Email marketing is a highly competitive field, and it’s critical to differentiate your email design from the competition. Visually engaging video email marketing is more likely to resonate with your audience, especially when compared to bland, generic messages that don’t catch their attention.

This article will cover some of the most effective strategies for making your email newsletter more visually appealing. Even a few small adjustments, like adding video to email, can significantly upgrade your content and improve performance on the most essential email marketing metrics.

1. Start with a captivating heading

It’s crucial to establish a brand image for your readers, and a consistent heading gives your content a cohesive theme. Fortunately, you don’t need graphic design experience to create an eye-catching header—several email marketing and graphic design solutions make this process easy. 

Think of your newsletter heading like the title on the cover of a magazine. Without one, it’s challenging to set your content apart from the other messages in your readers’ inboxes. Your heading should at least include basic elements like the name of your company, a high-resolution logo, and the title of the newsletter.

You can use your header as a starting point for the rest of your email’s visual content. Focus on implementing a cohesive design, including a consistent color scheme and tone. Your brand’s colors should be present throughout the entire message.

Charity: Water takes a straight-forward yet captivating approach to visual email marketing. Instead of just thanking you for a donation, they tell you exactly how it’s being used.

2. Make your emails skimmable with subheadings

Like a heading at the top of the message, subheadings give your emails more visual diversity and break up long sections of text. Users spend relatively little time reading each email, and subheadings and product titles make it much easier to scan the message for the most important information.

Adding subheadings is also an excellent opportunity to edit the body of the email and get rid of any superfluous sections. Again, your goal should be to limit the message to relevant content that’s truly unique and valuable to your audience. Each subheading should summarize the critical points from that paragraph.

Of course, subheadings and product titles are designed to make an email easier to read, so you shouldn’t include any more than are necessary to get your point across. When in doubt, it’s generally better to edit more out rather than leaving too much text in your marketing emails.

3. Include different content formats

Every marketing email should include some text, but you should keep your design varied by providing a diverse range of content. This starts with basic visual content like product images, but it also includes more videos and other alternatives to conventional text-based content.

Adding video to email is particularly effective at engaging users. Video email marketing also enhances personal content compared to what’s possible in text. Add an engaging gif or image, and make sure to include a play button in your video marketing emails. This simple tactic is one of the most powerful ways to put your brand ahead of your competitors and stand out from the rest of the emails in your audience’s inbox. Simply adding ‘video’ to an email’s subject line can boost its open rate by 19%.

Even a few seconds of a video offers an opportunity to connect with your readers and give them a reason to keep watching. Aim to start every video email marketing campaign with an idea of what to expect and why they should take interest. The longer you can keep a reader watching your video, the more likely they are to make a purchase or take action.

Infographics are also fantastic for email. After all, email marketing is all about providing valuable and engaging information in the shortest possible amount of time. More and more brands are turning to infographics as a way to communicate easily digestible data in a more visually appealing format.

Of course, a useful infographic depends on unique information that most readers would be interested in learning. Infographics can be even better if they respond to a current event or trend that your audience is already engaged with.

Infographics come in a variety of forms, so don’t be afraid to experiment with a wide range of designs. You can try anything from a comparison between different options to a timeline describing the history of something relevant to your brand. Over time, you’ll gain a better understanding of what will resonate with your audience.

Get started by creating an infographic that explains next steps and what to expect after signing-up for your email list.

4. Craft distinctive emojis

Subheadings help break up text and make your content easy to read. However, you can also use visually unique emojis and icons to emphasize the most important points and achieve a better balance between text and visual content. These icons could be as simple as a Wi-Fi symbol or buffering logo. You can even use emojis for email marketing.

Icons aren’t particularly informative, but they go a long way toward preventing reader fatigue. Without icons, the email above would look like little more than an article. Notice that the icons match the style of the brand’s logo and fit perfectly with their color scheme. It’s vital to stay consistent in every area of the email.

If you use images in your newsletters, pay attention to the image size. Keep in mind that the file size of the image significantly impacts how quickly the image loads and shows up in the inbox. Optimize them that file size would be less than 1MB, and file format would be jpg, .png, or .gif.

Furthermore, each of the sections includes just three or four sentences that provide a basic overview of the topic without going into too much detail. Remember that readers can always learn more on your website or blog—you don’t need to give them the full story in a short marketing email.

5. Use CTAs and A/B Testing

Every part of your video email marketing and newsletters are important, but the call to action is what leads customers to the next stage in the sales cycle. A call to action (CTA) should always be one of your main priorities when developing a new email. A strong CTA is vital in demonstrating value and getting readers interested in your brand and products.

You should also mention your CTA from the start in the email’s subject line to let readers know why they should click on the email. If you’re running a limited-time sale, for example, your subject line should include the name of the sale along with a percentage discount. Don’t forget to include the day the sale ends to ignite a sense of urgency.

Keep CTAs in the body of your email visually conspicuous. Your goal is to draw their attention away from the rest of the text and toward the element that leads readers to your site. Make sure to repeat the primary CTA at least twice in the email in case readers don’t respond the first time.

While there are some sound CTA strategies, the truth is there isn’t an easy way to optimize them. Different audiences respond to different CTAs, so it’s important to learn about your readers and find out what they’re interested in through A/B testing.

A quick A/B test helps identify your most successful tactics and move on from any ideas that are hurting your bottom line. You can also set up A/B tests with the most popular email marketing and marketing automation tools.

Visuals are just one part of what makes an email marketing campaign successful, but improving your visual content can have a surprising effect on sales and other metrics. Use these tips to get starting adding video to email and creating visual engagement with your readers. Remember to periodically analyze your results and look for ways to adjust your approach.