Please help me level up my emails

[AdrianB3]

Hello, I'd love advice on my email campaigns. I email every Friday to about 1200 adults (50 years of age and over) at 4pm-ish every week.

My goals are to share fun events, important resources, and support groups we have at the church. how can I maximize readability, contrast, and branding?

thank you!

P.S. I do have feedback - I wish it wasn't so difficult to move a block with a photo, text, and CTA button. it is SOOOO hard and takes too long in my opinion. thank you!

https://conta.cc/3wBxiPk

[Caitlin_M]

Hi @AdrianB3! Thanks for coming over to the Template Feedback board. I'd be happy to review your email. 

The light purple color complements the darker purple color of your logo. As a note, I saw the logo isn't clickable so there isn't an easy way to get to your website.  Also, the "Visit our Website" button at the bottom of the email goes to a broken link so that will need to be fixed. Another adjustment I would make is to change the appearance of your text links. I wasn't aware that I could click on them until I hovered over the text. An underline would work well here. You will want to keep in mind the number of text links you have in an email as they can be distracting.

For me, the email is a bit long and I found myself losing track of where I was. However, this is my opinion and I'm not in the demographic you typically send to. In your next send, try using a poll block to ask what your contacts think of the format of your emails. Maybe they would be interested in receiving separate emails, like one dedicated to weekly events and another with resources. You have a great open rate so it proves your contacts are interested in what you are saying!

I'll make sure to note the feedback about the ease of moving blocks around. Have a great weekend!

[Elizabeth_K]

Hi, @AdrianB3!  Thanks for sharing your newsletter! (Thank you for also sharing your feedback about moving a block too!)

Looking over your email, I can see you have lots of info you need to share. You also have your own brand to work with, which is great!

The first thing that jumps out to me, that I think will make the biggest impact, is that each of the sections are formatted a little differently. If you add a headline block to the top of each section, and then put your image, text, and call-to-action button below it, it will make your email look more consistent overall. Since your buttons are white, I think you can get away with using the dark purple of your logo with white text (for good contrast) as the section headline.  (In the Layouts section of the email editor, there is a "Section heading" block that would work well - all you have to do is drag it in and choose the color.  

 

Once the headlines are uniform, you can use different layout blocks below them to suit the content. You can also find them in the Layout section of the email editor. Some of them have background colors or borders around them so you can highlight different parts of your content as necessary. I wouldn't worry about trying to be too uniform with these, because the headlines will go a long way with making your email formatting more consistent.

Then the second thing that I think will make an impact is reducing some of the content in the areas where you can link off to a website with more information. We have a "Read More" block that is perfect for this - when you add the URL it pulls in content, which might save you some time in having to write it. You can edit the image and text content too, so you're not stuck with it. (Just a note that not all URLs are compatible, but they will link the button for you and all you have to do is add the image and text.) Otherwise, if you want to add the content yourself, pick out the things that will entice readers to click, and then leave the website to do the work with the rest of the content.  You have a "More info & sign up" button that is exactly the kind of wording you can use to tell the reader what they can expect when they click.

Then the last thing is to make all the fonts more uniform. If you copy and paste text, use Ctrl+Shift+V to paste it into the editor. Then you can use the global fonts to choose the font, font size, and color. If you want to use different font styles, a good rule of thumb is to make your headlines one font, and your body text another font. Consistency with the formatting makes it easier on the reader.

I hope this helps!  Let us know if any of these suggestions work for you!