Design

Welcome to our first Design Inspiration blog post! Every Tuesday we'll be pick an email that caught our eye and see if we can extract some useful email design tips from it. We hope you will enjoy it!

General Assembly is a global technology education company, with classes and tutorials ranging from front-end web development to data science and even storytelling. The company teaches design classes as well, and it shows off its design expertise with its elegant, clutter-free, and easy-to-navigate website.So it’s no surprise that there’s plenty to learn from GA’s email newsletter design. Here, we take a look at what makes a GA class promotion email worth emulating and what could be improved to make it even better.

What this email gets right

1. Confirms WHY you signed up

When you open a General Assembly email, you’re not bombarded by a lengthy introduction, ads, or a complicated header navigation. Instead - up front and center - you finda bold, action-oriented message the confirms the reason why you contacted GA: Build Your Skills.

2. Reflects the simplicity of GA’s visual brand IDENTITY

This look is clean, modern, and clutter-free. The email uses just two primary typefaces, organizes the content with a mix ofa single-column(text and call to action) and two-column (course catalog) layout, and leaves plenty of white space. This approach gets readers to focus right away on GA’s course offerings.

3. Lets visuals carry the STORY

The cute, approachable graphics immediately grab the eye. Since they’re paired with minimal text (short, 1-sentence descriptions) and are neatly arranged, readers can easily scan the information and choose the class that’s right for them.

What needs improvement

At the time of testing, this GA’s email was not responsive, and therefore suffered from a lack of readability on mobile devices.Instead of a responsive design, which would shift its two-column layout to a single column on mobile, this email’s two-column layout simply gets narrower on mobile, making it much harder to read. A responsive layout would substantially improve readability, lead to higherreader engagement, and likely drive more people to registerfor courses.

Email design tips

What can you learn from the General Assembly email? Consider these pointers:

• Use a headline font that’s at least three times the size of your body copy. This is your chance to experiment with size and typeface. Try a bold leading statement in a typeface that’s four to five times larger than the body text. In this email, the top headline is 62 pixels, while the body text is only 15 px. And simple is key: note that GA’s headline is only three words.

• Use different typefaces to create visual separation. Using too many fonts can be distracting, but using different font types for separate sections of your message (for example,  title vs. paragraph vs. footer) creates natural, visual separation between them. In GA’s email, they opted for two "email safe" fonts: Georgia for the main title at the top, and Arial for the paragraph.
• Call out the most important text in bold type. Making text bold is a simple way to call attention to what’s important without introducing additional typefaces. But use bold text sparingly, only where it improves readability (e.g., in the GA email, the bold course titles help them stand out from the descriptions below).

• Think of your layout as a grid. Keep each image and section equidistant from each other with balanced padding. Ensure that each title and paragraph take up the same number of lines.
• Limit your descriptive text to 10-15 words. Attention spans are short, especially on mobile devices. Readers who want more information should be able to click on images and text within your email to find out more.

Plus, don’t forget to use a responsive template! It’s easy and automatic when you design your email with an email editor like BEE.

What do you think of General Assembly’s email? What would you do differently? Tell us in the comments.

Next step: let's try building this email!

Let'screate an online course catalognewsletter like this one from General Assembly! Check out our workshop: How to Apply Design Simplicity in Email.

Smart brands know it’s essential to make the right first impression with their welcome email — that very first message to newsletter subscribers. It's critical not only because it's the first contact they have with them after they sign up, but also because studies show that welcome emails are among the highest performing messages they will ever send.In fact, a study by Marketing Sherpa found that welcome emails were THE highest performing message - measured based on the open rate - with an average open rate of 50%.

Here are 10 not-to-miss welcome email design tips with examples from some of the brands that do it best.

1. Stay true to your brand

Warby Parker's mission is to make shopping for glasses simple, easy, and fun. The company's welcome email reflects that brand mission with a simple messagethat's easy on the eyes—clean and modern-looking with lots of white space—but still exudes a fun energy...

...with an animated graphic right at the top.

There is good support for GIFs in email clients (see this Litmus report on the subject), and they are a great way to put some fun in your messages.

Key Takeaway: Increase your padding to allow for plenty of white space... and consider a GIF animation for a bit of fun!

2. Keep it short and sweet

Rolling Stone doesn’t inundate subscribers with content right away. Instead, the magazine’s message is simple: "thank you". It confirms for subscribers that the newsletter will be on its way, and in the meantime lets them know where to connect with Rolling Stone on social media. This “content-lite” approach can be a nice change of pace, letting subscribers pursue more information if and when they want to.

Key Takeaway: Try out a simple Welcome with not much text. Create a strong call-to-action button, with a vibrant brand color, to draw readers back to your site.

3. Set the tone

The first thing you’ll read in Patagonia’s welcome email is “Welcome to the family.” Immediately, the company sets a tone of warmth and inclusion, making subscribers feel like they’re part of something special. With that personal, considerate tone, who wouldn’t feel good about their choice to sign up?

Key Takeaway: Choose a compelling photograph that expresses the right tone for your brand, then pair it with messaging that carries the same tone. If you put the photograph next to the message, as Patagonia does here, make sure the layout is responsive, so it switches automatically to one column on a mobile device.

4. Let your imagery do the work

Everlane has one of the simplest top navigations we’ve seen, allowing the eye to go straight to the brand’s beautiful black and white photography. The photo is right at the top, with barely any overlaid text. Subscribers who want to shop or read more can click through to the website, but for those who can only spend a few seconds, photography sends an immediate message about the style of the brand and what to expect.

Key Takeaway: Try an email that’s one big postcard-style image, with a clear call-to-action button below. Make sure email renders correctly in the inbox, even with images disabled, by using a background color behind the image and styling the ALT text. More on that technique in a workshop coming soon!

5. Reinforce the value proposition

Lord & Taylor welcomes subscribers with a list of the three things you can expect from their emails: trends, brands, and deals. It's the value proposition behind their campaigns, the "why" you made a good move by signing up. The message is coupled with great photography, a pop of brilliant yellow, and one takeaway: shop now. There’s no need to scroll on and on; in fact, there’s barely any reading to do. The short list says it all quickly and beautifully.

Key Takeaway: Try a numbered list with three key messages that reinforce the WHY about your campaigns. Consider opting for a bold color choice for the numbers (by using images), and keep the text short and sweet.

6. Say thank you (with something tangible)

Bumble and bumble, like many retailers, offers an incentive to get shopping right away with a 10% off coupon. Special deals are a huge motivator in signing up to receive emails, and giving a gift right away is a great way to say thank you and keep subscribers coming back for more. Plus, Bumble and bumble keeps the email short and sweet and super visual, and they make it easy to find physical store locations with a clickable map.

Key Takeaway: If you offered an incentive for signing up, try showcasing your offer in big, bold type in the center of your email.

7. Don’t overwhelm

Moo does a great job of covering a lot of ground without overwhelming readers. By using a large, easy-to-read font, keeping messages brief, including great images, and allowing for white space and breathability between sections, they squeeze in multiple calls-to-action (go to the website, get 10% off, connect on social) without it feeling like too much. Because the email is well-designed, simple, and elegant, they’re able to cover a lot of ground.

Key Takeaway: If you have multiple calls-to-action in a single email, use white space, background colors, and wide images to visually separate them.

8. Show; don’t tell

Mario Batali, renowned chef and restaurateur, doesn’t mess around with his welcome email. Open it up and readers find their first Mario recipe, front and center. By diving into quality content right away, Batali’s making an instant connection to readers and providing them exactly what they were looking for. Plus, the photography is gorgeous, the text is easy to read, and there’s no clutter.

Key Takeaway: surprise your readers by providing outstanding content directly in the welcome email. They were expecting a simple Thank You, and instead get the full thing, right away.

9. Make it easy to find the best content

Similar to Mario Batali, Pop Sugar kicks off their welcome email with a focus on great content. But instead of including the whole message in the email itself, they offer readers top posts with photos and one-line descriptions. They also let readers know right away that the email content is customizable, inviting them to adjust their settings and optimize their experience. As you can see, your calls-to-action don’t have to be buttons.

Key Takeaway: Experiment with bold CTAs that break free of the button, just by changing the font color and putting the CTAs right under the relevant text.

10. Bring it home

West Elm truly motivates readers to jump over to their site and get shopping: they offer a coupon right at the top, anda simple, clickable menu reflecting the offerings of their site (furniture, bedding, etc.). By using gorgeous photography and keeping the email simple and full of links, readers almost can’t help but wander right over to its website.

Key Takeaway: if you are an ecommerce merchant, beautiful product photography, a discount code, and clear navigation might be the perfect mix to trigger a shop visit... and maybe a sale!

Recap: 10 tips for great welcome email design!

To recap, follow these 10 welcome email design tips and you’re guaranteed to engage with your new email subscribers right from the start:

1. Increase your padding to create white space
2. Limit the amount of text in the email
3. Choose a compelling opening photograph
4. Try a postcard-style email with a prominent call-to-action button
5. Highlight the benefits of your newsletter with a cool numbered list
6. Showcase any email offers or incentives in big, bold, centered type
7. Visually separate call-to-actions throughout the body of the email
8. Try showing off an individual piece of content, on top of or next to a beautiful photograph
9. Experiment with bold calls-to-action that break free of the button
10. Mix great photography, clear navigation and a discount code to trigger a shop visit

Ready to create your own welcome email? Use one of the above emails as a model and build it easily and quickly in the BEE editor.

When there's a crisis going on, you can't stick with email marketing as usual.

In this case, we're not talking about the global coronavirus pandemic, but about climate change — and how you should approach planning and designing Earth Day emails. April 22 is around the corner, and Americans are becoming more and more worried about climate change. Four in 10 U.S. residents now describe climate change as a “crisis.”

Earth Day is the perfect time to connect with your audience about this issue — but only if you do it the right way. Your customers care about environmental issues. They want to see companies striving for real change, not just making a profit off of this holiday. In preparation for April 22, craft a thoughtful Earth Day email campaign with a goal of creating action, not making money. Here are a few Earth Day emails to inspire your own!

#1. Gather stories.

Vogue News put out an Earth Day email newsletter that’s successful because it rounds up stories. Remember, people are passionate about this holiday, and stories are powerful tools. Tales of activists and sustainability can inspire your readers to get involved — whether they decide to learn more about the campaigns listed or go out and create their own initiatives.

Subject line: The 9 best Earth Day stories on Vogue Runway

#2. Take action.

In celebration of Earth Day, Moosejaw chose to donate a portion of its proceeds to a nonprofit its customers care about. This strategy is a win for everyone — the company, its customers and the nonprofit that’s on the ground doing the work. If you want to choose a nonprofit to support but aren’t sure what topics your customers feel strongly about, ask them! Send out a survey email a week or two before the holiday to get your subscribers’ input, asking how they want to partner with you to make a difference.

Subject line: You get extra reward dollars. We donate to charity. Happy Earth Day ?

#3. Highlight your commitment.

How does your company focus on going green in its day-to-day operations? Highlight those efforts in an Earth Day email campaign. Mattress company Leesa plants a tree every time somebody purchases a mattress. The company also uses recycled materials and runs its headquarters on renewable energy. Consumers want to patronize companies that are truly committed to the environment. Plus, explaining how your company goes green might spark some ideas as your customers work on being kinder to the environment in their own day-to-day lives.

Subject line: ? Every day is Earth Day ?

#4. Incite activism.

There’s zero promotion here. Instead, this company is focusing on an important cause, giving its customers the opportunity to make their voices heard and create some real change. What industry is your company in and where are you based? Think about local initiatives that your target audience cares about. Then use your Earth Day emails to spread the word about those causes.

Subject line: Celebrate Earth Day by helping to stop Pebble Mine.

#5. Go green ... and floral.

This beautiful Earth Day email uses images of plants and flowers to accentuate its message: We should celebrate Earth Day every day. Consider adopting a similar design scheme. And even as April 22 draws to a close, you can let your customers know you care about the world they live in — and that you’re committed to focusing on activism throughout the entire year.

Subject line: Every day is Earth Day: 30% off sale extended

Wrap-up: Earth Day email templates

In the spirit of partnering up to create change, we've put out some new Earth Day email templates that you can send your customers. For a simple email template, try this Be the Change email designed by Galina Grahovska.

Use this template in Beefree!

Use this template in Beefree!

To showcase your products, use this Earth Day email template by Martin Nikolchev.

Use this template in Beefree!

Use this template in Beefree!

Finally, our Green Sale seasonal promotion email template (also created by Martin Nikolchev) is a great choice for eco-friendly brands.

Use this template in Beefree!

Use this template in Beefree!

Use these Earth Day emails to engage your customers and take the first steps toward changing our world.