Behind the Scenes: Custom Email Design & Development

July 12, 2024

Email remains a powerful tool to reach customers and prospects, defying early predictions of its decline. Its enduring success is largely due to its direct reach—once you have an email address, you can communicate without relying on algorithms or paid ads. However, with the average person receiving 126 emails daily, how can you ensure your emails stand out? Beyond crafting compelling subject lines and optimizing send times, the key lies in your email design, content, and development.

Why Email Marketing is Essential
Email marketing is a cornerstone of digital marketing strategies for several reasons:

1. Direct Communication: Email allows for direct, one-on-one communication with your audience. This builds stronger relationships and fosters customer loyalty as your audience has often signed up for communications or is a recurring customer.
2. High ROI: Email marketing consistently delivers one of the highest returns on investment (ROI) among digital marketing channels. For every $1 spent on email marketing, the average return is $36 (Techjury)​.
3. Controlled Messaging: Unlike social media, where algorithms determine who sees your content, email marketing gives you full control over your message and ensures it reaches your intended audience.
4. Measurable Results: Email marketing platforms provide detailed analytics, allowing you to track open rates, click-through rates, conversions, and more. This data is invaluable for refining your strategy and improving future campaigns.
5. Versatility: Email can be used for a variety of purposes, from promotional campaigns and newsletters to transactional messages, event announcements, and personalized offers.
6. Scalability: Email campaigns can be easily scaled to reach a global audience or targeted to specific segments based on demographics, behavior, and preferences.

The Importance of Custom Email Design
Creating an eye-catching, effective email design can be challenging due to the myriad of email platforms and devices, from Gmail and Outlook to mobile phones and desktops. Thus, having a unique design that aligns with your branding, content, and highlights calls to action is crucial. You can choose between custom-coded emails or templates from platforms like MailChimp, Constant Contact, Campaign Monitor, Pardot, WineDirect, and others. Let’s explore the benefits and drawbacks.

Benefits of Custom Email Design

1. Stand Out: Custom designs set you apart from generic template designs, allowing for more visually interesting messaging.
2. Brand Consistency: Custom designs allow for a consistent brand identity across all communications, which is crucial for brand building and trust.
3. Enhanced Engagement: Unique, visually appealing designs can significantly increase user engagement and conversion rates.
4. Optimized Performance: Custom designs can be optimized for performance, ensuring fast load times and reducing the risk of emails being marked as spam.
5. Comprehensive Testing: Custom-developed emails are rigorously tested across various platforms and email clients, including different devices, operating systems, and even dark mode. This ensures consistent performance and appearance, no matter how or where the email is viewed.
6. In-House Editing: If you’re using certain platforms, custom emails can often be set up so minor image and copy edits can be made in-house by your team.
7. Professional Handling: A professional design and development team can handle all aspects of email design and development, making a marketer’s job much easier. By outsourcing this work, marketers can focus on strategy, content creation, and campaign analysis, ensuring a seamless and efficient workflow.

Cons of Custom Email Design

1. Development Knowledge Required: Custom coding requires development expertise, which can be costly if you need to hire additional personnel or third parties.
2. Extensive Testing Needed: Custom emails must be tested across all device sizes and platforms, which can be time-consuming.
3. Time-Consuming Process: Custom designs take longer to create, making them unsuitable for urgent email campaigns.
   Complexity in Editing: Without coding knowledge, custom emails can be harder to edit in some platforms that have custom editing limitations.
4. Platform Limitations: Some email programs can’t offer custom templates or are even able to edit outside minor text/banner images, which might necessitate switching platforms.

Making Your Job Easier
A professional design and development team can handle all aspects of email design and development, making a marketer’s job much easier. By outsourcing this work, marketers can focus on strategy, content creation, and campaign analysis, ensuring a seamless and efficient workflow. Would you rather spend 10 hours building, testing, and troubleshooting your next email, or hire an agency to do it for you?

The Bottom Line
Both custom and templated email designs have their place. If you’re constrained by budget or time, templates offer a quick, cost-effective solution. For more creative freedom and solutions to the constraints of certain email platforms, custom designs are the way to go. Our team can create custom design templates, which are a nice in-between, offering custom branding with a level of editability on your end. Ultimately, engaging content, targeted campaigns, and the right visuals are key to capturing your audience’s attention and selling your product or building awareness. If you’re unsure which option to choose, the DESIGNTHIS! team is here to help!

Custom Email Design and Development Highlight: Vineyard 29 Email Campaigns

   

Masters in customer connections, Vineyard 29’s marketing department strategizes and schedules email campaigns, including a special “12 Days of Christmas” drip campaign with special offers and incentives. We work closely with them to create both one off unique emails and template-like emails for brand consistency and cost-savings. Once emails are designed, we fully test each one on various desktop and iOS platforms, including dark mode.

Being a full-service agency, DT provided design, development, and project management.

Header image courtesy of Freepik

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