design

User experience in email design

Posted by Josh Green

Email is a fantastic graphical way of communicating with others, however so often in email design the primary function of an email is forgotten. Sure, some emails are just to pass on information, but nearly every single other email is about selling. It is currently impossible to complete a purchase with just an email but this is no bad thing, it streamlines the email’s function. The email exists solely to drive traffic to a web page. The email exists solely to drive traffic to a web page. This key idea is so often lost in email design – often it is closely tied to reproducing a similar or lesser version of a website instead. I think this is a terrible…

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Pop-up and alert bar forms made easy

Posted by Mel Jewell

We all know how time consuming and expensive development projects can become, especially if you need to outsource to third parties. Here, at display block, we are always looking for ways to make basic development work as simple as a few clicks here, a few settings there, and away you go. One new such tool we are now able to offer is the ability to add pop-ups and alert bars to your website with nothing to suggest it’s coming from an external source. These pop-ups are controlled entirely within the platform, set up in an intuitive code builder environment and require no coding skill. Here are the basic steps in setting up, for example, a newsletter sign-up pop-up (try saying…

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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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Predictions for 2017 email marketing

Posted by Mike Parry

Well, it only took 2 years, at this time in 2014 I wrote that 2014 was going to be the year when mobile responsive email just became email, became the common place, was what all the hip kids were doing. That finally happened in 2016, so the market was a little behind the curve but, boy, did email marketing catch up quickly! Responsive and Spongey coded emails abound, as do gif animation emails. Open the door and when you marketers come through it you do it with vision and a vengeance. So what will 2017 bring us? is it finally the year of video in email? Is it the year when automation crosses the chasm and is no longer the…

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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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Help your email designer help you

Posted by Josh Green

A good design has high conversion rates and is easy to use. It meets business goals while it is pleasing for people who receive it. Creating content that can facilitate a good design can be difficult though. Here is a list of marketing tips that will allow you to create great content that will make it easy to design for, but more importantly get you those conversions. Here is a great article that details how a company improved conversions by matching email strategy with mobile strategy and also how improved design and design practices like mobile optimisation improved their conversion rate. Offers aren’t everything Strong offers are obviously important but if that is all you’re saying users will get bored…

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How to design an email using Sketch

Posted by Josh Green

Sketch by Bohemian Coding has been gaining popularity steadily since its release and is now on its third iteration. Many very large and well know companies such as facebook, Google, Dropbox and Twitter all have designers which use Sketch now. Sketch is a great graphics app for a number of key reasons. Firstly it is a vector graphics app so all graphics are scalable, and icons and designs stay pin sharp no matter the size. Sketch makes use of objects, slightly similar to the concept of smart objects in Photoshop but essentially an icon can be made up of multiple fully editable components. Sketch also has an inspector which makes adjusting layer styles and effects very quick and easy. The…

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Email analysis: Virgin trains

Posted by Josh Green

Welcome to the first of my upcoming series in which I’ll be analysing various emails I receive. Seeing what they’re doing well, what they’re doing poorly, and what I would change. This email analysis will primarily be from a design and code basis, rather than on a strategic level. We’re going to kick off the series by analysing this email I received from Virgin Trains. To see the full email, click here. First Impressions My first impressions of this email were very positive; I enjoy the colour scheme with the contrast between the reds and whites, the modular email design does a great job at splitting up the content in a readable fashion, and I was very glad to see…

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