Author: Josh Green

With his superior design skills and intuitive understanding of how people actually interact online, Josh creates the emails and web sites that clients want - even before they knew what they wanted! Josh likes HTML, CSS and beer.



The top 6 features of great email in 2018

Posted by Josh Green

Web fonts It has been possible to use web fonts for a while in email but brands have really only just started to use them from the end of 2017. This technology provides a massive improvement in terms of the overall look and feel for most brands. The ability to use custom fonts right within the email is a huge step forward both for email designers and also for the companies trying to show their branding correctly. One major additional advantage of web fonts in email is of course the opportunity of being able to include much more content of the email in actual html text. This improves the accessibility of an email not to mention the deliverability and overall…

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How retail should use email marketing

Posted by Josh Green

Email marketing can be the most effective sales support for retail companies. It is undisputed that it is by far the best value for money form of advertising. For every £1 spent, email marketing generates a £38 ROI. Email has been claimed to be more than 40 times more effective than Facebook or Twitter. This is easy to imagine as people have absolute control over their inbox in choosing to receive emails from their favourite brand it is reasonable to assume a retailer will be sending emails to people who want their emails. People have very little control over the type of content they receive via social media and most retailer brand messaging gets lost, not least because people don’t…

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How to recover from an email disaster

Posted by Josh Green

Anyone who has ever had to send an email marketing campaign will know “The Fear” – the sense of dread you get when you personally are about to hit the go button on an email that is going to be received by potentially thousands and thousands of people. This fear also never leaves you. I have been sending email for 11 years now and I’m still very nervous when I send out emails. I always say, “there is ALWAYS time for another preview!”. Sometimes even to clients. I often test and retest to myself just to make sure I have got every last mistake fixed before the final send. But mistakes do happen to everyone at some point. It’s how…

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How to improve the preheader text in your email campaigns

Posted by Josh Green

Preheader text is a small but vital part of every email marketing campaign. If written correctly in conjunction with a concise, benefit focused subject line the two can create a powerful 1-2 combo to greatly increase open rates for your email campaigns. Open rates are arguably one of the most important statistics for email campaigns because without any opens you’re not going to get any clicks. In most email clients within the list of received emails you will see three pieces of information. The From name, the subject line and the second line is the Preheader text. The Subject line is usually darker or slightly larger in size, however most clients allow more space for Preheader text so ideally it…

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You can’t send an email campaign without…

Posted by Josh Green

Sending emails for businesses can be super stressful. The Sale is about to start, an urgent announcement needs to reach customers, the business needs to match a competitor’s offer. The reasons why it can be difficult are nearly endless, but, and this is a big ‘but!’ – no email campaign can be sent by an email service provider without a few key things. If this list is not met exactly, and every time, the email is just not going to go out. It is impossible. The bare minimum needed to send an email campaign HTML email Text version of the email The links for the email The subject line Sending instructions Preview list The email database Now that’s the absolute…

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how MINI changed their emails

How MINI have changed their emails during a rebrand

Posted by Josh Green

MINI have been going through a rebranding process for a while now and it seems to be a phased approach happening gradually. It’s no surprise their emails have gone through some changes as well to mirror this transition, so I’m going to be focusing on one of their emails and the transition it has gone through in design over the last six months. The Rebrand The overarching change has been the rebrand, which seems to have moved on from the previous, bold, in-your-face, young and fun vibe to something a little more grown-up. I also know that, where all of the previous emails tended to fit the same format and layout, the new ones vary in style. They have developed…

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Use concise email design to improve campaign results

Posted by Josh Green

To improve the effectiveness of your emails it is important to not overwhelm users with choice and to not include any content with duplicate links. This concise approach to email design will not only improve the results of your campaigns but also reduce the time it takes to create them. Keep things simple People can easily be paralysed by choice. It’s easy to be quickly overwhelmed with possible options. The process of incrementally introducing information or options has been something the web has done well for decades now. You don’t need to show every colour shoe in your email. Sell some shoes first, get the person to visit your store and only then should concise email design slowly, incrementally offer…

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Email Analysis: Campbell’s Kitchen

Posted by Josh Green

Welcome to the fifth instalment of my email analysis series! For this week’s review, I’ve picked out an email which landed in my inbox from the world famous Campbell Soup. You can see the full email here. First Impressions My first impressions of this email were very positive. I’m a big fan of the very understated design, using colours fantastically well to emphasise different areas of the email. I also love how they have used colours to clearly define different sections of the email. It also gets bonus points for being mobile optimised, adapting well to smaller devices. Layer by layer email analysis Now let’s break the email down section by section. Header The email starts fairly standardly with the…

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