Email newsletter design and design trends in 2020

Despite the fact that email marketing has been around for decades, it still remains a hot online marketing trend in 2020 and a popular way to promote services online. The method shows good returns at minimal cost and can compete in efficiency with the development of B2B sites (business for business) or the creation of beautiful landing pages (landing pages).

Email marketing is suitable for almost all niches and products, but it is important to understand that it will only attract customers and bring you sales with the right approach. Firstly, you must carefully think over the promotion strategy, and secondly, not just use 2-3 beautiful email icons in the design, but clearly follow modern trends in the design of email newsletters. We will talk about them today.

Hyper-personalization

It may sound strange at first, but hyper-personalization (and not the usual one we are used to) has a lot to do with all aspects of email, including its design.

(personalization increases the amount of delivered mail; targeted emails make 58% of all revenue, provide an increase in ROI by 122%; more than 90% of people 18-65 years old bought at least 1 product / service as a result of a complex advertising email campaign)

This is not about the simple segmentation of the subscriber base, which is used now. We mean email newsletters that will be of interest to every user from your client base, and that will serve a specific purpose – not standard / global, but personalized (important for a specific person).

Hyper-personalization can be achieved using machine learning and AI technology to identify certain patterns when viewing information. This allows the computer to differentiate data and learn how to predict user behavior and make recommendations for better results.

For example, if in the past year the responsive design turned out to be effective for conducting email campaigns, and a particular person rarely viewed letters decorated in pastel colors, then the analysis of this information and the subsequent implementation of certain measures will allow achieving high performance indicators (KPI) for this audience.

The goal of hyper-personalization is to improve the customer experience of your newsletter, which will ultimately encourage them to interact with your product or service.

Interactivity of email newsletters

This is one of the best ways to get attention. And the more attention your email gets, the more effective your conversion rate optimization (CRO) efforts will be. Email newsletters must (!) Attract attention – only in this case it will help users interact with your brand, encourage them to take further actions, including clicking active buttons.

(in all cases of using interactive content, it gives a positive result – more than 65-80% of respondents agree with this)

As you work, you can try using many interactive elements. Among them, there will definitely be one that will best suit your target audience. For example, sliders are more effective when you want to present more than three products, while the erased or flipped card effect increases user engagement when advertising discount codes and promotional offers.

There are a number of other techniques, but the most important thing to keep in mind is that interactive email campaigns help increase engagement levels, since in this case it is much more interesting to “find” the content you want than just reading about it in the text. Just do not overdo it, otherwise it will confuse the client and distract his attention.

You need to know when to stop in everything

You shouldn t add too much content. The right amount of information will help make sure that users are happy with what they find and are ready to interact with your product or service. Use small, memorable pieces of content as something important and interesting.

Ultimately, after getting your initial attention, you need to come up with something memorable that your prospect will want (and won t forget) to interact with. Small videos, interesting facts, small fragments of infographics – you will only need something that will be compact and memorable enough.

For example, the same flip cards (flip cards) are fully consistent with the wishes described above – they are ideal for dividing content into two parts, while helping to reduce the amount of information displayed, look attractive and memorable.

Social media sharing and feedback

Social services and media platforms provide excellent opportunities for interaction. But not without competent email marketing, you still won t be able to achieve your goal. You can have great social media account design, a creative idea for working with influencers, but with weak email marketing strategies, it doesn t really matter.

Place social media link / share buttons in your mail together with different small phrases or popular quotes of slightly larger sizes. The main thing is to use easily digestible pieces of text.

You can also add your own unique buttons, for example, to make purchases, send a message, and so on. Just make sure that the final information block is not overloaded with content (so as not to confuse the user and distract him from the desired action).

Since email marketing is about more than just marketing emails and emailing receipts, you can create an effective campaign that can help generate customer feedback. This relationship is mutually beneficial for both parties.

On the one hand, the customer will directly receive more useful information about customer needs than any AI platform will give. On the other hand, you will form an impression of a brand that cares about user needs. For example, an email might ask you to add a special hashtag and provide a link to the support address.

There are already techniques for encouraging customers to give feedback, which will be in trends in the design of emails in 2020 – this is the use of interactive elements such as checkboxes or quizzes.

Whether it s related to the Net Promoter Score (NPS), or the usual feedback on customer feedback for your service, interactive quizzes are a great way to make your email newsletter memorable.

Bold fonts, subject line emoji, muted colors

These techniques are actively used now, but they will become even more popular in the coming 2020. Let s start with emojis in the subject line of the email:

If you find such a message in your personal mailbox, you probably want to open it. Emojis are what makes e-mail more lively, they are equivalent to colored text to help convey the tone of the message. In addition, Experian reports that adding emoji in the subject line increases the Open Rate by 56%.

Now let s move on to fonts. Minimalism is returning to design, so it is expected that bold fonts will be widely used – simple and calm, allowing a small message to remain prominent:

Netflix successfully combines all the email design trends – interactive GIF graphics, short text blocks, not too bold fonts, the most simple phrases and a button link to a trailer. In this example, there is all the necessary information on the series, the company does not “bother” about unnecessary details, such as, for example, a short announcement of the series, since in any case it will be mentioned in the trailer.

In terms of color, muted hues are expected to become popular. Saturated colors are already a thing of the past, so softer and darker options that are visually easier to perceive will be widely used.

Two email trends that will retain their status in the coming year

Of course, this is about user-generated content (UGC) and video uploads. These trends are guaranteed to be successful in email design in 2020 and beyond.

Let s start by embedding videos in emails. Here s an example:

Here we are talking about video tutorials on decorative makeup for Halloween. By clicking on the picture, you get to a special page, where the entire process of applying makeup is shown step by step and there is information about all the tools used. This approach can give you a higher conversion rate:

In video tutorials, users watch the action of certain tools in real time, and this will help convince them to buy some of these products.

As for UGC, it is an underestimated (still) but very effective way that can effectively stimulate the involvement of people in the process of interacting with a brand or service. After all, who doesn t want to feel like a marketer and see their content on a newsletter? Especially now that the number of social media platforms like Instagram or VSCO that are targeting UGC is exploding.

UGC is basically good old word of mouth marketing that consumers still trust to this day – the influence of influencers is on the rise, and it can work like referral marketing. Fans of the brand create content for him, and he, in turn, trusts them so much that it allows them to share their materials without compromising their own image. Users become brand ambassadors and interact with it, convincing their friends and acquaintances to make purchases. In the future, these friends and acquaintances become customers – all this happens easily, and most importantly, with minimal investment. In practice, 92% of buyers fully trust the recommendations of their acquaintances.

It is quite possible to use this when developing an email design. As a result, you will be able to increase your e-mail marketing performance indicators, as few people miss the chance to boast that their content has been appreciated and mentioned by their favorite brand.

Total. Overall, all of these email design trends in 2020 will lead to visually simpler emails, although in reality they will use more complex interactive elements aimed at increasing audience engagement. The maximum personalization, which we mentioned at the very beginning, will also actively influence the course of events.

This post is based on this article in English. If you have something to add – share your opinion in the comments.