The Ultimate Guide To Email Design (Series 3 of 5)

When designing an email there are three important steps to consider; making your email responsive, deciding what type of email you'd like to send and finally thoroughly testing your email design. If you complete these 3 stages then your email design should be setup with ease and working without any rendering issues.

Creating Responsive Emails

Making your email responsive so it can adapt to the device being used helps to provide an overall better experience for your subscribers. If you're not convinced about creating responsive emails then maybe this will change your mind, the email client market share provided by Litmus, shows that the top email client being used out of a recorded 1.06 billion opens is the Apple iPhone.


Before you start to panic, creating responsive emails doesn't have to be a daunting task; if you use an Email Service Provider (ESP) then you can create responsive emails within minutes as they will often provide free responsive templates to base your emails on.

GraphicMail offers over 80 free responsive templates and as the template library is so extensive it covers many different business sectors so there will definitely be a template which suits your company’s needs.

Now you know why the email should be responsive and how you can create them, here's some design tips for when you begin creating your responsive email:

Pre-Header (email snippet text) - As pre-header text will display next to the subject line it can be a great way to entice your subscribers to open the email fully. More details regarding this can be found here.

Images - As your email is going to be viewed by someone on the move using their 3G it's important to make sure your image is as compressed as possible. You can compress an image without compromising the quality via tinypng.com or tinyjpg.com

Spacing - As your email is going to be viewed on a small screen spacing is very important as it gives you the ability to make certain sections of your email stand out as well as helping the usability of the email. Make sure you don't have too many text hyperlinks together as it's easy to tap the wrong one.

Buttons - Use buttons rather than hyperlinked text it makes them stand out, easier to tap and will help to provide a better experience for your subscribers. If you'd like to create a button that will work in all email clients & devices then you can view our button creator here.

Use Headings - When people are viewing your email on a mobile they will likely be busy and on the move so it's best to make use of headings. Using headings & sub-headings will give your reader the ability to easily scan read your email to decide what they would like to concentrate on.

View In Browser - Let's be honest, sometimes things can go wrong whether that's because of a subscribers settings or an email client that you forgot to test your email in. By providing a 'view in browser' link you are always giving your subscribers an opportunity to view your email in the browser which will display it correctly.


By viewing the responsive email on the left, you can see that the images have been scaled to fit the screen size, the text has been enlarged and it is easily readable, and overall it is a very user friendly email.

Compared to the non-responsive email, which requires a lot of zooming to read the small text, it is hard to navigate because the email has been scaled down into a smaller viewing window and above all it doesn’t give a good impression to the recipient.

With this example, it’s clear to see the benefit of sending a responsive email.

What type of emails should you be sending?

Okay, so now you know how easy it is to create your email campaigns with an Email Service Provider, how much time it’ll save you in the long run by using your saved templates and the benefits of sending a responsive email. The next step is to decide what type of email you are going to send out to your subscribers, and to help we have comprised a varied list of different emails that you may want to send.

Limited Offers - The shorter life span you give the offer such as this week/day only will help to add urgency to a sale likely resulting in a better return on investment. Remember that emails are convenient and people check their emails frequently so don’t be afraid to limit your offers.

Last Minute Offers - These are the emails that you can send to sell your last load of old stock to make room for your new stock.

Email Newsletters - This can be used to tell people about your business and explain how your business can improve other people’s workplace. You could also include hints and tips into this type of newsletter, along with some selling of course.

Product Updates & Information - This can inform your subscribers of any updates or anything that they would need to know about your company.

Staff Newsletters - Use your ESP as a means to email colleagues, keep it all in one place. Inform your colleagues of any new offers that you are going to be sending out so everyone can be prepared for any questions they might get asked.

Invitations - You may want to invite people to your business for an open day, free workshops, or even invite them to enter a competition.

After Sales Emails - Always store the data about your sales, as you will be able to use that information to send more targeted emails to that individual depending on what they have been buying. You can also include any thank you messages or service ratings to check your customers are receiving their goods, and to see if there are any improvements that could be made.

Personal Greetings - This is why you should ask your subscribers to include their personal details when they subscribe as you will be able to send a birthday message to your subscribers. On the selling side of things, you will know that a subscriber that has just had his/her birthday will most likely have more money to spend. In that in mind, why not send them a newsletter advertising some of your more expensive products that they may be interested in.

Final Email Testing

While you are creating the email it's best to test it to make sure your changes are working as expected, however there are also some other things we'd suggest:

Save As Template - If you intend to reuse the email for future sends then it's best to save the email as a template as that will only have the original working HTML code which should reduce the risk of errors.

Inbox Preview - Most ESP's (Email Service Providers) will have an 'Inbox Preview' feature that allows you to see exactly how your email looks in multiple email clients and devices. This is the best way to quickly check your email is displaying exactly as you expect.

Check Spam Score - Checking the 'spam score' will help to make sure that your email has the best chance to land in the inbox. A spam score checker should give you a score and advice based on your email and send details allowing you to make some changes if needed.

Create Text Only version - Although you want your fantastic new design to be shown in its full glory, if you don't include a text only version then you run the risk of a subscriber receiving a blank email. Most ESP's will allow you to create a text only version of your email as an addition to your send. They should only send the text only version of your email if your HTML version isn't accepted. So if a text only version is sent in its place then as long as you include a URL to your HTML email then they can view it in the browser and they can read any text within your text only version. You can find out more about text only versions here.

If you follow the advice given above then your email design should impress and achieve the best results possible. We wish you the best of luck and as always you if you'd like more ideas about how you can make sure your email campaign is successful then view more tips here.