7 Strategies To Enhance Email Design For Better Brand Recognition & Recall

Email design is paramount to the success of your email marketing campaigns as it determines whether your brand leaves a lasting impression on your audience or not.

Moreover, close to 77% of marketers have seen an increase in email engagement over the last 12 months by utilizing a good design and other email approaches.

To get the same results, you must ensure your email design is captivating enough and appeals to the interest of your subscribers.

Not sure how to do that? Let's discuss a few of the many effective strategies below.

First off, you need to use the same branding elements that are on your website and social media in your email designs. This includes your brand colors, brand voice, slogan, and the like.

Let’s take a quick look at an event email from Buzzsumo below:

And here’s a web version of this email:

Buzzsumo created a seamless transition experience when you click the email and land on their web page by ensuring a consistent font and color gradient use.

And this is how you can effectively do the same:

The next strategy is to create and incorporate compelling visuals into your email designs.

You can use Procreate black hair brushes to create realistic illustrations that will perfectly convey your messages at the start of the email body. See how SI Quan did this with an illustrative flowchart:

Here are some other strategies to create visually appealing content for your email marketing:

Gone are those days when email marketers had to send "Hi sir/ma", followed by an email body containing several blocks of text.

Now, you have to craft your email content in such a way that it addresses each of your subscribers on a personal level. You must also ensure you're not blasting their screens with strings of words and strokes.

For instance, "Hey Tom" sounds great. Take a look at an email from Reedsy Blog:

You can even spice up the atmosphere by adding a cheeky picture of yourself or employees. Check out the personalized “thank you” gif from Katelyn of Copy Igniter below:

However, you have to be careful of the type of visuals you add to your email content. Sometimes, trying to set a warm ambiance with GIFs or memes might not turn out well for a particular set of your email list.

That's why you need to segment your lists into different categories. Then craft an email design guideline that perfectly appeals to each of the segments created.

Here are some tips for personalization and segmentation in email designs below:

Since the majority of views come from mobile devices, optimizing your email design for mobile is essential.

Responsive email designs ensure that your emails are easily readable and visually appealing on both desktop and mobile devices.

Let’s bring back this sample from Buzzsumo again. They optimized the web version of their event invitation, as seen below, to be a good fit for mobile emails as seen in the second image.

Here’s the optimized email version that’s perfectly suitable for viewing on mobile devices:

From Buzzsumo’s email templates, here are some tips you can apply:

If you want to drive the desired action in the emails you send out, you’ll have to include relevant and clear CTAs. A good CTA will compel your audience to take action.

So instead of the usual generic CTAs like "Call now", you should go for something like "Grab your free 15-minute consultation spot now".

Let’s look at this example from Originality.ai:

Here are some tips to ensure that you effectively incorporate CTAs into your email design:

Another way to increase brand recognition via email design is by using user-generated content. UGC is particularly effective for startup brands to build trust and credibility in their email marketing campaigns.

You can include customer testimonials, hacks from followers, and reviews in your emails that highlight their positive experience with your product.

Check out Geegpay’s weekly digest featuring a tweet from one of their users:

Follow these tips to utilize UGC in your email designs effectively:

Adding interactive elements, hover effects, and illustrative elements to your email design can greatly increase audience engagement, and simply add a touch of interactivity and brand recall.

For instance, this email from Strategyn has a CTA that turns royal blue on hover from dark blue:

What about sliding in a randomly unrelated piece right before the main content of your email just as Si Quang from Ahrefs did below…

Here are additional ways you can incorporate these elements into your email design:

Your email campaign's success as well as brand recognition depends on the designs you use and the more audience you reach.

By focusing on email deliverability along with implementing the right email designs in your strategy, you can significantly improve the overall campaign performance and not just the brand recognition.

Start with email verification to collect emails that are genuine and reachable, then segment, personalize, and create compelling visuals with consistent branding elements.