Drive Results with Impactful Email Design
Now that you've set your goals and have a clear expectation of what you're working towards, it's time for Week 2 of Constant Contact's Ready, Set, Send Challenge! This week, we're turning our attention to the ins-and-outs of crafting the perfect email. A well-written and designed email can make all the difference in engaging with your audience and driving the results you want. Watch the video below, and then share an email you created – either in the past, or a brand new email with BrandKit, to earn your badge and get feedback from our community and coaches.
I’m Aaron Wesley Means, founder of ACTIVATE Business Solutions, based in Asheville, North Carolina. For more than 12 years, ACTIVATE has served clients of all shapes and sizes from local to national, has trained thousands of businesses through seminars, webinars, and conferences, and is a recurring award-winning solution provider.
In this week’s Ready. Set. Send Challenge, we will tackle a true cornerstone of successful marketing: your emails. The inbox is easily the most powerful and visible strategy in your marketing lineup, so it has to be great! What does that mean? Designing the perfect email starts with the basics of a great subject line, stellar branding, and a handful of critical components ranging from a featured image, font size, a call to action, or social media integrations. Be sure to plug in for Week 2 of Ready, Set, Send for a breakdown of how to execute the perfect email.
The 7 Essential Design Elements
Behind most successful projects, careful planning keeps everything on track and makes sure the results have impact (we love using the word ‘impact’). Crafting an effective email campaign is no different. Check out our 7-step checklist below and try implementing the strategies that make sense to rise above the inbox clutter.
- Header: This is your From address, your Reply-to address, and your Subject line. These three elements work together to build trust and get those opens. So make sure the email is coming from an expected address - whether it’s your company name or an individual person - then hook your audience with an email subject worthy of being opened! Don’t be afraid to get creative, use a play on words, include any recent trends, or seasonal identifiers. This is also a great spot to release your inner child and include emojis.
- Preheader: You’ll want to stand out from the rest with a preheader that’s unique, eye-catching, and intriguing. The preheader and the subject of the email are like the perfect couple. They have to work hand in hand, but one needs to be funnier for the relationship to last. Choose which one has the spice, but know they both equally contribute to the success of the overall email message.
- Your Brand’s logo & color: To continue to build trust with your subscribers, your emails should match your brand or aesthetic. So make sure to include your logo front and center, and leverage the same colors you are using across your website, socials, or store. Leverage our BrandKit tool to save yourself time and create consistency across all your campaigns.
- Image: Ask yourself if it makes sense to include an image in your email. More often than not, it always makes sense to do this. Include a photo, GIF, or video that caters to your audience best! Did you know, that if you are crafting images in Canva, you can save them directly to your Constant Contact image library to help save you time?
- Text: You don’t need to be a Nobel-prize winning author to compose the perfect email. Be yourself – and write what your recipients would expect to read from you, or your brand. The goal is simply to convey the main reason for your message.
- Call to action: After determining what the reason for sending your email is, ask yourself: “What would I like my audience to get out of this email?” Is it to click a link to your website, schedule an appointment, or discover something new? Including a call to action button directs your audience to the next step!
- Footer: Think of your footer like your signature. You want to include any necessary information to ensure recipients can continue to engage with you or your company, whether it’s your socials, your website, or contact details!
🗒 Feeling overwhelmed? Download our PDF cheat sheet on The Anatomy of a Perfect Email to design the perfect email faster.
How well do you know Constant Contact's hack to better emails? Take the quiz!
You can spend hours crafting the perfect communications, or you can use Constant Contact tools to cheat your way to more opens, more clicks, and more time saved. Click to see if you know these shortcuts:
- How do you get branded emails in an instant?
Click to see moreUse the BrandKit feature under Tools to ensure consistent application of your brand. BrandKit acts like a library for your logo, colors and even images, and applies them to our special Layout Templates.
To take advantage of BrandKit, enter your URL or upload colors and images, make any tweaks you want, then click Create choose Email, and choose Layout templates. Your aesthetic will be instantly added to emails.
- How do you optimize your subject lines?
Click to see moreThere are several easy ways to make your subject lines pop. When editing your subject line in Constant Contact, check out the “recommend subject line” options to see if AI has any better ideas.
To really catch a subscriber’s attention, click on the Personalize button to include a subscriber’s first name. Adding emojis might also do the trick.
Finally, when you’re scheduling your email, check that A/B Test toggle under Campaign Info and try testing one subject line against another.
- How can I make an impression with images?
Click to see more
We recommend using the free graphic design tool Canva to craft crisp, bold, and eye-catching images. Once you're satisfied with your creations, you can save your graphics, photos, and more directly to your Constant Contact library, making it easy to incorporate them into your emails.
Have a lot of Instagram-worthy photos on your phone? Download our mobile app, and save those photos directly to your image library.
- How can I save myself time writing if I don’t know what to say?
Click to see moreUse the AI Content Generator in the email editor toolbar to turn your ideas into a full-fledged email. If you’ve already used BrandKit, it will automatically pick up your voice and tone from your website.
Your Assignment:
- Use BrandKit to upload your assets, either by scanning your website or manually adding your logo/color/images.
- Review the 7 Essential Design Elements from the Anatomy of a Perfect Email handout.
- Want extra credit? Challenge yourself to try something new, like using a new pre-built block layout or including a new image that best captures the message of your email.
- Build an email using your assets and the tips outlined in the handout and share it with the Community using the permanent URL. Not sending an email this week? Take a screenshot of your draft and include it in your reply. We'd love to see your hard work and what you’ve learned!
How you’ll earn your badge:
Resources:
- Handout: Anatomy of a Perfect Email
- Blog: Email Design Best Practices
- Community: Creating Your First Email
TL;DR
Design the perfect email by following the 7 Essential Design Elements from the Anatomy of a Perfect Email handout and dip your toes into BrandKit. Watch the video, follow the tips, and crank out those emails for greater inbox visibility, improved open rates, and increased click rates galore!
Not yet a Constant Contact customer but want to start creating beautiful-looking emails? Start a free trial.
We’re excited to see what cool templates you come up with!
Aaron Wesley Means ACTIVATE Business Solutions Help others find this post by giving it kudos. Note: I am not a Constant Contact employee. |  |
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Your email is a great and with a few tweaks can be even better! Your from line is recognizable, your subject line is catchy and great use of emoticons. Your branding and logo is present and consistent. I recommend making the logo section smaller (but not the logo itself) so that you can use all that wonderful "real estate". It feels like about half that space can go away and the content can be moved up to start engaging the user right away. Your headline and featured image and call to action and matching button are all great, nice job! I can't see the footer, but this is where I'd be sure to anchor critical info that lets them go deeper with you: social buttons, address and contact info, maybe a little teaser line reminding them what makes you, you, etc. I love the styling of your copy and message as well, you definitely have a "voice" and style.
Aaron Wesley Means ACTIVATE Business Solutions Help others find this post by giving it kudos. Note: I am not a Constant Contact employee. | |
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@LeahW28 I love how clean this email is!
✅Logo and branding clear througout
✅Nice featured image, that looks truly scrumptious! You have a nice call to action as well. The only thing I might consider here is a tiny bit more info about what the Farm Science Review event is all about. It may not be critical to do this if all your list members are plugged into the industry enough that they know, but if not it can't hurt to have a small explanation of the event for context
✅Enthusiastic presentation of your other options - great images, headlines, and calls to action with matching buttons... you may consider dialing back on these just for the simple reason that when we ask a reader to do three or four things, it often results in them taking less action overall. Yours are Stop in for Cider, Learn more about Lancaster Spreaders, Contact Us, Shop Red Spreaders, Shop Used Equipment, Join our Mailing List. Now, if you don't send that many emails to your list, you could consider breaking these down into individual emails or grouping them together. But it's up to you... if you know you are just sending one email per month and that's that, then overall your efforts here are fantastic. I like how you have great images throughout - images tell the story before they read the words!
✅Love the footer explaining what you do and giving categories, love the quote, and you have your company contact info clearly showing. (one note: be sure that the info in that grey square is text within the email and not an uploaded graphic, otherwise they can't click the phone, address, or website.
Overall this is a great use of the critical components to make a great email, well done!
Aaron Wesley Means ACTIVATE Business Solutions Help others find this post by giving it kudos. Note: I am not a Constant Contact employee. | |
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I was trying to change the colors from red to blue but had some issues. I think this is a good start.
@user98333 you did a good job on this email! I think the logo and branding are present (and if you plan to change the red to blue, all good and that makes sense). I think you can bring the logo size down some. Your headline is good and your description and content are good as well, but I might recommend increasing the font on the section and putting a few line breaks in there to space out the text and make it more of the centerpiece. Your call to action/button looks good too. The footer has social buttons but maybe add a few blocks of space to that section and add in some other details about the organization. I like how simple and easy the email is to engage - it's clear what it's about and the reader doesn't have to "work for it".
Aaron Wesley Means ACTIVATE Business Solutions Help others find this post by giving it kudos. Note: I am not a Constant Contact employee. | |
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Hi @user386358! A few things to consider: Hyperlinking your website will make it easier for your audience to click and visit your website. I would suggest deleting the brackets and just rely on the hyperlink. I also noticed your email may be text heavy. Is there a way you can capture everything in a more summarized way and link off to your application? I see that right now it's serving more as a blog teaser and this is taking up a majority of your email space.
I love that you have a call to action button to have people subscribe to your newsletter! This is key in keeping people in the loop and builds your community. It's also great that you link to your social channels.
For your footer text, is there a way to also summarize this and potentially cut it down? This information seems like it would be found on your website, which a customer could find when clicking your website link instead of including it in your footer. Something to consider!
Abigail St Jean Community Program ManagerHelp others find this post by giving it kudos. |  |
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@Amyv99 I absolutely love the design of your email. The colors, font, and imagery
Make sure the subject line is attention-grabbing. Perhaps use a phrase like "Get Your Home Ready for Fall with These Cozy Cleaning Tips!" to encourage recipients to open the email.
Your outside and inside project lists are great! To enhance readability, you could add short descriptions to each task. For example:
- Trim trees and shrubs: “Keep your garden looking sharp and ready for winter!”
End with a clear call to action. Encourage readers to reach out for help or share their fall cleaning tips. For example, “Need help tackling that mountain of clutter? Call us for a free consultation!”
Elevate your marketing with Constant Contact's Professional Design Services! From eye-catching email templates to custom branding and social media graphics, our professional design services are tailored to boost your business's impact and engagement. | |
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Hi! I got my goal!!! Over 40 percent open rate for our newsletter. Check this out!!!
Awesome job! It's so exciting to set a goal and be able to truly see it's impact and results. This email obviously did very well, so if you'd like, share another that you're looking to receive feedback on, try something new, design an entirely new layout, use a new template you've never tried...the opportunities are endless!
Again, awesome job on hitting your goals and we can't wait to see what you complete in week 3!
Abigail St Jean Community Program ManagerHelp others find this post by giving it kudos. | |
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56% @NCES ! You just blew up my mind.
Elevate your marketing with Constant Contact's Professional Design Services! From eye-catching email templates to custom branding and social media graphics, our professional design services are tailored to boost your business's impact and engagement. | |
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