Hey Mail Designers! We've got another mini update for you. In particular, this update focuses on our Mailchimp users, as we have some important news regarding Mailchimp integration in the app.
However, as always, we've also included a few minor changes and improvements to ensure the best performance at all times. Here's what's new in version 1.7...
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So you've recently launched an internal newsletter? Congrats! This is a great way to improve your team's workflow and keep co-workers motivated. Although you've taken the first step to create your newsletter, the hard work doesn't stop after you've built your first issue!
In order to really keep your team engaged, it's important you maintain your newsletter and keep it relevant and interesting for them. Here are some easy ideas on how to achieve this without breaking a sweat...
One way to make sure that your company newsletter remains interesting is by regularly introducing new content and sections to the newsletter layout. This prevents your newsletter from becoming boring and monotonous and encourages your team to keep opening it when they see it in their inbox.
Ideas
There are countless examples of content which you could be including in your newsletters each week/month/etc. Fun and engaging content such as quizzes, competitions, thought of the day segments, employee of the month, book/film recommendations, recipe ideas, etc. Get creative!
Following on from this, one useful tip is to try and keep your newsletter content relevant. Don't just recycle old stories or features you've used in the past, try and actively search out content which you know is relevant to the time of year or what's going on in the news.
Ideas
You could start polls or a discussion board based on controversial news stories, or, if there is a holiday coming up (e.g. Christmas or Easter), try and incorporate that into the theme of your newsletter. Even the smallest mention of something seasonal will be enough to keep your team interested in the content and get the office talking.
Include topical and seasonal themes into your newsletter to make it more relevant.
Another important thing to consider is the balance between work-related information and lighthearted content. Too much of one or the other can make your newsletter seem either too boring or not informative enough. You need to try and find the perfect balance to make sure your co-workers are benefitting from the newsletter.
Ideas
Start your newsletter off with the most important, work-related information (e.g. upcoming meetings, events, new protocols, new employees.) When those things have been covered, you can get started on the more lighthearted, social aspects of the newsletter. This way you're clearly prioritising work matters without compromising on fun!
Although we recommend you try and stick to a trusted format in order to make the editing process easier, there's no harm in trying to spice things up a bit if you feel your newsletter layout or color scheme needs to be updated. A small refresh every now and again might be all your newsletter needs to remain interesting.
Ideas
You could try adapting your theme to the different seasons in order to make your newsletter as relevant as possible. Mail Designer 365 has tonnes of creative tools which you can explore to make this happen. Try including a seasonal mood picture for each newsletter - you can find all you need in the Unsplash library in the app.
To keep things interesting, update your design with imagery which reflects the seasons.
Of course the most effective way of finding newsletter content which your team is interested in is to directly ask them what they want to hear about. Once you know the type of content your co-workers enjoy and don't enjoy, it will be much easier for you to refine your newsletters to their taste.
Ideas
There are many websites like Google Forms which allow you to quickly create a survey or questionnaire for free. Use this to send to your co-workers to find out more about their interests. The key to this is to keep the survey as brief as possible so staff are more willing to give up their time to fill it in.
Send a survey out to your team to get their feedback on your newsletter.
We hope you'll test out some of these ideas when you're putting together your next internal newsletter. The more you try to keep things interesting, the more of a success your newsletter should be with your co-workers!
No matter how big or small, when crisis strikes, it's important your team is briefed as soon as possible. For many managers, the crisis email is probably one of the most important you will send, as it allows you and your team to productively move on from a problem while avoiding widespread panic.
Here are some of our best tips on keeping calm and putting together effective crisis communication emails...
In crisis situations, timing is everything. You should aim to send your email as soon as possible before the news starts to spread around the office. This being said, you should also make sure you have asked yourself the following before you send out the email...
Before you get started with putting the message together, it is important to consider who you need to inform and whether you need to send one mass email, or multiple emails to different groups. One way of identifying who to inform is by assessing who will be directly impacted by the crisis. Some examples include:
Here are some ideas of things you can include to effectively communicate the problem to your team...
You should start the email by briefly recapping the problem for anyone who might not know what is going on. This is also an effective way of making sure everyone has received the same information and helps you to avoid any confusion.
As a manager or team leader, your staff will look to you for direction in times of crisis. Make sure you include some kind of strategy or way to move forward from the incident. This will help to motivate your team and get the problem resolved faster.
If you are experiencing a major incident, your email must be clear and concise. It's easy to forget about presentation when you are in panic mode, but long chunks of text will only make your email harder to comprehend. Take the time to put together a clean cut email and include logical sub-headings to help the reader navigate through the most important information:
Make your crisis email easy to read by using clear paragraphs and sub-headings.
Some of your recipients may have further questions or concerns. You should provide a way for them to get in touch with you or the person in charge, such as an email address or phone number.
If the crisis is large scale, you may want to consider setting up a crisis hotline to efficiently manage incoming questions. For press statements, you should include a designated contact to deal with any follow up questions from journalists.
Include contact information so readers can get in touch with any questions or concerns.
Think about which of your business activities (e.g. delivery times, services, opening hours, stock availability) will be affected by the crisis and briefly summarize the answers on a dedicated FAQ page on your website.
This will help your customers find the information they require faster, while also reducing the strain on your support team.
Tip: Provide a temporary link to this page on the support area of your website to help answer common support queries before your inbox and phone lines become overloaded.
In Mail Designer 365, you can quickly build a professional email to keep your team informed in times of crisis. If there are things which need to stay confidential to eliminate the risk of sensitive information falling into the wrong hands, you can send securely via your own servers using your own address - directly within the app.
Send via your own servers using your own email address.
We've created two new crisis communication email templates suitable for keeping your customers up to date during a crisis:
These templates are ready and available to edit now in Mail Designer 365. Simply update the messaging to fit your business and send to your entire mailing list to keep them informed.
We hope you have found these tips helpful. Remember to keep calm and work proactively. The crisis won't last forever and your customers will appreciate you keeping them informed. If you want to use one of the above templates, sign up to Mail Designer 365 free to get started today.
Until next time,
Your Mail Designer 365 Team
Although often overlooked, creating an engaging company newsletter is a highly effective way to bring your team closer together and improve your company's image.The main purpose of a company newsletter is to share the most important news and announcements with your employees, shareholders, and perhaps even customers, but this doesn't mean it has to be boring and monotonous...
Here are our top tips on building effective company newsletters which your employees will want to read.
Depending on the size of your organisation and the type of news you're looking to share, you may not be able to adopt a "one size fits all" approach with your company newsletter. Before you begin to create your newsletter content, think about who you want to send it to, and why. This will help you identify the tone you need to use and what you should include to make it more relevant for the target audience. Here are a few suggestions:
Once you've identified which kind of newsletter you want to send, you can start planning the content you want to share with your readers. Try and identify a key story or topic which you can use as the main theme of your email to help draw your readers in. You can also use the email subject to immediately communicate this theme to readers and increase the chances of your email being read.
Decide on a main newsletter theme and include in your subject line to draw readers in.
As a manager or team leader, you can use your company newsletter to speak to your whole team on an informal level. This is especially important if you have a larger team you don't get to interact with often. By keeping the tone friendly and conversational, you will come across more approachable to team members and employees.
The key to building up a good email layout is to include a balance of text and images. This breaks up your email and makes it much more appealing to readers. In Mail Designer 365, there is a wide variety of layout options to help you build a newsletter which looks professional.
For example, for longer news stories, you can use a 4-column layout block to create a more authentic magazine style layout:
Use the 4 column layout block for longer news stories.
For images, you can choose between a large, attention-grabbing central image, or save space by grouping together smaller images with informative captions:
Features such as employee of the month are a great way to boost morale and praise good work. Sharing good news with your colleagues is another way to keep spirits high. However, you should also remember to stay positive during difficult times. If your team is under-performing, use your newsletter as a way to motivate them to do better.
Features such as employee of the month are a great way to boost morale.
You should try and keep newsletters as consistent as possible so your readers know what to expect. This includes aspects like the color scheme, newsletter title, font, and layout. You could also include regular features like quotes, event calendars, or a comic strip to keep readers engaged. By sticking to a trusted format, you also have a reliable template for future designs.
Tip: You can build one master template in Mail Designer 365 which you can duplicate and edit whenever needed. This way, you keep a consistent style and don't lose your formatting.
Duplicate newsletter templates to keep your styles and formatting for next time.
Whether you are a small business, a large corporation, or a smaller team within a big organisation, you should be able to find a sending schedule which suits you. Although this doesn't have to be exact, it is good practice to establish some sort of pattern so you are keeping in regular contact with your employees or shareholders.
We hope you found these tips for building a company newsletter useful. Remember, you can try out these tricks in Mail Designer 365 by downloading the app free from our website!
Until next time,
Your Mail Designer 365 Team
As people are getting busier and technology is advancing, you have probably found yourself looking for a practical and interesting way to share important information with your colleagues and business partners. Here are some of our top tips on how you can easily convert your Keynote or PowerPoint presentation slides to compelling emails and keep your whole team up to date...
Before you get started with your email, identify the most important parts of your presentation which you want to relay to your colleagues. By only including the key points, you'll keep your readers engaged and share information more efficiently. Remember you don't need to use every slide! Once you've identified these key points, you can start to build an email layout...
To save time and hard work, you can export your content-heavy slides as images to share with your team. This is a quick alternative to manually inserting or rebuilding charts, infographics, graphs, and other graphics.
This is easy to do in both programs. For example, in Keynote, go to "File" > "Export to" and select "Images". You can then select the slides you wish to export and then save them to your computer.
Export content heavy slides as images to use in your email.
To reduce the length of the email, you can also crop slides to only show the important information. Things like the header with your logo and slide title, or the footer with contact information aren't required to convey the key points of the presentation.
Crop slides to cut out any irrelevant or unnecessary information.
Nobody likes to read a long list of information, which is why you should try and keep your layouts interesting! Here are a few quick tips you could use to make your email quick and easy to read:
Insert clear headings to explain slide content. This will distinguish the sub-headings from the main body text and allow busy readers to quickly skim the email and still understand the key points.
Keep the length under control. It's a good idea to keep your email as short as possible so readers aren't endlessly scrolling to get to the end. Do this by arranging text and images side by side or inserting multiple text columns:
Column layouts help arrange text in a more interesting way while also reducing email length.
Use tables to clearly present information. A table layout is a simple yet effective way of presenting information such as project status updates and pricing plans without taking up too much space in your email. You can use a table to summarise more detailed slides.
Tip: Mail Designer 365, you can use table layout blocks to present information to readers. Check out this tutorial for building professional project status tables.
Use tables to visually convey how a project is going.
Once you've converted your presentation to email, you only need to make a few minor changes to make sure the email is still professional and on brand.
If you haven't already, make sure your company logo is clearly incorporated into the email design. If you're sending to external colleagues, partners, or shareholders, this will make it clear who the email is from.
Try to match the colors used in your presentation throughout your email. Not only will this compliment any slides you have included, it also gives your email a clear color scheme so it is on brand and aesthetically appealing...
Keep emails professional and on brand by incorporating your logo and color scheme.
We hope you have found these tips for converting presentations into email useful. It really is that easy to take your existing presentation content and transform it into a well-presented, easy to read email. If you like what you've read here today, why not try out these tips in Mail Designer 365? Download the app for free and see what you can create!
Until next time,
Your Mail Designer 365 Team
What better way to ring in the new year than with a brand new Mail Designer 365 update? Mail Designer 365 version 1.5 introduces a range of exciting new features guaranteed to make email design easier and more productive.
As well as a set of elegant new design ideas, we've also made significant changes to our smartphone editor and introduced even more of the latest mobile devices to the device preview list...
An oversized email can lead to many problems. As well as creating difficulties when loading, in some email apps, email designs above a certain size limit could appear incomplete; leading to less than ideal results.
In Gmail, email messages above 102 KB will be cut off. To help you prevent this from happening, we've got 5 helpful hacks on how you can use Mail Designer 365 to keep the size of your email design down...
This may sound like a no brainer, but cutting down on your email content is the easiest way to quickly reduce the size of your email design. If you notice your email is getting too long, think about how much content you have included and whether it's relevant.
Including links to landing pages with more information is a great way to cut down and still keep readers up to date.
Layout blocks are a great way to stylishly arrange email content, but too many of them will significantly increase the size of your email design.
One way in which you can smartly use layout blocks is by utilising combi layouts. Combi layout blocks allow you to save space by arranging image and text side by side instead of having to double up and insert separate blocks for each:
Another smart hack is to make use of the padding tools. These can be found in the Style menu. Instead of inserting a spacer layout block to create space between blocks, simply adjust the padding to give you your desired amount of spacing. This helps cut down the HTML and reduces the email size.
Use the padding tools to reduce use of spacer blocks
This is arguably one of the most important factors when it comes to saving space, as images can add a great deal of weight to your email design.
Luckily, Mail Designer 365 offers an image optimization feature, which automatically recognises the optimal image type for your design. You can also use this tool to compress the size and quality of images.
Use image optimization to configure the optimal size and resolution for images
Every little helps when it comes to saving space. One further way of cutting down the size of your HTML is by keeping any alt text descriptions brief and concise - especially as alt tags which are too long will get cut off in email clients such as Gmail.
Adding an alt tag to an image is easy in Mail Designer 365, simply click on your image and select "Edit Link & Background" in the Style menu:
Keep alt text tags short and concise to reduce the amount of HTML
The Pre-flight checker in Mail Designer 365 tells you the exact size of your finished email design so you will know whether you need to cut down:
The pre-flight checker lets you know the exact size of your design.
We hope you have found these tips on reducing email size useful. Don't forget to use them next time in Mail Designer 365!
Get more inspirational tips, tricks, and best practice examples in the Mail Designer 365 Newsletter Academy -
your one stop hub for all things email marketing strategy and newsletter design.
2018 is coming to an end, and for email marketers and businesses, going into a new year can be a daunting prospect. With so much to plan and consider, we wanted to make things a little more straightforward for you in 2019. Here are 12 inspiring dates for your 2019 email marketing diary...
Officially named the most depressing day of the year, Blue Monday is hardly a cause for celebration. As marketers, you can be clever and do your best to take advantage of this day by giving your customers something to smile about. This may be a special offer or discount, or simply a kind email to remind readers to hang in there!
Travel company EasyJet launched an 'Orange Monday' campaign offering discounts across flights and holidays as a way to cheer up customers from the Blue Monday gloom.
Take your customers' minds off the Blue Monday gloom by offering a sale or promotion like EasyJet's Orange Monday...
Vibrant and colorful, the Chinese New Year is an exciting event observed by Chinese families worldwide. Get involved by integrating some aspects of Chinese culture into your email campaigns to celebrate the start of their year.
This clever email from Karen Millen is a humorous way to incorporate Lunar New Year celebrations into a marketing campaign:
International Women's Day is a great opportunity for you to celebrate your female customers and colleagues. A marketing campaign giving back to women's charities or simply an email recognising the day would be highly effective way to show women your appreciation.
Widely known as a day to joke around and have fun, April Fool's Day gives you the perfect chance to show off your funny side to your customers. Try integrating an appropriate level of wit and humour into your emails to make your campaigns more interesting, but remember to stay on brand whilst doing so!
This funny email from Domino's Pizza is well on brand and incorporates just the right amount of humour for readers to appreciate it as an April Fool's campaign:
Keep the humour of your April Fool's campaigns on brand and relevant to your business
It is important for businesses to be family friendly and cater to different age groups. The International Day of Families is a great time to show that your business does just that. Try coming up with a promotion to benefit families, such as kids eat free, or discounts across children's toys or clothing.
LGBT Pride is quickly becoming one of the biggest celebrations of the calendar, with large scale events and parades taking place worldwide. As a business, it's important for you to show your support for this movement and email marketing offers you a convenient way to make this happen. Whether you incorporate the rainbow theme into your design, or build a specialised campaign, any support will be widely appreciated.
This bright and colorful email by Harry's effectively communicates their support for the Pride movement. Donating the proceeds of their shave set to LGBT+ causes is a further way to give back.
Bright colors and genuine displays of solidarity like this one from Harry's are highly effective
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. Depending on the nature of your business, this could make a unique and interesting theme for an email campaign. Try incorporating celestial imagery such as stars and planets to create a space theme, or take the opportunity to promote any products with a connection to outer space.
Eid Al Ada is a great celebration for Muslims all over the world and for many, marks the start of the pilgrimage to Mecca. If you know you are likely to have many customers celebrating Eid, it would be a good idea to send out an email greeting, wishing recipients a happy Eid.
This effective email design from drumbeat is a lovely way to reach out to customers celebrating Eid and shows they care as an organisation:
Reach out to customers celebrating Eid by sending out an email greeting
This is one for all the software and tech firms out there... Show appreciation for your fellow programmers by giving a nod to them in your email campaign! Try offering a discount on new software which developers may find useful, or provide programmers with early access to your beta releases. They'll definitely appreciate you going the extra mile for them.
Diwali is a Hindu festival of light, which is particularly prominent in India, but also celebrated throughout the world with fireworks and colorful lights. Recognising Diwali in your email campaigns is a nice way to include all the recipients on your list who may also be celebrating this festival.
Originating in China, Singles' Day is a day dedicated to celebrating single people and is now massively growing in popularity. Many businesses use this as an opportunity to offer discounts and great deals to their customers. In particular, this holiday is popular with younger people in China, the UK and the USA.
NastyGal effectively celebrate singles with this cat themed email design offering 25% off their entire site:
Give your single customers something to celebrate by offering deals and discounts for Singles' Day
Taking a break from the hype of Black Friday and Christmas marketing, Giving Tuesday is another charitable way to demonstrate your business's CSR and encourage customers to get involved in good causes. In the last few years, many big brands have gotten involved in the Giving Tuesday campaign.
This festive email design from ONA inspires customers to purchase a camera strap to support charity water:
Choose a charity to support and encourage your customers to give back for Giving Tuesday
We hope we have given you some ideas and inspiration for your 2019 email marketing calendar. Alongside the regular holidays and events in your planner, these events should give you some fresh and interesting new subject matter to create engaging emails with in 2019.
Until next time,
Your Mail Designer 365 Team
With Christmas just around the corner, many businesses will be getting ready to send out their festive email campaigns to customers. While most businesses will be focused on sales and promotions this month, for B2B companies, holiday marketing is slightly different. To help you get started, we've put together a useful guide of dos and don'ts for business to business holiday emails.
Remember that most offices will be closing over the holiday period to allow their staff some well deserved down time. If you send your emails out on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, it's highly likely that they won't be read. Make sure to send your emails in the week prior to Christmas (at the latest) to ensure they will be seen before the big day.
Although it may be tempting to get into the Christmas spirit and adopt a more informal tone, as many B2C companies do, it's important that B2B companies remain consistent all year round. This means if you have always kept a professional tone with clients, you should continue to do so. This doesn't mean your email has to be boring. Mail Designer 365 has hundreds of font and design options which you can integrate into your email to keep things interesting:
Utilise Mail Designer 365's wide selection of business fonts for a professional holiday design.
The holiday season is hugely commercialised and businesses try everything they can to boost sales during December. For a B2C company, this is usually an effective strategy, as consumers are looking out for the best gifts and special offers. As a B2B company, it is often much more effective and professional to send out a simple email thanking your clients and wishing them all the best for the holidays.
Including information which your clients and customers will find useful is another highly effective email strategy for B2B companies. Let clients know your opening hours over the holiday season, or remind them about last delivery dates before Christmas. This is something they are bound to appreciate you going the extra mile for.
This email by Zenmed is a nice way to inform customers about using their express shipping service over the holiday season:
Provide your clients with useful information they may need to be aware of over the holiday season.
There is never an occasion where we would recommend you send one email to your entire mailing list. Not only is this a large risk, it can also be counter productive when sending unnecessary emails to the wrong target group. Instead, make the effort to segment your list based on who would find a holiday themed email appropriate or beneficial. It is useful to consider aspects like culture and geographic region when doing this.
Gifting is a common tradition during the holiday season and it can also be used effectively in a B2B email, where business relationships are especially important. Show your clients you appreciate their custom by offering them a gift or incentive which they can use in the New Year. This is a great way to improve customer retention levels.
In true holiday spirit, this email by Trello gives clients a free license for a month to use for themselves and share with friends and family. This is an effective incentive to keep users using the service:
Give your subscribers a holiday gift to keep them coming back in the New Year.
Last but not least, it is more important than ever with B2B companies to be aware that not all customers celebrate Christmas, and there are many other holiday taking place during this time of the year. For this reason, it's much more appropriate to use neutral terms like "Happy Holidays" to appeal to a wider audience.
We hope this quick guide has been useful for B2B companies looking to send out a holiday email campaign this month. Feel free to try out all of these tips in Mail Designer 365!
Until next time,
Your Mail Designer 365 Team
