shoppers Move Like People” that contains humorous narratives about basic mistakes in retail environments’ “usability” that seem to ignore human limitations.
For example, we humans only have two hands, so there’s only so much we can carry while shopping. So retailers would greatly benefit from scattering shopping baskets throughout the store – not just two feet from the entrance – to overcome this limitation. The more shoppers can carry, the more they will buy. Makes sense, right?
If you’re wondering what a book about retail marketing strategy and consumer behavior has to do with email marketing, here’s the connection: your email subscribers read emails like people, too. And just like the retail marketers in Underhill’s book, it’s surprising how easy it is for email marketers forget this.
With the volume of email in our inboxes, an email needs a high degree of usability to grab our attention in a matter of seconds. By “usability,” I mean that the layout and writing both need to be extremely user-friendly to survive the dreaded DELETE button.
Here are 5 email design tips to improve your email usability:
1. Don’t bury the lead, as they say in the journalism business. The header of your email should include an attention-grabbing title or graphic. Your readers should instantly be able to recognize who the email is from (so include your logo) and why they would want to read it.
2. Left to right - Since English speakers tend to read emails from left to right, make sure your most important information is on the left side of the email. Save the right column for secondary information.
3. Don’t make emails too long - People tend to skim emails. When was the last time you read an entire e-newsletter? It’s essential to design emails so your readers can quickly find the most important information.
4. Easier navigation - If you must include a lot of information in your email, include a table of contents to help readers find what interests them. Or, rather than including a long article in an email, provide a summary with a link to a landing page with the entire article.
5. Make it look nice - Make sure your email is aesthetically pleasing. It doesn’t have to be a work of art, but the design should do justice to your brand. Nothing makes me delete an email faster than ugly graphics, mismatched fonts, cluttered layouts, or discordant colors.
So before you hit the SEND button, try to avoid these pitfalls by asking yourself, “Would I read this email if it arrived in my inbox?” If the answer is no, then your email subscribers probably won’t either. After all, people read emails like people.
Want even more email design tips? ExactTarget’s Design toolkit has everything you need to improve your email design usability. You can download it here, or if you’re an ExactTarget user already, view it here on 3sixty.
For example, we humans only have two hands, so there’s only so much we can carry while shopping. So retailers would greatly benefit from scattering shopping baskets throughout the store – not just two feet from the entrance – to overcome this limitation. The more shoppers can carry, the more they will buy. Makes sense, right?
If you’re wondering what a book about retail marketing strategy and consumer behavior has to do with email marketing, here’s the connection: your email subscribers read emails like people, too. And just like the retail marketers in Underhill’s book, it’s surprising how easy it is for email marketers forget this.
With the volume of email in our inboxes, an email needs a high degree of usability to grab our attention in a matter of seconds. By “usability,” I mean that the layout and writing both need to be extremely user-friendly to survive the dreaded DELETE button.
Here are 5 email design tips to improve your email usability:
1. Don’t bury the lead, as they say in the journalism business. The header of your email should include an attention-grabbing title or graphic. Your readers should instantly be able to recognize who the email is from (so include your logo) and why they would want to read it.2. Left to right - Since English speakers tend to read emails from left to right, make sure your most important information is on the left side of the email. Save the right column for secondary information.
3. Don’t make emails too long - People tend to skim emails. When was the last time you read an entire e-newsletter? It’s essential to design emails so your readers can quickly find the most important information.
4. Easier navigation - If you must include a lot of information in your email, include a table of contents to help readers find what interests them. Or, rather than including a long article in an email, provide a summary with a link to a landing page with the entire article.
5. Make it look nice - Make sure your email is aesthetically pleasing. It doesn’t have to be a work of art, but the design should do justice to your brand. Nothing makes me delete an email faster than ugly graphics, mismatched fonts, cluttered layouts, or discordant colors.
So before you hit the SEND button, try to avoid these pitfalls by asking yourself, “Would I read this email if it arrived in my inbox?” If the answer is no, then your email subscribers probably won’t either. After all, people read emails like people.
Want even more email design tips? ExactTarget’s Design toolkit has everything you need to improve your email design usability. You can download it here, or if you’re an ExactTarget user already, view it here on 3sixty.
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