Posted by Chris Donald On March 27, 2023 in story time I 0 Comments
Whether you’re a seasoned email marketer or just getting started, one thing is for sure- creating eye-catching, engaging emails can be a challenge. But fear not! Our blog is here to provide you with all the inspiration and tips you need to create emails that are so good, your subscribers will be hitting CTA buttons before they even finish reading. Here are some unique and jaw-dropping email designs to inspire you to craft your own.
Adding interactive elements to your email makes them eye-catching and click-worthy. According to 93% of email marketers, interactive emails are more educational and preferred by customers.
However, you can do more than that with interactive emails. Some brands are known to go overboard with interactivity and code full-length games in their emails to keep their customers enthralled by their creativity.
McDonald’s Valentine’s Day email campaign was something to behold. The subscribers would find a sealed envelope when they opened Valentine’s day email.
You will notice that they have used gradient coloring in their email copy to highlight the words “Offer.” McDonald’s also uses gradient-colored lines to draw the user’s eyes toward the heart, which is the action button to trigger the interactive email.
When you click on the heart, the entire email copy changes with a magical flourish. Here, you’ll find a normal promotional email, advertising discount codes for Valentine’s Day.
Again, the important bits of information are highlighted using gradient colors. This single email uses a multiple-pronged approach to enchant its customers. First, it captures the reader’s attention using the closed envelope.
Next, it wins over their heart through the wonderful animation and, of course, a generous discount code.
The promotional email for Antman 3 also carried a touch of interactivity with it. Upon clicking the red button, another full-sized Antman poster would pop up.
The animation resembles the light streaks the protagonist sees when entering the microverse in the previous movies. These interactive elements make the reader feel as if they are a part of Quantumania.
Email marketers are no strangers to GIFs. The design trend makes the template come to life through animation.
You can create a quirky email with a lot of personality to distinguish yourself from your competitors. Some email marketers may argue that GIFs are unsupported by a few email clients and increase the load time of the emails.
Yes, some Outlook versions only offer partial support for these GIFs. But, it in no way diminishes the host of benefits a brand can enjoy by incorporating a GIF or animated images in their emails.
Mode Chocolate uses elements of most of the design trends mentioned in the blog. But, first, let’s look at the stand-out feature which is the GIF weight scale.
The small animated scale keeps oscillating between the extremes to depict how much sugar they use compared to other brands. The GIF is simple and uses 3D rendering to make it pop out.
Apart from that, they have also used a gradient blend line to separate the different sections of the email. Mode Chocoloate’s email is also minimalistic as it cuts straight to the chase and avoids any clutter.
Niice uses an incredibly attractive GIF in their emails. The email designers managed to incorporate a GIF of a 3D creature playing the drums.
On top of that, the background color used in the email is vibrant and instantly ensnares the reader’s curiosity. Nicce also uses a custom font in the header. All in all, Niice establishes itself as a brand with a unique identity and brand voice.
Dark mode templates have been constantly trending for the past couple of years. And, why shouldn’t they? A majority of people are using dark themes on their phones and desktops that also change the UI colors of their preferred emailing apps.
A dark mode template seamlessly blends with the background and creates an unmatched reading experience for the user. In addition, dark backgrounds with lighter texts put less strain on the reader’s eyes. Lastly, the dark mode allows email designers to test their creative mettle.
Framer uses a highly personalized email template that changes its appearance depending on the desktop theme of the readers.
This allows them to create an email template that appeases both light and dark theme users. Framer’s onboarding email also uses a small GIF loading screen to show the account set up the progress of the customer.
While choosing the colors for the loading screen and the icons, they went ahead with colors that would go well with both white and black backgrounds. In doing so, they were able to reduce the multiple lines of codes required to transform the email.
Dark mode does not necessarily mean that the entire email background needs to be in dark colors. Email marketers have the creative freedom to mix and match the dark mode with a light background to bring the spotlight to their content.
Nonny’s uses this method to highlight its products and discount offers. They have also used an orange CTA button with black borders to help the readers locate them easily.
Personalized email templates are a perennial design trend. Customers and readers are always looking forward to how you can add value to their lives through your emails.
As a result, the more you personalize your emails for your customers, the more likely you are to retain their loyalty.
Personalization, combined with segmentation, identifies unique traits of your customers and their browsing patterns to compose emails to suit their preferences.
Email marketers use dynamic email content blocks to build their personalized email campaigns.
GasBuddy sends highly personalized emails to its users. These emails carry a scorecard that analyzes their driving style and offers them advice to increase their fuel efficiency.
Moreover, it calculates your average speed and time for each trip. GasBuddy has also added a small GIF of a car to make the email even more engaging.
Lyst does not beat around the bush when it comes to highly personalized product recommendation emails. Whenever it receives a new batch, it automatically sends a list of product recommendations to the subscribers based on their purchases and browsing history.
This way, the subscribers are kept up-to-date with the latest fashion trends. But, for business, such product recommendations encourage repeat purchases and improves brand loyalty.
Most email designers and marketers rely on vibrant visuals and catchy copies to draw the attention of customers. Minimalistic email templates lie on the opposite end of the spectrum, yet achieve the same outcome.
With the minimalist approach, the designers declutter the template by removing unnecessary noise. These designs highlight important information by prioritizing visual flow. White space and monochrome colors are generously used along with simple fonts and obvious CTA buttons.
True to its brand aesthetics, Atoms uses a minimalistic design for its emails. The product’s images and background sport soft color that imparts a soothing aura to the template.
The email copy lacks fluff but gets the message across. At the end of the email, they added a bit of interactivity to the email. Instead of inserting a solid CTA button, they asked a question and offer two responses.
Clicking on the ‘Yes’ will redirect the reader to their website. And, clicking on ‘No’ will redirect you to an Imgur link with a crying Pikachu GIF.
Woven is another brand that prioritizes soft aesthetics over digital clutter. The font used is also clean and exudes class. The CTA button is black and contrasts well with the background.
The retro gradient design has made a comeback, and it is here to stay. A gradient is described as the soft blending of two or more colors. Gradient colored background can instantly instill a sense of calmness and helps guide the reader’s vision.
Of course, gradient backgrounds can be generated with both smooth and vibrant colors. Consequently, they are highly versatile and can easily fit in with your brand aesthetics.
Gradient designs are not only limited to background or foregrounds. You can also utilize these retro shades in your fonts, images, and CTA buttons.
When it comes to gradient emails, Red Bull Racing takes the cake with its electrifying Miami GP announcement email. To start with, the entire email background is painted with neon blue and pink gradient colors.
The logo for the Miami GP also carries the same color pattern. Next, the same color combination is carried over to the hero images and driver quotes. Finally, they have used a flashy GIF along with custom font to engage the F1 fans.
Inclusivity is not a trend, but a requirement. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 dictates that the content on the internet should be made more accessible to differently-abled people.
Including alt text, audio descriptions for images, and email readers can make emails accessible to people with special needs. This helps customers from all walks of life to consume content without any hurdles.
A rising trend that has gone unnoticed by some brands is the utilization of 3D images in their emails. This technique depends on photorealism to capture the reader’s attention.
Some brands use rendered 3D animated images in their emails to add effect. And, others add a bit of depth and smart shading techniques to add depth to their existing 2D images. Both methods are valid and can separate your brand from the 2D crowd.
As mentioned above, 3D images are all about adding depth to your product pictures. Here, Google smartly photographs its smart sockets and knobs at an angle.
This technique enables them to make the products pop out in the images. In addition, they have included a small diorama of a smart and well-designed bedroom. Such 3D images are sure to capture the reader’s attention.
Hims, a telehealth company, consistently uses 3D-like images in its campaign emails. You can see, they play around with light and shadows to give a floating effect to their products.
Now, if you look closely, the effect is applied to every single object in the hero image. They also used the same technique for all the product images included in the email. Again, this simple photography technique manages to add the 3D charm to Hims’ Father’s Day email campaign.
Bare Performance Nutrition’s app onboarding email uses red gradient background with hints of orange. Then, they layered the same gradient on top of their model’s image.
This brings cohesiveness to their template and elevates the overall appearance of the email. Following this, there is a small break where they explain everything a person needs to know about their app before continuing with the gradient design.
We have another gradient email that is a top contender for the best-looking email on this list. Ghia advertises its food range in front of a red gradient background.
It is a vertical gradient that starts from the top and slowly becomes lighter as it flows down. And, by adding the fancy glasses, and bottles to the mix, they have truly crafted a classy email template that will leave the readers drooling on their screens.
MacPaw is already known for using a 3D mascot in most of its emails. But, they took a different approach with their valentine’s day email campaign. In this email, they use a 3D image of a heart-shaped ring box.
But, instead of a ring, the box contains its logo. The light blue background is used to provide contrast to the image and the CTA button.
Aura Bora is a sparkling water brand that takes an abstract approach with its emails. They use fancy fonts and surreal photos to talk about the greenery surrounding us.
And, each phrase, in their ode to mother earth, acts as a CTA button that redirects you to their website. Their emails are less promotional and more like modern art involving surrealism.
Serrano uses a GIF of its model walking down the road. It brings their hero image to life and makes the email more engaging.
They have skipped the email copy and have directly included the discount coupon code for International Women’s Day offer. They have kept the email design as simple as they could.
Of course, flashy emails are great for enthralling customers and getting them to spend more time with your emails. However, creating simple and straightforward templates also works like a charm.
As long as you are focusing on the quality of your email content, you should be just fine. This approach is for new email marketers that are trying to leave their mark in their industry.
Beam advertises their newly introduced mood board with a simple onboarding email. They used pastel-colored backgrounds to create a soothing atmosphere for the reader.
The mood board example is also surrounded by violet borders to highlight a mood board example.
Sometimes, creating outlandish emails to captivate customers can backfire and turn them away. The best course of action is to stay true to your brand aesthetics.
This enables your subscribers to easily identify your emails with a single glance. Brand recognition through emails can be increased by 80% simply by using your trademark colors.
Headspace’s entire brand image is synonymous with consistency. They use the same design philosophy and colors on all social media platforms. Even their Netflix special uses the same mascots as their emails. As mentioned earlier, this helps the customers and potential prospects easily identify the brand.
Creating an all-image email can land you in a heap of trouble. To begin with, all-image texts usually trigger spam filters and reduce the deliverability of your emails.
Next, all-image templates make your emails inaccessible to people that use screen readers. As a result, it is recommended that you maintain the 40:60 image-to-text ratio. Furthermore, you should add alt-text to these images to make your emails ECAG 2.0 compliant.
Needless to say, you need to A/B test all your email templates before running them on your campaigns. These tests allow you to make small tweaks to your design philosophy and content copy for better engagements.
This opportunity can also be utilized to collect valuable feedback from your customers and integrate them into your upcoming email campaigns.
Ultimately, everything boils down to the CTA button. Call-to-actions play an important role in converting readers into active customers.
Not optimizing your CTA button directly affects your click-through rates and, eventually, brings down your overall ROI.
If you are looking for a wide range of wonderful then there is no better place to start than Really Good Emails.
The platform offers thousands of amazing templates, and hundreds more are added every day.
Each email is then sorted into different categories to make it easier for the users to locate and identify them. Email marketers can easily navigate through its library and search for inspiration.
Milled is just RGE on steroids. It records countless promotional emails per day and presents them to its users.
Initially, the platform was launched as a newsletter search engine to help users find discount coupons. But, for email marketers, it acts as a treasure trove of inspiring email designs.
It can be challenging to browse through its massive collection. However, things get a lot easier once you learn the tips and tricks of using the search bar tools.
Email marketing platforms, like Mailchimp, HubSpot, Klaviyo, etc., are known to provide vast template libraries.
Furthermore, these templates are optimized, so, you can use them as it is they are. Or, you can use them as inspiration to create your own.
Now, Instagram does not provide email templates directly. But, it does provide ingenious design ideas for email marketers.
For example, the simple redesign of the Instagram logo prompted email marketers to start integrating gradient designs in the background of their templates. Instagram’s For-You-Page also offers ideas for email content and newsletters.
Pinterest also has plenty of design inspirations. After all, it is one of the most popular social media platforms. To make things easier, you can enter the keywords and let the design cues flow.
We hope that these email designs sparked some ideas for your own email marketing strategies. As long as you are creating emails that are memorable, engaging, and valuable, you will always remain ahead of your competitors.
Irrespective of the type of email you are sending, try to make them stand out in your subscriber’s inboxes by filling them with personality. And, if you find yourself in a rut, please get in touch with our email marketing agency.
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