Category: Marketing Automation

There are lots of ways you can keep your users and audience engaged. One that has proved to be very successful and an opportunity not to be missed is email marketing. With the number of email users set to rise to 4.3 billion in 2023, there is the potential to reach millions of people almost…
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Last Updated on February 23, 2022 by Rakesh Gupta Big Idea or Enduring Question: We don’t want to work on Weekends or Holidays – we all get that! If so then, do you think our clients or prospects do? If you are in doubt then try sending an Email to
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Imagine you’re a hiring manager and put up an ad for a role. After a lengthy process, you hire someone you think is a great fit.
Except, reality sets in a few weeks later when you realize they were a bad hire and you have the start all over again. A robust vetting process would help you avoid this costly mistake.
However, it’s not enough to come up with a process, you have to make sure it’s inclusive, fair, and efficient. Let’s show you how.

Hiring the wrong employee can cost companies hundreds of thousands of dollars. Back in 2016, The U.S. Department of Labor estimated this cost was close to 30% of the former employee’s first-year earnings.
Today, that figure could be even higher.
Undoubtedly, recruiting and hiring candidates is an expensive and time-consuming process. This is on top of figuring out which candidates are most qualified to succeed at your company for the long haul.
A vetting process should include a few critical elements. Let’s cover how to run an effective vetting process that’s efficient and free of bias as possible.
How long does the vetting process take?
The vetting process can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks depending on what your process looks like, the seniority level for the role, and the industry.
For instance, a role at the Federal Bureau of Investigation likely has a much longer vetting process than one at a SaaS company. The FBI likely conducts in-depth background checks beyond a candidate’s criminal background whereas a SaaS company may focus the bulk of its vetting process on technical proficiency.
Over time, your company will start compiling data on how long the process takes based on the factors mentioned above and build its strategy based on that.

1. Write an accurate job description.
Your vetting process will be easier start-to-finish if you take the time to write an accurate and compelling job description.
I spoke to Claire McCarthy, team lead in sales recruiting, who told me the job description can help both you and the candidate ensure a mutually beneficial fit from the start.
“We have pretty comprehensive job descriptions and we want candidates to take the time to read them and ensure the role is a good match for their background and skillset, as well as their long-term goals,” she said.
McCarthy adds that it’s valuable to focus on attributes when creating your job description.
“For instance, for a sales role, we might list ‘customer-first mentality’ as a requirement,” she said.
In addition, craft your description to attract a wide pool of diverse applicants, since diverse teams perform better, and come up with more innovative ideas.
This is important because a Hewlett Packard internal report found that women historically won’t apply for a job unless they meet all the qualifications, while most men will apply if they meet only 60% of them.
However, it doesn’t only affect candidates from a gender perspective. Racism, ableism, and ageism can also impact the hiring process – and it all starts with your job description.
To do so, you can rely on tools like Textio, which help you identify and remove implicit and explicit biased language from your job description.
The goal is to use inclusive language that welcomes and attracts a diverse range of talent.
Take a look at the marketing job descriptions you should recruit and hire to have an all-star team.
2. Leverage software to review candidates’ application materials.
A vetting process should allow you to filter out candidates who don’t have the skills necessary to succeed in the role. To do this, start by vetting the applicant’s resume, cover letter, and other application materials they’ve submitted for review.
Additionally, a vetting process can support your diversity and inclusion initiative by ensuring your HR team remains fair and unbiased when evaluating potential candidates.
For instance, you might implement a blind search system in which resumes are scanned by software, such as Greenhouse.
By ensuring your resumes are automatically sorted based on skill, you’re circumventing some of the unintentional biases that might lead your HR employees to make unfair judgments.
3. Use video interviews prior to phone calls.
There are certain questions you can ask to decipher whether or not a candidate has the correct skills for the role.
You don’t want your recruiters spending valuable time on phone calls when you can just as easily collect that information another way.
At HubSpot, our hiring process includes video interviews, in which candidates must answer a series of questions and submit their recorded responses. The caveat here is that they must answer each question within a minute and they won’t know what the questions are ahead of time.
“We do this for high volume roles, and use the video interview as a qualifier for whether or not the candidate moves forward with a phone interview,” said McCarthy.
Consider using video interviews to limit the amount of phone calls your HR team needs to make each day.
4. Evaluate candidates’ qualifications using additional assessment tools.
To evaluate whether your candidate will succeed in the role, consider offering initial assessments.
As a HubSpot writer, I was asked to write a blog post from scratch using one of HubSpot’s prompt topics before being invited for an interview. This makes sense – why waste your time, and your candidate’s time, if they don’t have the skills you’re looking for?
From the candidate’s perspective, it allows them to get a taste of what the role requires and show off why they’re right for it.
You might consider offering role plays for customer-facing positions, case studies for functional roles, or coding assessments for engineering positions.
5. Trust the process.
The point of having a process is to ensure consistency and promote fairness.
This means across all tools and software you utilize just as much as the steps you follow.
Ultimately, a vetting process is only effective if it’s consistent and replicable.
“A vetting process is about establishing a process at the beginning and sticking to it,” said McCarthy. “Additionally, it’s important to use a vetting process to operationalize how we review candidates and decide which ones are most qualified to move forward to next steps.”
Using these five tactics will mitigate the time and money your HR team spends on recruitment in 2022 while ensuring you hire the best applicants – a win all around.
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in January 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness. 

If you’re struggling to get the word out about your brand new business venture, you’re not alone. Like you, many business owners struggle to acquire customers in the beginning.Balancing the cost, maintenance, and results of a marketing campaign isn’t easy. Most of the time, the solution to this problem is one of two marketing strategies: search engine optimization (SEO) or pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns. But which method is suitable for you?

In this article, we’ve explored what you can expect to achieve from each of these acquisition strategies. We’ve also provided some pros and cons of SEO and PPC strategies along with descriptive statistics and real-life examples to help you decide whether your business is best suited for SEO or PPC — or both.
What is SEO?
Search engine optimization is the process of enhancing your website’s visibility to make it rank and gain organic traffic from search engines.
Just as you turn to your favorite search engines, such as Google or Bing, to look up a new marketing acronym or where to get good pizza, so do your consumers. When you invest in SEO, you’re increasing the likelihood of your target audience finding you when they make a Google search for keywords related to your product or service. In fact, 61% of marketers say that SEO is a top inbound marketing factor for their business. But it’s easier said than done.
Here’s an example of SEO in action.
In the image below, Hubspot appears at the top of Google’s organic search engine results page (SERP) for the term “inbound marketing,” thanks to the SEO strategy we have in place.

The order of the results that appear on the search engine results page isn’t arbitrary. Each search engine takes into account several ranking factors that influence where a webpage gets placed. The goal of an SEO strategy is to create web pages and content that work with the ranking factors of the search engine in order to rise within the SERP rankings.
Are there other search engines besides Google?
Most SEO strategies center around Google instead of others like Bing and Yahoo! because it holds 92.47% of the search engine market share. Because of this, you’ll need to learn about Google’s 200 ranking factors, technical SEO, link building, content creation, and so much more if you want to appear higher up on the search engine results page.
Pros of SEO
Here are some advantages of SEO:
1. SEO is cheaper in the long run.
Although SEO might cost time and money —to pay freelancers or agencies, and for SEO tools — it’s still cheaper than PPC in the long run.
When you create content that ranks and drives traffic to your website, you no longer have to keep spending money to make your target customers see it. And when these customers decide to click on your link, it comes at zero cost, unlike a PPC campaign where you pay per click.
Organic traffic is also very scalable and cost-effective.
2. You can target different funnel stages with SEO.
Not all of your audience is at the same stage of the sales funnel.
Some are just getting to know your brand at the top of the funnel. And others are already at the bottom of the funnel, ready to pull out their wallets.
With SEO, you can create different content types (blog posts, guides, case studies) that meet each segment of your audience exactly where they are in the sales funnel. This gives your site a better shot at getting visitors to the next step in the funnel each time they browse your content.
3. Search traffic is more stable.
Once you rank on Google, you can begin to plan for and predict free traffic to your website as long as you keep optimizing it.
Another advantage to keep in mind is that there is no off-and-on switch with SEO. With PPC marketing, your website stops appearing on search results once your marketing budget dries up. A great way to remember this difference is by thinking in terms of real estate: SEO is like owning your traffic whereas PPC is like renting it.
4. Organic listings build brand authority.
Appearing consistently on search results for keywords related to your products and services helps build trust and brand authority with your target audience.
It also signifies to Google that you’re an expert on that topic or subject. This can lead to more backlinks from other trusted sites which is a ranking factor that search engines favor strongly.
Cons of SEO
Here are some reasons why you might not love SEO:
1. Search engine algorithms change.
Search engines, especially Google, have changed their algorithms many times over the years. These changes mean that you’ll have to keep a close eye on your marketing strategy and organic results.
2. You’ll need to optimize your website regularly.
Your job doesn’t end when you get your website to rank for target keywords for one month. Over time, you’ll have to regularly optimize your content and web pages so that your site continues to rank.
Optimization might include refreshing old articles and removing old/expired links.
3. SEO takes time to show results.
If your website or domain is new, it’s unlikely that you’ll enjoy immediate results from SEO. The reason is that several factors affect how Google ranks websites — many of which won’t be established within the first few weeks or months of launching your site.
2. It requires high-level skills and expertise.
If you’re not hiring a professional, make sure you understand your audience’s goals and meet them with quality content in order to optimize your site properly for the search engines.
It’s undoubtedly time-consuming and overwhelming to run a business while taking technical SEO, writing, and link-building classes, but it can be done if you commit to using an SEO strategy to generate revenue.
What is PPC?
PPC, or pay-per-click, is a form of search engine marketing (SEM) where an advertiser pays a publisher (such as Google or Facebook) for each click someone makes on an ad. This model allows businesses to pay only when consumers interact with their ads. If you use PPC ads, you’ll attract people who are interested in your offer and ready to convert.
You may have noticed that some of the top search results are tagged with an “Ad” marker, like the HelloFresh search results here.
PPC ads always appear alongside organic search results. Some businesses run these search ads for specific marketing campaigns that have a definite start and end date. Others bid on their own brand name as part of their overall marketing strategy — like HelloFresh. Either way, this method is mainly associated with search engines as advertisers bid on keywords that are relevant to their target markets.
The cost of PPC ads usually depends on your industry and the search volume of the keyword you’re targeting.
PPC advertising can help your business stay competitive in a crowded market and quickly get in front of their target consumers if you don’t have the domain authority to get your site ranking organically on search engines.
Pros of PPC
1. PPC offers quick results.
While it can take months to see results from your SEO strategy, it can take just a few hours to see results from your PPC campaign.
2. PPC ads appear above organic rankings.
When you run a PPC campaign for your target keyword, your website would appear first on the search engine result page. This ranking makes your audience notice you first before scrolling to see other results.
3. PPC allows you to pinpoint your target audience.
While setting up a PPC campaign, you get to choose who you want to target with your ads.
Do you want people from a specific geographic area? Or people of a particular age? Marital status? Or interest? If so, then you should use PPC.
3. You can quickly run A/B tests on a PPC ad.
With a PPC campaign, you can run two different ads simultaneously to measure the one that converts better.
All you’ll have to do is change some ad elements like the ad copy and allow them to run for a period. Depending on the performance, you can decide to either “kill” the Google ads or continue optimization to improve your results.
Cons of PPC
1. PPC ads are expensive.
Without money, you cannot run a PPC campaign.
You have to pay for every link that your audience clicks, meaning once your budget dries up, so does your traffic.
Also, a PPC ad can get even more expensive (as high as $40) when you’re in a competitive industry like legal or insurance.
2. Lower profit margins.
While a PPC campaign might bring short-term wins, it’ll usually result in lower profit margins. Because PPC is a “pay to play” system, your customer acquisition costs (CAC) would continue to get higher without a significant increase in the prices of your products and services.
3. PPC ads become stale after a while.
You have limited control over your paid ad because of the rule set by ad platforms like Google. As such, your copy might have similar wording to your competitors, which makes it easy for your audience to pass over quickly.

SEO is also more effective for local searches and can grow your online presence for longer. Pay-per-click (PPC), on the other hand, is an acquisition strategy that requires you to spend ad money to get your content in front of an audience when they search for specific keywords online.
SEO vs. PPC: Which is better?
Asking which is better between SEO and PPC is like asking whether it’s better to eat with a fork or spoon — it depends.
Serving pasta? Sure, I’d love a fork. Soup? I’d rather have a spoon.
In the same way, different situations exist where SEO is better than PPC and vice versa.
Let’s now look at some of these situations.
Use SEO if…

Your marketing budget is low.
You want to build your brand authority.
You’re looking to maximize your long-term return-on-investment (ROI).
You want to create content that reaches your audience at different stages of the sales funnel.

Use PPC if…
You’d get better results with PPC in situations where:

You want quick results.
Your product is novel or first-of-its-kind.
You’re promoting a time-sensitive offer, like a holiday sale.
You want to direct your audience to a sales or landing page.

How to Make SEO and PPC Work For You
Instead of choosing between SEO or PPC, why not combine the two strategies and make them work for you?
Here’s how you can get the best of both worlds.
1. Create retargeting ads.

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Did someone visit your site, probably the pricing or check-out page, without buying?
You can easily use a retargeting ad to prompt these visitors, even after they’ve left your site, to come back and make a purchase.
2. Promote website content with social media ads.

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While you want your content to rank organically, you can give it a quick boost by promoting it on social media.
Not only do these kinds of ads help with content distribution, but they could potentially help you acquire essential backlinks that’d boost your rankings.
Also, it’s going to be a shame not to promote your latest blog post, guide, report, or case study after spending hours creating it.
3. Collect data From ads to improve your SEO strategy.
PPC campaigns grant you access to a lot of data — keyword search volumes, keywords your competitors are bidding for, highest converting calls-to-action, and so on.
Aimed with all of this data, you’d be able to create better SEO strategies with less effort.
SEO vs. PPC Statistics
SEO

Google is responsible for over 92.47% of global web traffic.
90.63% of online content gets zero traffic from Google, with only 0.21% getting over 1000 visits per month.
35.18% of browser-based Google searches resulted in an organic link click in 2020.
99.2% of website pages have less than 100 backlinks.
Google processes over 5.6 billion searches per day (or 2 trillion searches per year.)
64% of marketers actively invest in SEO.

PPC

The Google Display Network reaches 90% of Internet users worldwide.
Search advertising spending was $144.8 billion in 2021, compared to $58 billion in 2020.
More than https://backlinko.com/ad-blockers-users.
The highest average monthly cost-per-click (CPC) in Google Ads search advertising is in the insurance industry at $18.57 per click.
The cheapest CPC in Google Ads search advertising is in the electronics industry at 77 cents per click.
The average Facebook Ads Click-Through Rate across all industries is 1.1%.

Final Thoughts
Whether you choose to go with SEO or PPC ultimately depends on your business situation. So take your time to evaluate the pros and cons of both SEO and PPC to see which is the right fit for you. And if possible, integrate the two strategies to see even more outstanding results for your business.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in July 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in July 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Sometimes, commercials really get me.
T-Mobile’s Super Bowl commercial this year is a prime example — “What’s for Dinner?” demonstrates the infuriating process of choosing what to do for dinner for a young couple, and it’s gold.
The reason T-Mobile’s ad was so relatable is because of their market research. They looked at what their target audiences wanted — including their thought processes, what informs their decisions, and the trade-offs they’re willing to make for their products.

To accomplish all of these important factors in one go, many companies use conjoint analysis.
Think about buying a new phone. Attributes you might consider are color, size, and model. The reason phone companies include these specs in their marketing is due to research such as conjoint analysis.
Would consumers purchase this product or service if brought to market? That’s the question conjoint analysis strives to answer. It’s a quantitative measure in marketing research, meaning it measures numbers rather than open-ended questions. Questions on the phone company survey would include price points, color preference, and camera quality.
Surveys intended for conjoint analysis are formatted to reflect the buyer’s journey.
For instance, notice in this example for televisions, the specs are the options and the consumer picks what best reflects their lifestyle:
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This direct method of giving consumers multiple profiles to then analyze is how conjoint analysis got its name. These answers are helpful when determining how to market a new product.
If answers on the phone company survey proved that their target audience of adults ages 18-25 wanted a green phone from $400-600 and a camera with portrait mode, advertisements can cater directly to that.
The conjoint analysis shows what consumers are willing to give up in order to get what they need. For instance, some might be willing to pay a little more money for a larger model of a phone if their preference is larger text.
Types of Conjoint Analysis
Choice-based conjoint (CBC) and Adaptive Conjoint Analysis (ACA) are the two main types of conjoint analysis.

Choice-based is the most common form because it asks consumers to mimic their buying habits. ACA is helpful for product design, offering more questions about specs of a product.

Choice-based conjoint analysis questions are usually presented in a “Would you rather?” format. For example, “Would you rather take a ride-share service to a location 10 minutes away for $13 or walk 30 minutes for free?” The marketer for the ride-share service could use answers from this question to think of the upsides to show off in different campaigns.
ACA leans towards a Likert-scale format (most likely to least likely) for its attribute-based questions. Respondents can base their preference on specs by showing how likely they are to buy a product with slight differences — for example, similar cars with different doors and manufacturers.
How To Do A Conjoint Analysis
To create a conjoint analysis, you’ll first need to define a list of attributes about your product. Attributes are usually four to five items that describe your product or service. Consider color, size, price, and market-specific attributes, such as lenses if you’re selling cameras.
Additionally, try to keep in mind your ideal respondents. Who do you want to answer your survey? A group of adult men? A group of working mothers? Identify your respondent base and ask specific questions catered to that target market.
The next step is to organize your questionnaire depending on the type of conjoint analysis you want to conduct. For instance, to run an adaptive conjoint analysis, you will present questions with a Likert-scale.
You can use a conjoint analysis tool to create and modify your survey. Then, you can distribute your questionnaire through multiple channels, including email, SMS, and social media.
For more ways to introduce product marketing into your company, check out our ultimate guide here.
Examples of Conjoint Analysis
Sawtooth Software offers a great example of conjoint analysis for a phone company:
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The analysis puts three different phone services next to each other. The horizontal column of the model identifies which service is offering a certain program, described by the vertical values. The bottom row shows a percent value of consumers’ preferences.
QuestionPro offers this fun, interactive conjoint analysis template about retirement home options. The survey gives you a scenario and asks your course of action. For instance, it asks if you would sign a rental agreement for retirement home housing immediately, and considers specs like rent, meals, size, etc.
Conjoint analysis isn’t limited to existing products. They’re also very helpful for figuring out if a brand-new product is worth developing. For instance, if surveys show that audiences would be into the idea of an app that chooses clothes for consumers, that could be a new venture for clothing companies in the future.
Looking to create a conjoint analysis of your own? Check out our top four conjoint analysis tools below.
Conjoint Analysis Tools
1. Qualtrics

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Qualtrics is an easy-to-use survey tool that offers comprehensive product insights. You can create, modify, distribute, and analyze a conjoint analysis in one place. All it takes is four steps — define your attributes, build and modify your questions in the survey editor, distribute the survey, and analyze the results. 
What We Like: Qualtrics goes beyond product insights — this powerful software also captures customer, brand, and employee experience insights.
Pro Tip: Leverage email to invite respondents to take your survey. With Qualtrics, you can embed a survey question directly in your email survey invite. 
2. Cojoint.ly

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Conjoint.ly offers a complete toolbox for product and pricing research — including a Product Description test, an A/B test, and a Price Sensitivity test. You can also source your own respondents for your survey or buy quality-assured respondents from Conjoint.ly.
What We Like: Users can simply choose a tool that best fits their research question. These tools are organized under four main categories: pricing research, features and claims, range optimization, and concept testing.
Pro Tip: If you want to “try before you buy,” you can use Conjoint.ly’s Quick Feedback tool. For a small price, you get around 50 respondents to provide feedback within a 6-hour window.
3. 1000minds

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1000minds offers an adaptive conjoint analysis tool. Meaning, each time a choice is made, it adapts by formulating a new question to ask based on all previous choices. This makes the survey feel more like a conversation.
What We Like: We’re impressed by the scalability of 1000minds. The tool allows you to include as many participants as you like, potentially in the thousands.
Pro Tip: You can use their conjoint analysis templates or build your own model from scratch. 
4. Q Research Software

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Q is analysis software that is specifically designed by market researchers. Its conjoint analysis tool is ideal for choice-based analyses. Users can create experimental designs, analyze the data, and generate reports. 
What We Like: Q cuts through the grunt work with automation — including cleaning and formatting data, updating surveys, and producing reports.
Pro Tip: With just a few clicks, you can export any reports or visualizations from Q to PowerPoint and Excel.
A conjoint analysis requires a solid survey design and analysis, but the extra effort is often worth it. By going the extra mile, you can access insights into your audience’s preferences and buying decisions — which is invaluable when determining how to market a new product or service.

When it comes to finding what you need on the internet, most people just do a simple search. But if you want to get as specific as possible, that’s when long-tail keywords come into play.  There’s a lot to take into consideration when tapping into long-tail keywords and using them for your company’s SEO strategy.…
The post Long-Tail Keywords: Definition and How to Leverage Them appeared first on Benchmark Email.

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No matter how good the content is, design can make or break your newsletter. Here are some email newsletter design tips, and how to optimize for conversion.
Any designer worth their salt will tell you good design is invisible, but that doesn’t mean it’s effortless. Your messaging depends on design to be effective. A good email newsletter design is not just attractive; it markedly complements the words you’ve written.
Email templates are a great tool for most marketers; unless you have hours to spend on design and layout, we recommend using one rather than starting from scratch. Drag-and-drop email builders allow you to customize any template to make it yours. In fact, making the changes is often easier than making them look good. Here’s how to turn a basic template into a customized email your readers will love to receive.
Choose an email newsletter template that fits your content
Have an outline or even your final piece of content ready to go before you search for a template. Otherwise, you may make it through the customization process only to find your template isn’t a good fit. Even templates designed specifically for newsletters aren’t interchangeable.
Your template must-haves will be dictated by the type of email you’re sending. Are you sharing a round-up of popular links? Look for a design with multiple sections and separators. Do you write thought leadership essays? You need a template with a minimalist, text-forward layout.
Design tip: Save templates you’ve used for future newsletters. Consistency makes your marketing campaigns look professional — and you’ll save time by sticking with something that works.
Make it yours by incorporating your branding
A reader should know who an email is from within seconds of opening it. Using brand assets and colors makes your identity clear from the start.
There’s no excuse for sending out an email campaign without your logo or wordmark. Most templates have a section for this at the top; if yours doesn’t, add one. It’s also a good practice to put your logo or wordmark in the email footer.
Your template should also incorporate your brand’s color scheme. Don’t go overboard — there’s no need to include an entire color palette or coordinate every element. When changing text and background colors, maintain legibility by keeping font sizes large and using high-contrast color combos.
Design tip: Double-check your color palette with WebAIM’s Contrast Checker. If your font is a lighter weight than the tool’s default font, you may need to increase contrast to stay within accessibility guidelines.
Chart your reader’s journey with design elements
Design isn’t just about aesthetics. It’s a tool you can use to shape a reader’s experience. Most people scan their email messages, but you can use design to strategically highlight enticing information and earn your reader’s full attention.
Set a hierarchy to highlight key points
Using typography to create a visual hierarchy helps scanners quickly pick out the key message of your email. The size, weight, color, contrast levels, and even shape of your text provide cues that guide a reader’s focus. The longer your email, the more hierarchical elements — like headers and subheads — are necessary to break your content into digestible sections.
Design tip: When creating text styles, don’t go overboard with differentiation. You only need to change one or two elements — for example, weight and size or size and color — to denote hierarchy.
Lead readers through a longer email with eye-catching elements
Your newsletter layout should partner with the visual hierarchy you created earlier to draw eyes from one key element to the next. The inverted pyramid is a great format for short messages with a single CTA; longer newsletters require multiple elements to keep readers engaged all the way through. Try using:

Contrasting or accent colors for your font or background for a look that’s hard to scan past
Borders to separate different sections, so readers who scan through one section know where it ends (and the next one begins)
Text alignment to break the line of your paragraphs and draw the eye to interesting offers, quotes, or arguments

Design tip: If you can’t decide how to best help your readers digest the information you’re sharing, get some design inspiration from these great newsletter examples.
Always highlight CTAs
Your CTAs should be easy to find and interact with, whether your email has one or many. The two most popular CTA locations are above the fold (visible without scrolling) or at the end of your message. Both are natural stopping points in any scanning pattern. No matter the location, your CTA is more likely to see action if it’s a button.
However, buttons aren’t the right choice for every newsletter format. Wrap-ups include multiple links by nature, all of equal importance. Long-form content may have links that support your arguments. In-text links or link collections don’t need to be buttons. They simply need to be formatted in a way that makes them recognizable as links.
Shoot for a simple presentation
The desire to make things too complex is a common design downfall. When you try to draw attention to too many things, readers just get overwhelmed. Including plenty of white space is the best way to make your design pop.
Give your content space to breathe
White space is essential to creating a professional design. It serves multiple purposes: breaking up content into different segments; giving the reader space to absorb what you’re sharing; and balancing out the more eye-catching images, headlines, or CTAs.
Leaving proper spacing and margins between different design and content elements paradoxically brings everything together into a coherent whole. Without sufficient white space, different segments and elements of your email will compete with each other. A tidy-looking email will always look more professional than one where every pixel has been “designed.”
Strike the right balance with image and graphics
The “right” number of images depends on the purpose of your newsletter — a principle that’s true for many tips in this article. The best rule is to only use images when they’re necessary. If your message relies on multiple images or gifs, make sure you follow the best practices for image-heavy emails.
Design tip: There’s no optimal image-to-text ratio. Previous “rules” were based on how spam filters used to work. Senders are no longer penalized for image-heavy emails.
Use graphs, infographics, and other forms of data visualization with caution. These visuals may seem more confusing or overwhelm readers when they’re nested among other content. If you do want a visual to demonstrate your point, use circles, arrows, and other annotations to help your reader understand what they’re looking at.
Don’t forget basic design principles
It’s easy to get caught up in the minutiae of your design and lose sight of the big picture (or the full email). Your last task before finalizing your email newsletter’s design: Double-check your template against the following rules to make sure you’re adhering to best practices regarding accessibility, legibility, and aesthetics.

Make your email responsive: Any pre-designed template (on Campaign Monitor and most other email tools) comes ready to adapt to mobile devices. If you’re starting from scratch, you’ll need to learn how to make a responsive email.
Stay within the bounds of the template: Stretching a content zone by overfilling it is the easiest way to make your email look messy and unprofessional. If you can’t fit everything, you need a new template or less content.
Add alt text to all functional images: Alt text describes the contents of images for readers who use a screen reader or have images turned off. Any functional image — one that’s essential to communicating the message in your email — should have alt text. When it comes to images that are purely decorative, alt text is optional.
Present key information textually: Since not all readers can view images, keep your important messaging in the email’s text, so no one misses it.
Keep font and color use minimal: Emails have limited real estate, so there’s not enough room for too many styles. You don’t need more than two fonts (one for headers and one for body copy) or three colors (one main color and one or two accents).
Use web (or web-safe) fonts: Devices and email clients are designed with unique presets, which means you have two options to maintain the integrity of your design. You can use a web-safe font like Arial or Times New Roman that comes on every device or use a web font that can be displayed by any device.

Good email newsletter design speaks for itself.
Your messaging is only as strong as its weakest element, and design is one of these elements. Colors can influence mood, and fonts can indicate trustworthiness as effectively as any words. The combination of your choices can make your email look professional and engaging or sloppy and worth nothing more than an unsubscribe.
Design deserves just as much time and focus as content. Those of us who aren’t trained in it may have to work a bit harder to get the desired effect. The lessons of those who have come before us (and the newsletter design tips in this post) can guide you toward a design that’s as powerful as your content.
The post How to Send the Right Message with Your Email Newsletter Design appeared first on Campaign Monitor.

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