3 Steps to Awesome Email Design

Emails are a critical part of almost any communication strategy. As government communicators, you’re putting time and effort into better connecting with your audience, so you want to ensure that your department’s emails are designed to encourage your stakeholders to take action and engage with your organization.

What can you do to up your email design game and make your emails more engaging? After conducting extensive research analyzing the email strategies of a variety of local and national government organizations, our team at GovDelivery came up with a number of great ideas and proven tactics. Here are a few to get you started:

1)      Determine what action you want readers to perform and design your emails around it

Setting goals is one of the most important steps in any effective email marketing plan. If you don’t know what you want your stakeholders to do when they open your email, then how are they going to know what to do? Figuring out which specific call to action is most important in each message is essential to cutting out the clutter that can potentially distract and deter readers from performing that action. On average, 86% of users will only click one link in an email, so make sure you know which one you want them to click and be strategic about how you’ll get them to click it.

2)      Keep mobile in mind

In order to make the most out of your emails you have to think not only about what you want your stakeholders to read, but where they’ll be when they read it. More and more people are checking email on their mobile phones, which means that they’re doing it in places that are much more distracting than the office. If someone is taking a quick peek at their inbox while they “powder their nose” in the bathroom, chances are they aren’t going to bother reading anything that isn’t immediately legible. Optimize your emails for mobile access by making your fonts larger, links/buttons more prominent, and embracing white space.

3)      Make your subject lines short and snappy

If you’ve done any research in the past about how to make your emails more effective you’ve likely already heard this one, and for good reason. Writing subject lines that are short, catchy, and to the point is one of the most important tactics for increasing open rates. Additionally, editing your pre-header, or preview text, to reflect the content of the email is another great way to set your message apart and draw your stakeholders in right off the bat.

For additional information and ideas on how you can create more engaging emails, check out the replay of our webinar on the topic, “Engaging Email Design: Tips and Tricks to Getting More Results for Your Communications.”