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Our world is diverse and your customer base is too. With marketing becoming increasingly globalised, it's important to ensure that your campaigns reflect and support the huge variety of customers your business has. Even small businesses cater to a large range of people differing in age, gender, race, religion, physical ability, etc. These are all qualities which make your customers unique and for this reason, it's great for your business to celebrate and recognise them where you can. Here are some ways you can make your email campaigns more inclusive and accessible to your customers.

Get to know your target audience

The more you know about your customers, the more you can directly target your campaigns. For example, if you know the majority of your customers are from one country, you can make an effort to recognise national holidays which would be important to them and form a closer bond. You can use questionnaires, Twitter polls, and detailed sign up forms to try and find out more about the demographic of your customer base and adapt your marketing strategy accordingly.

Avoid generalisations or stereotypes

Because our world is so diverse, it is important to recognise that your customers are not a homogenous group - they each have different needs and different interests. In the past, businesses have experienced problems by trying to use stereotypes in their marketing campaigns. These types of generalisations may be funny to some, but will cause offence and upset to others. A prime example of stereotypes gone wrong is this very subjective idea of the "perfect body" from Victoria's Secret. This marketing campaign received a barrage of complaints for featuring just one body type and failing to represent its hugely diverse global customer base.

Think carefully about your images

Continuing from the previous point, it's also important to show diversity in any images you're using in your email designs. A picture is worth a thousand words, so it's important to choose the right image for your campaign. If you can, try to choose a photo where you can see a range of different people doing different things. The more diverse the photos you include in your emails are, the more inclusive they become. Here are four great examples of brands who use diverse imagery to create inclusive marketing campaigns...

Make your emails accessible

One way you can ensure your email designs are inclusive is by making them accessible to people of varying abilities. Here are three simple steps you can take to make your email design more accessible using Mail Designer 365:

Create a plain text version of your email design. Customers with visual impairments may use a special screen reading device to read your email message. These devices struggle with HTML emails, which is why it is good practice for you to always include a plain text version which summarises the contents of your email. This is easy to do in Mail Designer 365, simply switch to the plain text/Apple Watch view to create the non-HTML version.

Be careful with your colors  For readers with visual impairments such as color blindness, it can be difficult to decipher a HTML email design. Some popular color combinations which can be particularly confusing for users with color blindness include: green & blue, green & red, blue & grey, and blue & purple. Try and avoid these combinations where possible. Strongly contrasting combinations work well - use a light hue for the background and a darker, bolder hue for your text to make it more prominent.

Use a clear typeface There are also many steps you can take for recipients with reading difficulties such as Dyslexia or Alexia. Try and use a sans serif font where possible, as the individual characters are easy to identify. You should also try to avoid using italics or calligraphy style fonts, as these distort the words even more. Use a fairly large font size and avoid using justified text, as this is very difficult for the majority of dyslexics to read.

Celebrate everyone

We touched upon this earlier on, but it's good to get involved in as many celebrations as you can. Celebrations and holidays such as Pride Month, Black History Month, International Women's Day, etc, are all super positive ways of celebrating our diverse world and will make your email campaigns much more inclusive. This inspiring campaign from Everlane acknowledges Pride Month by celebrating humanity.

We hope we've managed to inspire you with these tips on how to make your marketing campaigns more inclusive and accessible for your diverse email audience. With just a few small changes, you can work wonders with an inclusive email marketing campaign. Try it out in Mail Designer 365!

Until next time!
Your Mail Designer 365 Team

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Professionalism, branding, and consistency are all hugely important in business designs, which could put many users off the idea of web fonts. Of course, it's easy to stick to the familiar email-safe fonts we are used to, but actually, there are fair few web fonts out there which you can use to create professional, refined email designs that still look good.

Here's our quick guide on the best Google fonts for business designs.

Quick reminder

Before you get started, as much as we encourage you to try out these business-style fonts, please remember to include at least one fallback font in the style section of your design. While the majority of email clients nowadays do support web fonts, there are still some that don't (*ahem* we're looking at you Outlook...) You can easily configure a fallback font for every text style in Mail Designer 365 by clicking on "Add fallback font." This font will then be displayed if the web font is not supported.

Always add an email-safe fallback font to your text style

Open Sans

To kick things off, we're starting with our go-to font, Open Sans. Open Sans is a great choice for minimalist business designs. With a variety of different styles available, there is something for everyone. Use the "Light" style for modern, stylish feel in your meeting minutes, or go all out and define key points with "Bold" or "Extrabold."

Roboto

Similar to Open Sans, Roboto is a very simple all-rounder. This clear, easy to read font style is perfect for the main text of your newsletter and still makes a change from the likes of Arial and Times New Roman. Because this is such a simple typeface, it is easy to pair with another, more unique font (e.g. your logo or typical brand font) without appearing to clash or be distracting.

Athithi

Athithi is a nice choice for a tech newsletter. If your business is tech oriented or you work in the IT business, you might want to try using this font to add a modern twist to your design while still remaining serious and professional. Try using "Medium" or "Bold" to give your headlines some emphasis.

Cormorant Infant

Breaking away from the sans serif styles, Cormorant Infant is a serif font which offers a much more traditional feel. While sans serif fonts are more modern and simplified, serif fonts are great for the more classical business vibe. Try using "Bold" for an assertive headline for your business consultancy agency or legal practice. Alternatively, "Light" and "Regular" work well for a twist on standard newsletter text while still remaining clear and elegant.

Montserrat

Another highly popular Google font, Montserrat brings a bit more attitude to your design. This font choice would work extremely well as a CTA for your email newsletter.

Playfair Display

A slightly more interesting choice, Playfair Display is an elegant, serif typeface, well-suited to announcements, updates, or company news. Give this font a go in your shareholders' newsletter or your monthly round up.

We hope you have found these Google font tips for business designs helpful and that you'll give them a go in your next email newsletter. As you can see, it definitely makes a nice change to always using Times New Roman and Arial and all fonts are available license free in Mail Designer 365. For more help with downloading web fonts, check out this FAQ.

Until next time,

Your Mail Designer 365 Team!

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We're all familiar with the typical email marketer's arsenal; you have the standard set of transactional emails, as well as the odd sales or promotional email, but there's one more thing which often goes overlooked - the email newsletter.

Although widely accepted as a key part of email marketing, the email newsletter is not something which is utilised by every business. This is a mistake! An engaging email newsletter is the perfect way to keep your customers up to date and informed about what is going on in your business. Unlike a generic sales or transactional email, the newsletter gives you the opportunity to combine multiple marketing elements into one email and, at the same time, provide your customers with interesting content about your field of business. Here are our top tips for crafting engaging email newsletters.

The eye-catcher

To kick off your newsletter, it's a good idea to include an eye-catching graphic or header image to set the tone of the email, and, most importantly, grab your reader's attention. This could be an image, text style, or a GIF, but the main thing to think about is whether it is fitting to your email message and on brand for your business. Don't forget to prominently position your logo at the top of the email design so that your readers know straight away the email is from you. In this Valentine's Day themed email from Philosophy, the brand's logo takes center stage at the top of the page, followed by a dazzling pink graphic which conveys the theme of the email straight away.

Introduce the theme

In an email newsletter, it can be beneficial to include a short and friendly introduction to give readers overview of the theme of your newsletter. This should get them on board from the get go. Make your introduction snappy, engaging and, most of all, interesting enough that customers will want to read more. In this example from Boots, the reader receives a nice welcome to the newsletter, giving  them a quick overview about the theme of the email and enticing them to read on for more information.

Layout

The layout of your newsletter is important, as it determines whether or not your reader will be able to clearly follow the information you have provided. Too much text is long and boring, and too many images make the email difficult to load and may cause viewing problems in some email clients. Try to include a healthy balance of text and images in your email layouts. We would always recommend including at least one main text block so recipients who have disabled images in their email client can still see the main message of your email.

Great content

Of course, the most important aspect of your email newsletter is the content you include. If this content does not interest your readers, they will be less likely to open your emails, and could even choose to unsubscribe. There are three key things you can work on to make sure your content is engaging for your email newsletter:

1. Relevance: Is this content relevant to my field of business and to my target audience? Your customers have most likely chosen to subscribe to your newsletter as they have an interest in the industry you are in and want to hear more about it. It is good practice to consider how relevant your newsletter content really is before deciding to include it in the final draft.

2. Variety: Is this content unique and interesting? There's nothing worse than sending dull and repetitive emails, your customers will soon get bored and lose interest. Try to make sure you have a good amount of variation when it comes to your newsletter. You can try switching between factual articles, review-style blog posts, featured product launches, news about your business, or other media such as gifs and videos, to keep things vibrant and interesting.

We like the variety included in this newsletter by Typeform.

3. Promotion: Is this content helpful in promoting my product or service? Although email newsletters go further than the standard sales email, the main goal is still to market your business. Make sure that your content always works to promote your product or service. You could include product reviews, customer testimonials, example of how your product could help solve a common problem in the industry, useful tips or tutorials, and more, to paint your business in the best possible light.

Call-to-Action

Your email newsletter goes way beyond the email itself. As with any marketing material, your newsletter should contain at least one CTA (call-to-action) to direct customers towards your website, online store, blog, or whatever it is you are trying to promote. This post will tell you more about how to create CTA buttons that shine, but the main thing is to remember to make them stand out amongst the rest of your content. The bright pink CTA buttons in this design from Oasis are standout and work great with the summery theme of the email.

Don't forget the footer

Last but certainly not least, the footer. As well as giving you the chance to leave a lasting impression on your readers, this is also the most common place to insert any useful company information, disclaimers, and contact details, as well as the super important unsubscribe link.

We recommend that you always use a standard footer and only edit the information when absolutely necessary. That way, your designs remain consistent for your readers and you can be sure that you have all of the necessary information. Use the footer to link to your social media sites, your blog, or your customer support system.

Make sure your design footer contains relevant and essential information

This footer by H&M is informative and provides readers with all important links such as social media sites and the sign up page for a customer loyalty card. In addition, the company also protect themselves by including a legal disclaimer and an unsubscribe link.

Final thoughts

If you stick to these tips, you should be well on the way to crafting amazing email newsletters full of engaging content that your recipients will want to read. To go one step further, it's great practice to also stick to a regular sending schedule (i.e. once a week every Tuesday or the first of each month.) This will help to get your customers used to your email newsletter and look forward to your emails, and also helps you to provide consistent content and plan better. Happy Designing!

Until next time,

Your Mail Designer 365 Team

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