Top 7 newsletter design mistakes – and how to avoid them

Newsletters are a great way to constantly engage with customers that are subscribed to your email list, but what good is it if no one is clicking through? That’s where we come in. We’ve compiled a list of common mistakes businesses make when designing their newsletter and most importantly we show you how we at Xigen can help you to avoid them.

Interested? Well, read on and all the information you need will be yours!

#1. Inconsistent Branding

This is a big no-no. As soon as the user gets the email in their inbox, they should immediately recognise which company sent it, otherwise it will be sent straight to spam. To ensure your brand is easily recognisable add your logo and tag line at the very top of your newsletter as it will be the very first thing the user sees when they open the email. It’s important.

#2. Choosing the wrong colours

This point also goes in line with branding. If your company colours were pink, you wouldn’t put green anywhere and everywhere, would you? Adding your company colours as well as other colours that compliment it can really make your newsletter shine, and makes the user associate your main colour with your company, it’s all psychological. Our designers are very experienced and know what colours go well with each other to help enhance your brand.

Also with this, think about how much colour you use. Too much colour can distract the user from the purpose of the newsletter which can lead to them just deleting it. It’s a delicate balance that we have considerable experience at getting right.

#3. Not being mobile responsive

Well tut-tut if you completely disregarded mobile. In recent years, there has been a surge in people checking emails and just generally doing everything on mobile, so if your newsletter does not look right on mobile it will definitely get deleted.

All the newsletters developed by Xigen are responsive and designed to look good on mobile as well as on desktop. Your newsletter should be able to look good no matter how big or small the screen is.

#4. Irrelevant Hyperlinks

Ok, so the newsletter looks good and the user is interested, but they then click a link and it takes them to a completely different site, don’t be surprised if they unsubscribe immediately. Before sending an email it’s important to know the objective of the email so you can add the relevant hyperlinks.

Don’t forget to check every link before sending off the email, this may seem obvious, but many people forget to check links and they end up being wrong. Xigen has Quality Assurance processes in place to make sure all the links go exactly where you want them to go.

#5. Using the wrong Images

Did you know that the brain processes visuals much faster than text? So, using good quality images that support your point is essential when creating a great newsletter. However, on the other end, using too many images can distract the user and can come across as very spammy. We can produce high quality images that compliment your message and make sure that the balance between image and text is optimised for a quality newsletter!

#6. Using indecipherable fonts

It’s important to distinguish fonts that are easier to read on the web between fonts that are easy to read on printed Material. It’s essential that your content is clear and easy to read, and since it’s on the web, using San Serif fonts will make things much easier for the user.

Also, to make things consistent you can use the font that is most commonly used on your site or if you decide you want to try something a bit different, try and use common fonts such as Verdana, Arial and Helvetica. It’s such a small thing, but can have a massive impact if the choice is wrong. We can help you get this right too.

#7. Unorganised Content

Messy looking content gives an impression of unprofessionalism and the user will automatically tag your email as spam. The message of your email should be clear and concise from the beginning. This is because people will only read the rest of your content if the primary message is relevant.

If there are any lengthy paragraphs in your email, try to shorten them down, and the user will be more interested.

Well there you have it! Have you made any of these mistakes? Fear not, these are very quick and easy fixes that we can soon help you to implement.