Why An Email Template Is Like A Delicious Burger 🍔

The next time you begin designing an email template, think about a delicious and well-made burger.

A burger at its simplest is made of two buns and the meat (or veggie patty if that’s how you roll).

The patty is the main attraction. It’s kind of the whole point.

The buns, however, are also important. They’re what makes a burger a burger, and not just a random piece of meat.

Emails have their content, or the meat, which should be strong and engaging. Plenty of attention should be spent on this part.

However, don’t dismiss the power of a good header and footer, they frame the content, and are an important part of your brand‘s visual language. This means that a consistent and well-designed header and footer can go a long way to implicitly instil trust in your brand.

Top tips to upgrade your buns... ahem, I mean headers and footers

Give your buns some good colour

It’s key to make the colour of your header and footer a neutral colour that doesn’t detract from your content. As a rule, they should never be the same colour as your calls to action (CTA).

❗️Quick tip: When you’ve designed your email, zoom out quite a lot - if your CTA stands out then you’re in a good place. If it gets lost amongst the other elements, tweak the design.

Heroic Headers

In your header, you should include your logo. Make sure that your logo is clear and a transparent png that shows up well in dark mode. Don’t forget to make it a link to your website!

You might choose to put a view in browser link right up top, or in the footer. Just be absolutely sure to have one somewhere.

Get to the point with a button up top. In some cases, having a button that leads straight to a conversion can be beneficial. In non-profit emails, having a clear Donate CTA in the header is a useful way to trigger a supporter to take action without having to scroll through an entire email.

You can see both a View in Browser link and a Donation CTA in the header in this email. Click the image to view the entire email.

There are multiple elements at work here in this email from Cotton:On. The bar up top calls out their current offer, and they have some dynamic elements that are related to the subscriber’s loyalty activity.

Fabulous Footers

First and foremost, you should have a clear unsubscribe link and your company information. Not only are these legal requirements in some countries, but they also give subscribers peace of mind that you are a legitimate company or organisation. You can choose friendlier and more conversational copy if that best suits your brand.

💡Stuck on ideas for email copy? Check out Good Email Copy for excellent examples. It does what it says on the tin.

Be sure to have helpful links. You always want to have an alternative place for your subscriber to go if the CTA hasn’t captured their interest, so it's a good idea to signpost to relevant places on your website.

This depends on the industry you’re in and what the objectives of the email are. Consider looking at the most visited links on your website, and using that to steer what links you include. Additionally, consider presenting information that will help your subscribers to convert easily.

For example, for an e-commerce template selling homewares, you can include commonly browsed categories like Kitchen, Bedroom, Living Room. But you should also include things like delivery information, up-to-date opening hours, and customer service information.

This footer in an email from Tattly has some great elements, like simple links to point to product categories, and even a callout to their loyalty program.

Additionally, the unsubscribe wording is fun and keeps it casual, and even gives you an option to manage your preferences.

This email from Vans has an elegant design making use of minimal icons to immediately communicate where they’re linking to.

These are elements that can help reduce cognitive load and give your subscribers a frictionless journey to becoming loyal advocates.

Check, please

Like a chef who strives to make the best hamburgers, don’t just give all of your attention to the meat, or the content of your emails.

Be sure to have top buns, and carefully consider what goes in your email header and footers and you’ll be sure to have a tasty outcome.

Anyone hungry? 🍔