iStock_000002116286SmallAs marketers we’re constantly reading blog posts, soaking in new tips and tricks, thinking of our next campaigns, testing email subject lines, meeting about promoting new products, and talking about social media strategy (to name a few common tasks). Underneath all of this hustle and bustle, there’s the underlying notion that what we do as inbound marketers is essentially think of ways to create content, share that content, promote it, and generate leads for our business. Great content isn’t very useful if you’re not promoting it, right? But promoting it means more than just sharing a few posts on Twitter and Facebook. Your social and email strategy behind promoting content should be evolving to adapt to consumer’s visual needs. Yes, social media and email posts with images are proven to convert higher than posts with no images. But there’s so much more than an image when creating graphics for your marketing promotions. The copy, color, placement, size, and use of graphics can really make an impact on conversions when optimized for the desired call-to-action. The question we’d all like answered is: how do you design graphics that convert leads when it’s time to promote your content? In today’s blog, we’re going to concentrate mainly on graphic design for email. Here are some helpful tips:

The Importance of Graphic Design for Email A recent study conducted by MarketingSherpa indicated that 72% of U.S. adults prefer communication with companies to happen through email, 86% would like to receive promo emails at least monthly, and 61% at least weekly. As a result, your email graphics need to follow these rules:

  1. Be visually appealing (follow hierarchy and typography design principles)
  2. Be responsive (mobile, tablet, desktop)
  3. Add value
  4. Be A/B testable (in copy vs. image)
  5. Have a clear CTA

Order Your Title, Subtitle, and Body Copy by Size When you’re working with multiple graphic elements such as fonts, images, colors and shapes or icons – applying hierarchy is a vital skill to get the message of your design across clearly and succinctly. These elements are the three musketeers of the typographic party. From largest to smallest, these content types should be read in a naturally progressive order. Your title is the first thing that your viewer will notice, so make sure it stands out. This can be done by making sure it’s dominant in size, and using a strong eye-catching font. The subtitle should support your title at a relatively smaller type size. Body copy is the smallest and should be clear and easy to read. Avoid using elaborate script fonts or uppercase text in this setting as it forces strain on the reader’s eye and makes the overall text much harder to read.

Increase the Size of Icons to Reflect their Importance Remember to keep the most important objects the largest. When the size of elements is increased it will reflect visual importance. Increase the size of icons so they behave as a ‘call to action’. The more relevant the icon, the better it will function.

color

Use Color as a Visual Highlight Color not only evokes feelings but also creates a level of distinction between what is important and what is not. Applying a bright, bold color to a significant feature will highlight and draw the eye to it, making it a focal component within your design.

Mix Up Your Font Styles Most fonts come in different styles, for example bold and italic, which can be especially useful when creating hierarchy within your designs. Words that deserve a special note, like ‘sale’ or ‘attention,’ are great to treat with different font styles.

Use Grids to Order Your Images Using grids for hierarchy is an excellent way to showcase imagery in order of importance, or to create a visual narrative. You can do this by placing imagery that is more important in the larger placeholder and placing less significant photos in secondary photo holders. Remember to achieve visual consistency by applying the same photo filter code to all your photos, either by using our presets or by creating your own using the advanced sliders.

If you implement these graphic design tips for email, you’ll find people reacting better to your call to actions. Thus, you’ll convert more leads.

Read another blog related to this subject.

 

Leave a Comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.