These days more and more organisations are looking at contacting their client base through email. While arguments over this type of direct marketing approach still rage, there is little doubt that email has become a complementary form of promotion, alongside other, more traditional methods. The real beauty with email is the speed with which it can be put together and fired off out to hundreds and thousands of recipients. Whether the push behind the email shot is considered legitimate or not, email as a marketing tool is likely to be with us for a long time to come.

Organisations have possibly been enticed by the promise of huge cost savings over tradition print and postal options. This may well be true, but the big issue many tend to ignore are the click through and conversion rates. There is a noticeable trade off in the relationship between effort / cost, verses the returns. This return on investment (ROI) depends upon many factors, but there is little benefit from saving a bundle compared to other options and in return receiving much less response. While we can discuss issues such as targeted mailing lists…ie customers who are known to have particular interest etc, very little discussion surrounds actual email design.

Now that organisations are adopting HTML email, a whole new world is opening up for the talented designer. To a greater extent we can begin to apply many of the rules we’ve learnt from web site design. While there’ll always be a minority who’ll hate logos, colour and animation, used skilfully, to most these are techniques that can really engage and in turn increase response rates. As with web design we need to consider how to convey the message with the right mix of graphics, text and navigation. It’s doubtful if email will ever be considered art, although it should be, nevertheless imaginative design will always win out over bland text only variants. Some of this obviously depends upon the audience. Subscribers to a particular update bulletin will not necessarily need all the bells and whistles. But as with other forms of marketing, where people need eye-catching enticements, good design is essential.

Some of the best emails are naturally emerging from the large organisations. This doesn’t mean they all score well in the design stakes. In fact some larger concerns are still rather backward in their approach, but on the whole there are some great examples to learn from. With the advent of broadband, in the same way web sites have suddenly become more adventurous, so can the email. Now we can attempt to captivate the reader with embedded animation, video or even games for instance. So long as Microsoft doesn’t apply any more restraints through new versions of Outlook, email can really begin to reach it’s full potential. So the message for those who want to inject some life into their electronic communications is to think about improving the visual impact of their emails by using good web designers.

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