9 Pointers to Make Your Emails Look Amazing and Professional

Email is one of the best—if not the best—ways to keep members and donors updated on what’s going on with your nonprofit. Email is also a great way to solicit donations.

In fact, a study performed by Custora found that customer acquisition via email marketing has skyrocketed, and that email marketing now accounts for over 7% of all online customer acquisitions.

Email is effective, but a poorly designed email loses its effectiveness. To find out what makes an email aesthetically pleasing, I talked to Cara Moretti, the graphic designer & email specialist at Ally 360. Here’s what I learned.

1. Images

People like to look at pictures. They’re attention grabbing. They also break up text nicely. The wrong picture, however, is a waste of precious real estate; so, make sure images are relevant to the topic at hand. Also, make sure to use only professional-grade photos and/or images.

2. Fonts

Naturally, you want your text to be readable; so, make sure to use easily readable fonts. Shy away from fancy-schmancy fonts because they’re harder to read, plus they might not be readable across all types of email systems (Yahoo, Gmail, Outlook, etc.). Moreover, studies have also shown that people do not like irregular typefaces (like Comic Sans or Courier New). To play it safe, use Times New Roman, Courier, Helvetica or Arial.

Be sure to bold or CAPITALIZE things that you want your readers to notice, especially CTAs.

You can use colors other than black. Colors are nice for drawing your reader’s attention to something, or to add an aesthetically pleasing flare, but do it sparingly.

3. Calls to Action

Make sure your CTAs are located at the top of the email and at the bottom. Again, make them jump out at the reader. Same with promo codes.

4. Alignment

Moretti said that “Alignment is key.” If images and text aren’t properly aligned, the email will look sloppy and unprofessional. Even if the email field isn’t gridded, images and text must still maintain symmetry.

“Alignment is key.”

– Cara Moretti, Graphic Designer & Email Specialist at Ally 360.

5. White Space

Be sure to use white space to improve readability. People tend to shy away from reading huge blocks of text—so don’t be afraid to break up paragraphs.

6. Consistency

As illustrated above, you have creative license to jazz up your content, but make sure you maintain consistency, because consistency will help keep your email looking like a coherent piece.

7. Logo & Footer

If you’re organization has a logo—and it should—remember to use it. Always use it in the same part of the email. Social media icons usually go at the bottom, but there can be exceptions. 

Finally, in small print, include the address and other contact information for your organization. Most importantly, include an “unsubscribe” option (it’s the law). 

8. Length

The length of your email depends on what type of email it is. An informative, newsletter-like email can be long and require the reader to scroll down. A fundraising email, on the other hand, shouldn’t be more than 500 words.

9. Your Brand

Make sure your email template is consistent with your brand. For example, if your website and business cards have a particular look and color, make sure your email template reflects that. That way, when people receive your emails, it will be abundantly clear who the email is from.

Conclusion

As you may have noticed, this blog didn’t cover email subject lines. That’s because subject-line writing is a topic in and of itself. Check out this blog to learn how to write subject lines that beg to be opened!

Tags: aesthetics, alignment, call to action, CTA, Design, development, email, email marketing, fonts, images, logo