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3 November, 2022

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Email Design Best Practices: 11 Key Things to Know

As an email designer, I think it’s important to remember that design isn’t just about making things look pretty (although that is part of it). Great design focuses on usability and centers the audience and content.

Recently, I sat down with my teammate Kimberly Huang to discuss this and other email design best practices. I walk through some of the considerations I made when designing our two newest additions to our slate of newsletters, Litmus Experience and Product Pulse.

Whether you live and breathe design or it’s one of many email hats you wear, I hope these tips—like what we can learn from UX design—prove helpful when you’re planning your next email!

Hannah Tiner (she/they)
Email Design and Production Specialist, Litmus

Coming soon: Vote for your favorite emails!
Next week, you’ll be able to cast your vote for the winners of the Email Excellence Awards in Litmus Weekly. Here’s how it works.

If a subscriber only reads your headlines, would your email make sense? Jaina Mistry shares 7 tips and tricks like these to help convince your subsriber to convert.
Understanding your email deliverability can be complex, even for experienced marketers. This cheat sheet of deliverability terms and definitions is here to help.
Didn’t make it to Litmus Live last week? Don’t worry, here’s the full recap with our top takeaways.
And if you want to rewatch your favorite sessions (or catch up on the ones you missed), you still can with a Litmus Live MAX ticket.

Hannah’s Bookmarks

Looking for ways to minimize your email file size? Litmus’ own Carin Slater tested a bunch of image compressors in this Twitter thread.
Your email opt-out procedures are more important than you think. 81% of people Capterra surveyed viewed brands that offered holiday-specific opt-outs as “empathetic.”
This report from Gated on sentiment towards email is good to keep in mind when targeting emails. 67% of respondents say they “feel overwhelmed by [their] inbox.”

We’ve all been there

@emailfromnaomi on Twitter: Just sent an email addressed to a Dayna when it was mean to be addressed to a Danya so I'll be in this state until at least tomorrow morning now. Image of four types of headaches.

Hey there, it’s Hannah!

I’m an email designer with a love for visual storytelling and making digital experiences accessible. When I’m not pushing pixels around in Figma, I enjoy video games and trying to keep my houseplants alive.

Designers and developers! What methods do you use for designing email layouts?

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two newest additions latest email resources best email content many email hats

Email design best practices, download your email deliverability cheat sheet, and more

Email Design Best Practices: 11 Key Things to Know

Hannah’s Bookmarks

We’ve all been there

Hey there, it’s Hannah!

Key phrases

Older messages

How to keep your subscribers happy, a quick look back at Litmus Live, and more

How to make phone numbers clickable, email design best practices you should steal, and more

Interactive email for beginners, upgrade your pre-send checklist, email performance tips, and more

Dynamic blog posts—in email, be inspired by our faves of the month, learn email footer best practice

Show me your award-winning email campaign

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