Frost Miller Group

07

Jan

2010

2 Simple Tips for Styling Content in Emails
Labels: Email Marketing, Design
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So you have a beautifully designed, professional-looking email template (perhaps you enlisted Frost Miller) to communicate with your customers/members. It's been uploaded to your email service of choice (i.e. MagnetMail, eFlyer, MailChimp, Emma, etc.). And now, it's up to you to add content. Here are two quick tips to make sure that the all-important content looks as beautiful and professional as that Frost Miller designed template.

1. Choosing text colors: beyond black type and royal blue links.
Black type and blue links are the default value on the web and as a result they tend to look a bit generic and may imply to the reader a less than professional source. Try using dark grey in place of black-it's easier on the eyes and more sophisticated looking. Likewise, take the time to apply colors to your links by hand. If your campaign has a dominate accent color in its design that is appropriately dark for text try using this for the links. Read this step-by-step guide for changing text colors in MagnetMail.

2. Adding open/white space.
Making sure your copy has some open/white space gives the eye a place to rest and makes for a less cluttered and more sophisticated layout. The most common place to include open space is around images and graphics and between paragraphs and subheads. If using images make sure to set some spacing to give them room to breath. Likewise, add extra space in the text by adding an extra return (or soft return by hitting Shift+Return) between paragraphs and especially before subheads. Read this step-by-step guide for adding space around images in MagnetMail.

Content is king, BUT your readers make subconscious judgments about whether something is worth reading before that headline is even processed. Emails that look professional are more likely to find an audience.

*BONUS TIP: Never use underlined text in emails or on the web unless the text is a hyperlink. The convention of underlined text denoting a link is so ingrained in us that we all assume clickable link as soon as we see underlined text on screen. If something is underlined but not a link it will only confuse and annoy your readers.

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Dave Dildine
Web Manager
Frost Miller Group


In an office teeming with DC locals, Dave wins the "localest prize" for having grown up a short 3 blocks from Frost Miller headquarters. Dave runs our web design and digital marketing department. He's adept at everything from site design to Flash animation to wrangling code --- be it HTML, CSS, CMS, or ActionScript. His education in the visual arts and previous experience as a print designer for an association gives him the ability to produce well-considered and well-executed visuals and make them work on the Web, rather than the other way around. Dave is a graduate of Tufts University and MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art). And yes, he does know how to do the print stuff too.

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