Did you know that email marketing has an average return of investment of 4,200%? Despite the advances in telecommunication, email remains a powerful marketing tool preferred by 87% of B2B marketers and 72% of customers.
One popular type of email used by marketers is newsletters. But what are they?
A newsletter is a regularly sent email containing carefully selected content, such as current trends, resources, and how-tos. The objective is to update your subscribers while continuously adding value to their lives.
With the right newsletter design ideas, you’ll be able to create well-done emails that'll positively impact your business growth. This article shares the potential benefits of newsletters, useful tips, and attractive ideas that will help you impress your audience.
Let’s dive in.
How Can a Good Email Newsletter Benefit Your Business?
If you’re still not fully convinced on why you should add newsletters to your marketing strategy, no worries. Below you’ll find the top benefits of email newsletters that’ll make you a convert in no time.
Enhanced brand awareness
Customers may forget about your company if you don't communicate with them for months. Sending regular newsletters is an effective way to keep them informed on company news, product launches, discounts, events, and many more.
A good newsletter helps you establish a robust connection with your clients and solid brand awareness. It may also help you drive more traffic to your site.
It’s up to your company policy to send an email newsletter daily or weekly. However, most customers expect to receive a newsletter at least once a month.
Email newsletters are a terrific way to remind your subscribers about your service and cultivate a long-term relationship with them by delivering your material regularly.
Increased conversion rates and sales
Investing time and energy into cultivating meaningful connections with your clients will pay off in spades.
People are more likely to remember, trust, and ultimately buy from you if they interact with your brand frequently through newsletters. A single click can lead to a sale, offering you the opportunity to boost your profit margins.
Let’s take the example of The New York Times. When people subscribe to Time’s newsletter, they are twice more likely to become paying subscribers.
Higher subscriber engagement
With 99% of users checking their email each day, you can always rely upon email newsletters to attract a higher subscriber engagement. The reason behind newsletters witnessing a higher engagement is that they don’t appear as intimating and invasive as promotional emails do.
You can step it up a notch by observing how your subscribers interact with your newsletters using different email marketing metrics. If you want to understand your campaign performance better, you can calculate response rates using specialized tools like a free reply rate calculator.
This valuable information will let you create tailored newsletters that witness an even higher interaction from your subscribers.
Email Newsletter Design Your Subscribers Will Love
How can you build a newsletter that will perform well? You should approach this process with creativity, but there are a few elements you should necessarily add.
Anatomy of an email newsletter
Each newsletter, irrespective of its industry, type, and particular occasion for sending, includes:
An attention-grabbing subject line: Given that most of your readers receive emails on their mobile devices, make sure your subject line contains no more than 35 characters.
Your logo: This is a key element of marketing your brand and creating better brand awareness.
A prominent header. This can include a featured image and/or a captivating headline that will engage your readers.
The newsletter body: Your messages, visual elements, discount codes, call to action buttons - you name it.
An email footer: This includes social media links and an unsubscribe link.
5 newsletter design tips you must follow
When creating your newsletter, there are some best practices you’ll want to follow:
Use professionally shot or edited images and create a color palette tailored to your brand to ensure consistency across all your emails. We suggest building an email design system for all your emails.
Incorporate video, GIF, or memes. An image is worth a thousand words, remember?
Include one clear call to action prompting your audience to take the desired step, such as Learn more, Get in touch, Book a demo. The clearer it is for subscribers, the greater their chances to follow.
Opt for a mobile-responsive design: Ensuring your email design is compatible with mobile devices is crucial for creating the best experience for your subscribers.
Decide on the length of your newsletter depending on your audience, your goal, and the type of content you include.
Implementing these tips will help you build a newsletter that will speak for your brand. To help you with that, we’ve collected the best newsletter design ideas plus some cool examples.
12 Newsletter Design Ideas to Impress Your Audience
Don’t just create the newsletter you’re used to seeing. Read the below list of newsletter design ideas and decide for yourself which one(s) work for you.
1. Welcome
Welcome your new subscribers to your mailing list in style and make a lasting impression with this newsletter example. Their initial excitement about joining your mailing list will be reignited when they receive your thoughtful note.
For welcome newsletters, I suggest you follow a simplistic design and let your copy do all the talking. Remember, the purpose of this newsletter is to kickstart your relationship with your subscriber on a sweet note.
The welcome newsletter by Tory Burch below is short and sweet, with a simple white background and a stylish floral print on the borders. The font selected and the hand-written “Welcome” add to the elegance of this design.
A quick design tip: Use your product shots instead of icons and include your social media icons at the bottom.
2. Product collection
Another helpful newsletter design idea is to highlight specific products that fit a particular theme. This allows you to showcase a single sub-category of your business, focusing on your customers' specific topics of interest.
In the below example from Lancôme, the background color is crafted in the color scheme of the product line, and the text feels perfectly in place. It shows off all of the products naturally, emphasizing the green purity of plant-derived cosmetics.
A quick design tip: Use a well-staged photo to make an excellent background for your email newsletter, complementing the product images and allowing the text to be seen easily.
3. Personalized messaging
You can better serve your customers by utilizing tailored email marketing. Your subscribers can learn more about how you'd like to serve them based on their preferences.
For designing such a newsletter, you should highlight customer data, interests, or whatever is the basis of segmentation. This ensures that the ‘personalization aspect’ is made the focal point of the newsletter.
Spotify provides a great example of personalized newsletters created individually for each of their millions of subscribers based on their listening data.
4. Product launch
This newsletter design idea is self-explanatory. You send this newsletter whenever you introduce a new product or collection. You can choose to keep this newsletter informative or sneak in a sale to bag some extra bucks.
The newsletter below is dedicated to the debut of the Casper Sleep Channel and uses both design and text to promote this new product. This newsletter deserves a 10/10 for the on-brand email design that is getting me ready to catch up on my zzzs.
A quick design tip: Select icons corresponding to the topic of your newsletter and follow a consistent style to the remaining email.
5. Company update
This type of newsletter aims to inform your subscribers of what is happening at your company. This newsletter can be used to announce new positions, provide a monthly overview of your company's activities, or other company news/announcements.
For the design of such a newsletter, you should focus on a singular message and add graphics in email to support that message.
In this newsletter example from Clive Coffee, their subscribers are instantly pulled by the attractive headline and feature image. This is followed by a concise email copy that elaborates their message without wasting anyone’s time.
6. Event announcement
Company newsletters shouldn’t be dull. They can be powerful tools for nurturing meaningful relationships with your customers, and an outstanding design can help you achieve that.
Are you hosting a webinar or an event where you'll show off your product's prototype? Invite your email subscribers to participate in your events by running an email-exclusive campaign.
This newsletter from Brother Moto shows how you can organize a special event to introduce your product and inform your customers about it. Take a look at how the red color filter on the image makes it stand out, corresponds to the color of the CTA button, and creates an impressive effect.
A quick design tip: Give images a color filter to make them blend into your newsletter design. Cover the image with a color layer and then adjust the opacity to create a unique impression.
7. Guide
Use newsletters to provide value to your subscribers by helping them achieve their goals and giving them practical and actionable advice. Here's a chance to be helpful while promoting your services in style.
The example below from 1973 Ltd is designed to help their subscribers with email marketing by providing them with a thorough guide. Note the simplistic design that lets the copy do all the talking.
A quick design tip: Organize your guide newsletters clearly without extra, distracting design elements. A numbered list of instructions against a clear background would do a great job.
8. Discount offer
In this newsletter, you'll offer a discount to your customers, which, when combined with the Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO), will convince your subscribers to take the desired action.
This newsletter example from Wix illustrates how FOMO works. Note that the image reflects the particular occasion for the discount and complements the text.
A quick design tip: Create engaging discount offers by adding interactive elements within your newsletter.
9. Blog
Have some great content you think subscribers should read? Use a recommended blog newsletter to get subscribers engaged with your content. Explain how a blog post will help them solve their issues, change their lives, or achieve their aims. Your main task is to evoke curiosity so that readers wish to read more.
This newsletter from Indeed offers readers insights into their latest blog posts along with an easy way to read older ones. The title is designed to arouse curiosity and signal the topics of the featured content.
10. Upcoming product
Have an upcoming product, and you want to motivate your prospects to place their order before the release date? Send your prospective customers a pre-order newsletter campaign with a compelling design.
Let’s take the example of Apple. Note how the black background brings the product into focus. It creates a sense of luxury and desire, prompting the customer to click on the pre-order CTA button.
A good rule of thumb is to send your upcoming product newsletter first to those at the BoFu stage (bottom-of-funnel) since they are already interested and ready to make the pre-order.
11. Giveaway announcement
You may increase your brand's exposure and attract new leads by running a giveaway or contest.
This newsletter example from Barebones offering a limited-time giveaway perfectly combines visual and verbal components. The image creates mystery, and the title font selection accomplishes this effect.
12. Team spotlight
There are a lot of interesting details involved in your company's operations and product creation. Engage your readers by letting them take a closer look inside your team and product development. In other words, provide a behind-the-scenes look at your company.
You can even highlight your employees, their work, and interests. This gives the impression that you’re more than just a brand and not a fictitious entity.
The below newsletter from Thinx focuses on one of their employees and asks her a series of questions to better know her.
A quick design tip: Using alternating colors helps break your newsletter into smaller sections, making the content easy to go through.
Conclusion
People remember brands that send catchy newsletters and consistently keep in touch with them. These 12 newsletter design ideas could help build an interactive relationship with your subscribers and convince them to take desired actions.
Before recreating any of the designs, identify the goal for each newsletter you wish to send, and try to fit these goals into your designs naturally.
