Content is paramount if you want your Email Marketing Campaigns to be successful. Good content will keep your subscribers coming back again and again, because of the immense benefit it offers to them. But, to get more engagement with your content, it has to look good. Great content is better if it is presented with some visual appeal.

There is a saying that, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Images have the ability to influence our emotions and can impact our behaviour. If you doubt what I say, try this, log on to Facebook, and scroll through your timeline, count how many times you stop to look at a picture a second time and how many times you look a text a second time. I bet it would be in the ratio of a 1000 to 0 that is because our brains process images more than 50,000 times faster than text.

Trying to balance great content with complementary images is a difficult task especially if you consider yourself, design-challenged. Email Service Providers have predesigned templates you can use with your emails, you can select a template, edit the text, maybe change the layout, add some images and you are done.

However, if you don’t find their template satisfactory or if the templates available do not accurately portray the message you are trying to convey, you may have to create yours from scratch. Here are some design principles to have at your fingertips when you are designing you email template.

Ensure the colour scheme you use in your emails is consistent with your brand.

If you don’t already have colours for your brand, choose a few colours to represent your brand. Colours convey a specific meaning, so you can choose one that accurately represents your brand. Choose colours that are complementary and appealing to the eyes. You can get more information online by searching for colour palettes. If you have a product business, you may use more images as opposed to text, and if you have an info product, you can place a banner at the top of your emails.

Place important information in the pre-header text section of your email.

The pre-header text section consists of the first two lines of your email, it shows up immediately after the subject line. On mobile phones, this section is what shows up when a person views the email before they actually clicking it to open. Try to summarize your main message in this section, so the reader can get the main gist of the message.

Use a layout that has only 1 or 2 columns.

When you break emails into several columns, the user has to scroll back and forth to read the email, which makes your emails look a little cluttered. Layouts that use this format don’t appear well on mobile devices, which is the tool most people use to read emails. When a reader goes through so much discomfort to read your emails, soon enough, they get tired and would not want to read your emails anymore.

Use lines or images to break up large chunks of text.

Most people consume information is short bits, using images or lines to break up sections can improve your email visual appeal.

Use a readable font.

Standard fonts like Arial, Times New Roman or Verdana work better for emails. Fancy fonts may look good on your computer, but when someone is viewing that same content on another computer or device that does not have the same fonts, the system uses a substitute font which may not look as appealing as the original font and can affect your email readability.

Bear in mind that your emails may not be perfect right off the bat, you may have to test and review it several times. It’s okay if that happens, you must ensure that your emails reflect your brand and contain great content your subscribers need.