By Pam Neely June 19, 2024

More than half of all aspiring creators want to go into content creation. That’s more than those hoping to sell products and services. Consider that alongside the fact that most people prefer educational content to entertainment content.

One of the most popular forms of sellable educational content is the online course. A key reason for this is how easy it can be to create one.

But don’t you need a huge following to sell a course? Not necessarily. In 2021, about 62% of online students were taking courses created by people with fewer than 10,000 social media followers.  

You may not need a huge audience to have a successful course, but you need to get a few things right. Today, we’re going to share exactly how to create an online course to sell. You’ll even learn ways to do it without spending a lot of money or taking a lot of time. 

Let’s dive right in.

1. Choose your topic

Want to learn the harmonica? There are dozens of courses on Udemy teaching over 100,000 students how to play. Another big online course platform, Domestika, has 100+ courses just on lettering. A quick online search can help anyone find a way to master indoor shrimp farming or get outdoors for some African animal tracking.

Don’t be shy about picking an unusual topic. Weird is okay, so long as there’s enough of an audience to make your course worth creating. Many people are looking for niche content.

If you’re not sure what you could create a course about, here’s an easy exercise to find out. On a plain sheet of paper, make three columns:

Fill out the columns for at least five different topics. It’s good to have a few ideas to work with so you can stay open to the course topic most likely to succeed.

Now, ask yourself: What’s the need? What problems exist around these topics? Why haven’t they solved it yet? Did they think it would be too hard, too expensive, too likely to fail? Are other sources missing key information that you can provide?

When you’ve got a few topics and the why behind why someone would take a course about it, you’re ready for the next step. Just don’t skip the why! It’s super important.

2. Choose your audience

The more specific you are about who your course is for, the more likely you are to be successful.

For example, take the topic of “how to talk to your teenager.” Could that be for parents in general, or for single parents, or for single dads, or for single dads who just got a divorce?

People respond to courses that are laser-targeted to their needs. The most common question a prospective buyer (or even a free course taker) will have about your course is, “Is it right for me?” Even if you’ve got a lot of raving testimonials and great course content, everyone who considers your course will still be asking themselves, “Is this course right for me?”

The better you target your audience, the more likely it is that people will feel confident in taking it.

Pro tip: Go find a few popular courses on a public platform like Udemy. Then think about how you could do a course about that same topic but for a specific target market. 

Your target market can be a demographic (urban men 28-35), or people who share a common attribute, like “How to grow great houseplants – even if you tend to kill them.”

3. Confirm there’s a market and interest in your course

Nothing stings more than creating a full, fabulous course that no one wants. And sadly, while this is a common piece of advice, many course creators still ignore it.

Go find at least a few people who say they’d be interested in your course. Here are the three best ways to do this: 

Search for competitors

Go to Udemy or any other major course platform and do a search for what your course could be about. Here’s a sample search on Udemy for “choose a freelance writing niche.”

Google works just fine for this, too. Just Google “[your topic] course” and see what turns up. Also, try a few searches on YouTube and Instagram.

If you find a few courses, try to see how many students they have. Sometimes this is easy; other times, not so much.

Ask

Even if your audience is small, ask them if they’d be interested in your course. Or borrow someone else’s audience. Many Facebook group admins will let you post a question like this in their group, especially if you contribute to the discussions a lot.

If you’ve got a little bit of budget, you can also run ads to your target audience to see if they’d like your course. You might have to do a “dry test” – aka “pre-sell your course” to know how interested people are. Or you can offer a lead magnet that’s basically a slimmed-down version of your course. If the lead magnet does well, people are at least interested in the topic.

Find high-interest topics that don’t already have courses

This is a little riskier, but just because no one’s made a course on a certain topic doesn’t mean you can’t be the first. Just be cautious — if no one has created a course on your topic, there may be a reason.

The best places to find hot topics are via Amazon book searches, YouTube top searches, and (sometimes) hashtags on social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram. Facebook groups can be another rich source of information.

4. Find out what people want to know

This is yet another critical part of how to create an online course to sell. People will go through the entire process of creating a course, write up their sales page, pay good money to send people to that sales page, and…no one will buy.

A lot of things can cause a lack of sales, of course. But it comes down to this: You’re offering something people don’t really want. And so, while picking the right topic and the right audience are key to this, so is including what people want in a course.

This is a little more work than just leaping into content creation, but boy, is it worth the time. Here are the three best ways to get this done:

Talk to potential students

Ideally, you’ll have an email list of people (even a couple hundred people is enough). You’ll have sent out an email asking if anyone is interested in this course idea you’ve got.

Say ten people indicate interest. You get back to these potential students and try to get them on a Zoom call or a phone call to talk to them about what they’d like you to include in the course. Record those conversations if you can. If not, take the best notes you can. If you have to pay them, do it.

Getting people to talk to you directly is the best way to find out what your course should include. You’ll learn an enormous amount about your audience in just a few calls.

Do a survey

Again, you can do this with an email list. Or you can try to get people on social media to respond to a few quick polls.

Go to online groups (Facebook groups are the easiest to find)

See what people are talking about. See which posts get the most engagement. See what people are asking about. 

5. Define the transformation

Sounds dramatic, right? “Define the transformation” means finding a concise way to explain how people will be different after they take your course.

You see, people don’t really care how much content you’ve crammed into your course. They don’t care if you’ve got 90 hours of video and 23 workbooks and 45,000 words of text-based lessons. All that might make them less likely to buy your course.

Most people just want to get from point A (where they are now) to point B (where they want to be). The more efficiently your course gets them from A to B, the more they’ll want to take it.

So, work on how to explain this in a way that’s crystal clear. Do this before you start creating content.

As you’re “defining the transformation,” really what you’re doing is building a path for people through your course’s content. You’re giving them (and you) a goal. You’re also saving yourself so much work.

There’s another benefit to thinking of your course simply as taking people from A to B: It helps you write your sales page and all your marketing materials. But more on that in a moment. 

6. Block out the sections and lessons of your course

Now it’s time to block out your course’s lessons. But first, do yourself a favor: Establish a structure.

Block out three to five major sections of your course, with each section having three to seven lessons. That’s enough material for your course to feel meaty, but still concise enough so people don’t get overwhelmed. And people can definitely get overwhelmed with course content. If you tend to “over-deliver,” be aware of this.

Once you’ve got your course’s sections and lessons blocked out, it’s time to figure out what each lesson will cover. Aim for three to seven key points for each lesson.

Brevity is your friend here, too: People will zone out if a lesson is too long. Try to have your video lessons be 10 minutes or less (15 minutes, absolute maximum), and your text-based lessons no more than 1,500 words. Your students should be able to finish each lesson in your course within about 15 minutes or less.

With 15 minutes per lesson, four lessons in each section, and four sections, you’ll end up with about four hour’s worth of content (15 minutes x 4 lessons for each section = 1 hour for each section). 

That’s plenty of time to deliver a lot of value, but short enough to make your course feel manageable.

Pro tip: Remember how you defined a transformation that people will go through as a result of taking your course? Apply that principle to each section and lesson of your course. You might even open each section by saying, “By the end of this section, you’ll be able to [that section’s goal].” 

The whole “point A to point B” structure will help you create a course that helps your students feel like they’re making progress. That’s a powerful way to keep them motivated so they complete your course, get results, and have a positive experience. In the end, they’ll leave you a great testimonial, and so you’ll sell more courses.

7. Get it out on paper, video, or audio — or all three

You’ve got that outline… now it’s time to fill in the blanks.

Many courses are video-based but also have a text and audio version of each lesson. Your medium depends on your course topic and how comfortable you are on camera. You can do “talking head” videos, create PowerPoint-like slides and record your voice explaining the slides, or have a little inset of yourself so that people can still see you.

If you’ve got a bit of a budget for your course, consider getting your videos professionally edited. This will improve the student experience. 

Also, consider using an audio-to-text transcription service like Otter.ai to make text drafts of your video lessons. If you’re really short on time, take those text transcripts of your videos and hire a freelance writer to clean up the copy so it reads well.

8. Decide whether your course will be free or paid

Free courses are good if you want to get a lot of people into them. You can also use a simple free course to promote a paid course.

If you are doing a paid course, you’ll also need to decide how much it will cost. If it’s more than $400 or so, decide if you’re going to offer a payment plan. Payment plans tend to split the cost of a course into thirds and usually add about 15% of the value of the course for the payment plan. So, if your course costs $397, a payment plan would break into three monthly payments of $147 each.

If you publish your course on one of the large public course platforms (like Udemy), you’re basically offering a hybrid of the free versus paid course. There will be a charge for your course, but it’ll be so cheap – $9.99 – that the risk for the student is very low. 

Courses on platforms like this can make money, but you’ll need hundreds or thousands of sales to generate any meaningful income. That said, a low-priced course on a big platform can be an excellent promotional tool for your work or for a more expensive course you offer elsewhere.

Another play is to price your course super-low or for free when you first launch it. This gets at least a few students who can offer feedback and hopefully, a few really strong testimonials. 

Then you re-launch your improved course, with testimonials, at a higher price. All this takes longer, but will probably get you better results in the end.

Note that paid courses also typically have refund terms. Those terms are essential if your course costs more than even $27. Refund terms can also vary a lot, but they tend to fall into three types of refunds:

No refund

This is the least attractive option for potential students, but there’s no way people will misunderstand the terms. You may need to give prospective students a free lesson or two so they can see that your course is worth the money.

A 7-day refund

This is a suitable compromise for both student and teacher because the students get access to the course and the teacher has clear terms for the refund. The drawback is that some teachers may be concerned that people will speed through the course, download all the materials, and then request a refund.

The “do the work, get the results” refund

For this option, students have to complete the course before they can ask for a refund. The idea is that when a student buys the course, they’re entering into a contract with themselves and the teacher — buying the course is a commitment to do the work. 

Students are eligible for the refund only after completing the course and only if they can honestly say it didn’t work for them. The sales pitch is that this is being offered because you are 100% sure that it does the work, they will absolutely get their money’s worth. You’ll need to spell out the terms of this very clearly or some students may complain.

Once you’ve decided whether your course will be free or paid, and if paid, the terms of the sale, you’re halfway toward figuring out how you’ll deliver (aka “fulfill”) your course. 

9. Set up how you’ll deliver your course

There are four ways to deliver your course. You can:

• Use a course builder platform like Thinkific or Kajabi
• Host the course on your website with a WordPress plugin (or with Wix or Squarespace integrations)
• Publish on a course marketplace platform like Udemy 
• Set up your course as an email autoresponder (aka an “email sequence”)

Here are the pros, cons, and costs of each of these options:

10. Give people a way to sign up for your course

This can be as simple as creating a sign-up form for an email sequence, or it might mean configuring a shopping cart in an LMS learning system on your WordPress site.

You’ll also need to decide if you want to use Stripe or PayPal so people can actually give you money. You might offer both.

Any online course platform like Thinkific or Teachable will have a payment system pretty much set up. You’ll need to add a few things to configure the checkout, and you’ll be done. 

If you’re selling on Udemy or one of the other public course platforms, it’s already done for you. You’ll just need to add which PayPal account or Stripe account to send your money to.

Setting up a sales page for an autoresponder-based course is fairly easy, too. This video walks through exactly how to do it, step by step, in about five minutes. If you wanted to write out a full sales page, clearly that’ll take a little bit longer, but the basic setup to give people a way to buy your course is really pretty easy.

How to sell an online course

The above steps have already shown many of you how to sell an online course. You did the research, tapped into your audience, told online communities about it, and maybe emailed subscribers.

If that isn’t enough or you’d like more strategies to maximize sales, consider these tips.

1. Spend more time on your sales page

If your audience knows about the course but isn’t joining, tighten up your sales page. Ensure the design and copy are attention-grabbing yet appropriate for the topic. 

Next, speak to the reader. Demonstrate your knowledge of their problem in clear, concise language. Lay out exactly how you can solve it. To do this without giving away your best information, provide an overview of the course, such as lesson titles. 

From there, prove you’re trustworthy. Share only the best testimonials and any credentials you may have, and then lay out your pricing. At this point, the prospective student should be able to click and join as soon as they feel the urge, so make it easy.

Finally, display any money-back guarantees or other value benefits. Add an FAQ section at the bottom to further neutralize any resistance. 

2. Take your own course

You can get so wrapped up in every detail of your course that you lose sight of the big picture. Test drive the course yourself, without skipping a single step. 

Gauge the user experience, catch anything that’s missing, and correct any small errors. Once you do start selling, revisit the course and incorporate any feedback or new information that you wish you had at the beginning. It will help keep your content fresh and ahead of the curve.

3. Collaborate with a bigger creator 

You don’t need a large following to sell, but you can benefit from someone who does. Reach out to creators who have an audience relevant to your course. Offer them the course for free and tell their followers about it. 

These collaborations can expand beyond social media. Webinars and podcasts are also prime places to expand your reach, whether you appear as a guest or host your own and invite the bigger creator.  

The benefits of creating an online course

Having an online course can be a life-changing — or at least a business-changing — thing. There are several reasons why:

Online courses save you time 

Whether your course is free or paid, once it exists, you’ve got a way to share your expertise on autopilot. People can take your course while you do other things, like creating your newsletter or playing with your kids. 

And if your course is paid, that also means you can be earning money while you’re doing other things. And as we’re sure you’ve heard; passive income is a pretty awesome thing.

Online courses open doors

Even a simple autoresponder-based course can be a terrific way to promote your work. Free courses can promote paid courses, too. Courses can often serve as marketing tools on their own, especially if you publish on one of the larger platforms.

Online courses demonstrate your expertise

Courses can also be a great way to educate people about how to work with you or to give people a sense of what it would be like to work with you. 

For instance, a graphic designer could create a course about visual branding, or how to design a logo. This would be an ideal way to demonstrate the value of the designer’s work. It also lets the designer help people (and earn money from people) who can’t afford to hire her.

Courses can be ideal complements to other types of content

Many authors create courses that accompany their books. This gives people a way to apply what they’ve learned in the book or to study the topic in more depth. It also gives the author a way to build their email list and make more money from their work. Once they’ve written a book, making a section of that book into a course isn’t hard. 

Those are just a few reasons people are creating courses now. You may discover a few more once you launch your course.

Ready to get started?

So now you know how to create an online course to sell. You really could create a simple course over a weekend — especially if you’ve already got some existing content in other formats, like in a book or blog posts, or even in short videos.

Usually, the big thing blocking people from completing their course is they overcomplicate it. They over-deliver.

So, keep it simple. Create a good, simple course and see how well it works for you and your students. If you’re getting good results from it, then go back and expand the course. Improve on what’s working. 

Do you have any tips or advice on how to create an online course to sell? Share it with others in the comments. 

Email marketing continues to prove its worth as an excellent option for companies of all sizes to reach their target audiences. In fact, on average, email marketing yields a return on investment or ROI of $38 for each $1 that’s invested.

Everyone knows the importance of local email marketing, but what if you could get even more precise results out of your efforts? Hyperlocal email marketing targets customers at the neighborhood level, making your emails feel much more personal and relevant to each user. 

What is Hyperlocal Email Marketing? 

The process of hyperlocal email marketing involves leveraging detailed data about specific neighborhoods, including community happenings, local news, and demographic insights, to help you create emails that feel personal and relevant. 

Using this degree of precise targeting means that businesses can engage with their local customers on a much deeper level, resulting in higher open and click-through rates. People tend to appreciate receiving information that directly pertains to their daily lives and surroundings, which enhances their connection to the business. 

Ultimately, this leads to stronger community ties and more foot traffic to local stores, benefiting both businesses and their neighborhoods.

The Importance of Hyperlocal Data

Hyperlocal data is all about the specifics of a particular neighborhood and the people that make it up. It includes important details such as local events, community news, and neighborhood demographics, which paint a vivid picture of what’s happening in a small area. 

Unlike broader local data that might cover an entire city or region, hyperlocal data zooms in on the unique characteristics of a neighborhood, making it far more precise and relevant. This kind of data is essential for crafting marketing messages that truly resonate with the people who live there.

Sources of hyperlocal data are varied and often easily accessible and include resources such as:

• Social media platforms like Nextdoor and Facebook are goldmines for neighborhood-specific information, with residents frequently posting about upcoming events, local issues, and other community news. 
• Community-oriented blogs and websites, along with local news outlets, also provide a steady stream of hyperlocal content. 
• Public records websites can offer important demographic insights that help you tailor your marketing efforts even further. 

Collecting Hyperlocal Data for Marketing

Collecting hyperlocal data typically involves getting deeply engaged with the community you want to target. One effective method is subscribing to local newsletters, which often contain updates about events, community news, and other relevant information. 

Attending community meetings is another great way to stay in the loop and get firsthand insights into neighborhood concerns and activities. As mentioned, social media platforms are invaluable, providing a constant stream of local updates and conversations.

There are also several tools and platforms designed to help gather hyperlocal data efficiently. For instance, you can set up Google Alerts to notify you about news and updates related to specific neighborhoods. 

Using Hyperlocal Data to Create Personalized Email Content

To use hyperlocal data effectively in your email marketing, start by gathering detailed information about the neighborhoods your customers live in. From there, try to segment your email lists accordingly so you can send tailored content that speaks directly to their local interests and needs.

For example, if there’s a popular farmers market every Saturday, you can send an email promoting your store’s special offers that weekend, encouraging customers to stop by before or after their market visit. 

Highlighting community news, like a local school fundraiser or a neighborhood clean-up event, shows that your business is engaged and supportive of local initiatives. You can also address neighborhood-specific concerns or events, such as changes in public transportation routes or upcoming construction projects, and offer solutions or alternatives that might benefit your customers.

Relevance and personalization are important parts of email marketing when it comes to drawing users in and keeping their attention. When customers receive emails that are directly related to their daily lives and immediate surroundings, they’re more likely to pay attention and engage with the content. 

Strategies for Effective Hyperlocal Email Campaigns

Effective hyperlocal email campaigns hinge on several key strategies that enhance relevance and engagement. Things such as subject lines and preheaders are your first chance to grab attention, so try to make them count by emphasizing the local relevance of your message. 

A subject line like “Join Us at the Maple Street Fair!” combined with a preheader such as “Exclusive deals and fun activities this Saturday” can entice recipients to open the email. These elements should clearly convey that the content is pertinent to their neighborhood.

Design and formatting are equally important here, so try to use images of local scenes or events to make the email feel familiar and relevant. Make sure that your emails are easy to read on mobile devices, as many people will be checking their emails on the go. 

The body of the emails themselves don’t have to be mundane updates; you have plenty of room to be expressive and draw your reader’s attention. So, if you’re going to focus on telling a story, whether it’s about a business turnaround you just pulled off or a successful collaboration, make sure that it’s new and exciting. 

Clear calls to action are essential here, so try to guide your readers toward what you want them to do, whether it’s visiting your store, attending an event, or redeeming a special offer. Including personalized touches like using the recipient’s first name and referencing local landmarks or events can further help make the email feel more personal and engaging.

Finally, try to regularly test different aspects of your campaigns, such as subject lines, send times, and content, to determine what works best for your marketing needs.

Important Tools and Platforms for Hyperlocal Email Marketing

Several tools can enhance your hyperlocal email marketing efforts by helping you manage and execute your email campaigns with the highest levels of precision. 

Certain email marketing software offers geotargeting features, allowing you to segment your audience based on their location. With them, they make sure that your emails are relevant to each neighborhood.

CRM systems are able to integrate local data on the fly to provide essential insights into neighborhood-specific demographics and behaviors. 

These platforms help you adjust your messages to the unique characteristics of each community you’re targeting. Features like automated email scheduling and personalized content recommendations make it easier to deliver timely and engaging emails that resonate with local audiences.

Measuring Campaign Success and Adjusting Your Strategies

Of course, once your campaigns start yielding results, that doesn’t mean the job is done—you must supplement the initial bump in rankings with white-label link-building strategies, as well as site optimization or even a new landing page.

To measure the success of your hyperlocal email campaigns, focus on key metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, and foot traffic increases. 

Open rates indicate how many recipients are engaging with your subject lines, while click-through rates show how compelling your email content is. Alongside this, tracking foot traffic to your store can help you understand the real-world impact of your campaigns.

Analyze these metrics by comparing them against your goals and previous campaigns. If you notice low open rates, consider revising your subject lines to be more enticing and locally relevant. 

For low click-through rates, focus on improving your content’s relevance and adding clear calls to action. If foot traffic isn’t increasing, reassess the timing and content of your emails so that they align with local events and community interests.

Continuous improvement is essential, so stay responsive to community feedback by regularly soliciting opinions through surveys or direct interactions. You can then use this feedback to refine your campaigns, making them more aligned with your audience’s preferences and needs. 

Targeting Local Customers in New Ways

Connecting with customers at the neighborhood level through hyperlocal email marketing can improve your business’s engagement and presence in the community as a whole. 

Use the insights and strategies shared here to create truly personalized emails that resonate with your community and drive more local foot traffic—take the first step toward more effective and impactful marketing today.

By Jesse Kennedy June 20, 2024

Rather listen or watch? You’ve got it! 👇

Email design is critical to an effective email marketing strategy. While the actual information you communicate is important, design elements are just as crucial.

After all, studies show that 90% of the information transmitted to our brains is visual.

So, by incorporating email design best practices, you can leave a lasting impression on subscribers, help them remember and trust your brand, and drive more conversions.

Fortunately, you don’t need to be a professional designer to create beautiful emails!

In fact, in this article, we’ll cover all the most important email marketing design best practices that anyone can apply, regardless of skill level. 

At the end, we’ll show you a few email design tools to help you start sending gorgeous emails in no time.

Why is email marketing design important?

Email marketing design goes beyond the mere aesthetics of your messages. In fact, design plays a crucial role in how recipients perceive your brand identity.

By giving your email design the attention it deserves, you can help build trust with recipients, get them to engage more, and even drive more conversions.

So, let’s take a look at some of the key reasons you should incorporate email design best practices into your marketing strategy.

1. Create a good first impression

If you’ve put in the effort to get users to sign up for your email list, then it’s key to make a good first impression!

WIth good email design, you can capture recipient’s attention and set a positive tone for their interaction with your brand.

A professional-looking design establishes trust from the outset, ensuring recipients feel like they’re getting the value you promised when they signed up for your list.

2. Drive more conversions

By establishing trust with effective email design, recipients will also be more likely to convert into customers.

So, with the right email design, you can help guide your audience towards the action you want them to take, whether that be making a purchase or downloading a resource.

3. Improve readability and engagement

Incorporating email design best practices is also key for improving the readability of your messages. 

For example, the use of subheadings and bullet points, along with visual elements, like images, can help make your emails more engaging.

A report by Litmus found that people spent an average of just nine seconds looking at an email. So, it’s key that those who open your emails are able to understand the information quickly and easily.

Remember, the easier your emails are to read, the more recipients will be engaged. When recipients are more engaged, they’ll be more likely to convert. 

4. Build recognition with a consistent brand image

One more key reason email marketing design is important is that it can help you build a consistent brand identity.

This is crucial to developing both trust and recognition amongst your recipients.

According to an Edelman report, 59% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase from a brand they trust, regardless of the price. Likewise, 67% are more likely to advocate and stay loyal to a brand they trust.

So, to create loyal customers, it’s critical to build a recognizable and reliable brand image. By incorporating email design best practices into your marketing, you can achieve this.

11 Email marketing design best practices

Now that you have a better understanding of why design is so important, let’s look at some email marketing design best practices.

By incorporating these tips into your emails, you’ll be able to send emails that create a recognizable brand identity, build trust with recipients, and improve engagement.

1. Pick the right email design layout

The right email layout can make the difference between a subscriber who takes an action and one who unsubscribes. 

Attention spans are getting shorter, so understanding how people read your emails will help you craft more effective messages.

Knowing where their eyes are likely to go can make your email more readable. Better yet, it can help the reader navigate towards your call to action. 

So, let’s explore a few types of email design layouts to help you do that.

Z-Pattern

The Z-Pattern traces the path of your eyes when reading: left to right; top to bottom.

People will read the first line across, then down and to the left, and back across the right again. When reading in this pattern, it forms a Z-shape.

This email design layout works best when you have a lot of information to communicate. The structure will help your subscribers consume all the information in an easy and logical way.

You’ll often see this type of email follow a pattern where you start with a headline and text on the top left, with an image to the right. Then, the lower left corner will have another image, and across from that will be text. 

This works because:

1. Readers’ eyes are naturally drawn to images. By having the images diagonal from each other, you help subscribers follow an easy-to-read path.

2. It creates a cleaner layout by not having all your text on one side of the email.

Inverted Pyramid

The inverted pyramid is a format used for news stories, but it also works well for emails. This structure grabs attention and focuses on the most important parts of your message. 

It’s good for when you have one thing to tell your readers, and a specific call to action you want them to click on. 

You can use this layout for:

• Driving subscribers to your website to read an article
• Collecting sign-ups for an event
• Encouraging subscribes to purchase a product or service

F-Pattern

Finally, the Nielsen Norman Group first identified the F-Pattern after studying how people’s eyes read a website.

Similar to the Z-Pattern, a reader consumes content from left to right, and then back to the left. However, instead of reading across the second line, they read less. This pattern continues as readers make their way down the email.

This means you should put your most important, attention-grabbing information at the top of your email. 

Then, assume your subscriber is going to skim the rest of your email. Use less text further down in the email, and balance the copy with images on the right.

This email design layout works well when you have a lot of information to communicate. 

You should structure your email with the most important information at the top, and then use bullet points and shorter content further down the email. 

Finally, close with a call to action.

2. Choose the right colors

Select colors that reflect your logo and brand. However, be sure there’s enough contrast for easy reading. Remember, clarity is key!

Text that doesn’t have enough contrast against its background is hard to read.

It’s also a best email marketing design practice to incorporate color psychology. To choose complementary colors, check out this chart about the emotional impacts of different colors.

Free color palette tools like Coolors can also help you create a professional-grade palette in minutes.

Ultimately, this will ensure your emails are better aligned with your brand identity.

3. Leave some breathing room

Densely packed emails may be hard to read. This is especially true on mobile devices, where 49.7 percent of all email opens occur.

Most people scan emails rather than reading them word by word. So, having ample white space between elements makes your emails easier to scan. Essentially, it keeps them from looking visually overwhelming. 

Leaving extra white space has an additional benefit as well: it challenges you to keep your message brief and to only include the relevant details. 

Remember, brevity and clarity are critical to effective email design.

Here’s a great example from TrueCar.

4. Use text as a design element 

Formatting your emails for skimmers and scanners also helps. The most common formatting elements are: 

• Subheadings
• Short paragraphs
• Bullet points
• Bolded phrases 

Using visual cues like these will make the most important points of your email easy to find.

Look at this example from Jon Persson of CultMethod. He bolds important elements within the body of his email, while breaking up the copy with bullet points and perfectly-placed headlines. 

Most importantly, each paragraph is short and easy to read.

5. Balance text with images

You should also consider breaking up large chunks of text with visual images. Readers prefer short blurbs of information. So, try incorporating images and lines when possible.

Images help tell the story of what you want to communicate to your subscribers

Just be sure not to overdo it! Instead, follow the 60/40 rule: images should take up no more than 40% of your email.

6. Plan for missing images

Nearly all email services give subscribers the option to hide images. In fact, some even disable images automatically, forcing the user to click a link or press a button to “turn on” images. 

For example, here is how an email with a large hero image appears in Outlook:

Since many popular email platforms block images, you should make sure your email is still readable—and your call-to-action is still clickable—when images are turned off.

Rather than using image-based buttons that hide your CTA when images are turned off, try using a “bulletproof button” instead. This technique combines a background color with a regular text link, providing the illusion of a button that users can see when images are on or off.

Most email marketing services, like AWeber, allow you to easily create bulletproof buttons within your email design layout. 

If the images you’re using are an important part of your emails, make sure you add alt text to the image. This is text that describes what the image is about. 

If you’ve ever laid out webpages or worked with WordPress, you may have added alt text to images before.

When you include alt text, subscribers can still understand what you intended to show them, even if they block images.

7. Pick the right typography

As we’ve mentioned already, making your email easy to read is critical, and your typography is a huge part of this.

So, be sure the font you use in your subheadings and body copy are comfortably readable. Common email fonts include Arial or Helvetica, but you’re not limited to these.

Additionally, ensure you’re using a large enough font size. After all, you don’t want your recipients squinting to try to read your email. For example:

This font size is a 12px, and it can be difficult for people to read

This font size is 16px, which is large enough for most of your subscribers to read without zooming in.

8. Use clear links and buttons

You’ll likely include at least one or two links and buttons in your email marketing design. However, it’s important to make sure it’s clear where all of your links lead to.

For example, instead of writing phrases like “click here”, try using more specific labels.

Something like “buy now” or “get your demo” tell the reader exactly what will happen when they click on your link or button.

For example, in this email from Capital One, their button clearly communicates that when you click it, you’ll be able to view the details of their checking account offer.

9. Attract readers’ eyes

We already mentioned that you’ll want to include some visual elements, like images, in your email design. 

However, it can also be a good idea to add in some creative elements, like a GIF, to really grab your readers’ attention.

If you do opt to include a GIF, just be sure it enhances your message and doesn’t distract from what you want to communicate.

Ultimately, though, small creative touches like this can be a great way to grab attention and engage recipients.

10. Include a call to action

If you’re taking the time to build and send an email to your list, it’s key that you direct your subscribers to take some sort of action when they read it.

Calls to action can include anything from:

• Encouraging subscribers to buy your product or service
• Directing recipients to download a free resource
• Getting recipients to sign up for an event or webinar

Ultimately, you want to engage your subscribers so they take the action you want them to take.

So, be sure to include a CTA that clearly communicates the value it can provide recipients, and make sure it stands out.

11. Send a test email

One more critical email marketing design best practice is to test your email before sending it out to your entire list. This will help you ensure there are no formatting errors in your design.

After all, you don’t want to put in all the effort to design your email only to realize it doesn’t look right in subscribers’ email inboxes.

So, be sure to send a test email to your own inbox first. 

Once you’re positive that it looks the way you want it to, then you can send it out to your entire list.

Email design tools to create beautiful emails

You don’t need to start from scratch to create beautiful emails. In fact, there are tons of email marketing tools that make design a breeze.

So, here are several email marketing design tools to help you get started.

1. Canva

Canva is a free graphic design tool that allows you to create and edit any kind of image. 

Better yet, AWeber has a fully-integrated Canva drag-and-drop button. This means you can create your images in Canva and drag them directly into your AWeber email.

2. Email templates

Sometimes simply getting started is the hardest part of sending an email. This is where an email template can come in handy. 

When you find the right template, most of the work is done for you. All you need to do is customize it to fit your brand by adding your logo and updating the colors. Then you’re ready to go!

AWeber has hundreds of email marketing and newsletter templates ready for you to customize for your messages. These can save you hours of time every week and let you skip most of the heavy lifting of designing your own emails. 

Here are just a few of the templates available. Each template also has at least three color palettes to choose from.

3. Try an email builder

Finally, online tools like Stripo, BeeFree, and Dyspatch also have templates and drag and drop email design editors. They’re similar to what you’ll find in your email marketing provider’s account, but some email designers prefer these tools. 

You can design an email in any of these tools and then import it into your email provider. 

Engage your subscribers with email marketing design best practices

If you’re not a pro designer, building a professional-looking email may seem a bit intimidating. 

However, by incorporating the email marketing design best practices above, you can start creating beautiful emails in no time.

Remember, good email design is critical to building trust, driving conversions, and establishing your brand identity. So, it’s key that you give your design the attention it needs to be effective.

Of course, if you want a custom-designed email or newsletter, we can help with that, too! AWeber offers both custom email templates and landing page designs. 

Full custom designs are $229, or a modification of an existing template is $29. Click here to learn more about our custom design services.