Apr 05 2019

Email Marketing Guide for Restaurants

By Team equinux Mail Designer 365 Newsletter Academy

With a market value of over 465 Million Euros in Western Europe alone, it's safe to say that the food industry is one of the largest, most powerful industries in the world. For the average restaurant owner, this makes it extra important for you to stand out from your competitors and strengthen your connection with your customers.

Here are some of our top tips on how you can use email marketing to boost sales in your restaurant and build up long-lasting relationships with your diners...

Branding and Style

To kick things off, let's start by thinking about your brand and your target audience. This will massively help you to determine the style of your email and create the right aesthetic to really speak to your customers.

For a down to earth, family friendly eatery, feel free to use bright colors and focus on the happy, fun atmosphere of your restaurant. This vibrant email from Giraffe shows customers that the whole family is welcome:

Use bright colors and bold typeface to show off your restaurant's fun atmosphere.

A more sophisticated restaurant may want to opt for a refined approach, focussing solely on the atmosphere and quality of the food. Pizza Express use a minimalistic color scheme in this email and shine the spotlight on their delicious food:

A down to earth, minimalist theme is a great way to emphasise the quality of your food.

Building up your email list

The best way of getting contacts for your email list is by recruiting customers who already know and love your restaurant and want to stay informed. These are the customers who genuinely want to read your emails and will give you positive click through results.

One effective way of getting customers to sign up for your newsletter is by advertising it on your website and in the restaurant itself. If you want to go the extra mile, you can even offer an incentive such as a discount code when they register.

Here are some great examples of sign up boxes you could try on your website...

Bright and eye-catching from YoSushi.

Sleek and cool by Nando's.

Warm and inviting design by Wildwood.

Classic and inviting from Bill's.

Types of Emails

Now that you've got your email list built and ready to go, it's time to start deciding which types of emails you want to send your customers. For restaurant owners, there is a huge variety of options available to you when it comes to contacting your customers. Here are some of the most popular ideas...

The discount email

One of the most effective ways to kick off your email marketing journey is by offering all your new sign-ups a discount to say thank you. This will encourage them to come back to your restaurant and also make them feel appreciated.

The seasonal promotion

If you're lacking in ideas, take a look at your calendar for inspiration. See what events are coming up and plan an email campaign around them. This Father's Day promotion from Toby Carvery is a brilliant way to get customers to come and dine with their families and celebrate their dads:

Get inspired by seasonal events to create tempting promotional offers.

The family-friendly email

Do you have a lot of families visiting your restaurant or cafe? If so, this is another great theme you can utilise in your emails. Offer busy parents an incentive to choose you by emphasising the family-friendly nature of your business. This "kids eat free" promotion from Jimmy Spices is a clever way of attracting families to eat at their restaurant:

Show parents that they are more than welcome to bring their whole family along.

The newsletter

Many of your customers will have signed up to receive your emails because they are interested in what is going on with your business. Keep customers in the loop by sharing your most important news with them via your email newsletter. Alongside offers and promotions, this could also include information about...

Upcoming events (e.g. Open mic, quiz night, charity fundraisers.)
New menus or seasonal menus
Booking information for busy holidays
Important news such as closures or renovation work
Themed nights (e.g. Mexican night, Italian night...)

The Birthday email

Sending out a Happy Birthday email is a great way to build on your customer relationships and make them feel valued. This can be easily achieved by asking customers to fill in their birthday as part of the newsletter sign up process.

This example from YoSushi also provides an exclusive birthday offer to make the customer feel even more special on their big day:

Wish your customers a Happy Birthday and leave them feeling appreciated.

Booking confirmation emails

Sending a confirmation email to guests who have reserved a table at your restaurant is a great way to welcome them in advance and get them excited for their visit.

Show your restaurant's welcoming atmosphere by using personalization and a warm greeting. Don't forget to include all the essential details like date & time of the reservation, number of guests, location, your contact details, and a link to your menu so guests can start planning ahead!

The follow up email

Last but not least, a follow up email can also be a super effective way of showing your customer you care about their experience in your restaurant. This is easiest to achieve with a loyalty card system in place, so you can track when customers have visited your restaurant. Alternatively, you could also provide customers with a website where they can give their feedback.

A good follow up email will give customers the chance to rate their dining experience and help you improve in the future. This example from Nando's is a cheerful and colorful way to get customers to share their views:

Follow up with customers and use their feedback to improve your service.

We hope you have found these tips and ideas useful and will consider trying them out in your restaurant. For more information on how you can use Mail Designer 365 to create and send emails for your restaurant, head over to our dedicated restaurants page.

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Mar 29 2019

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Maintaining Your Internal Newsletters - Keep Co-Workers Engaged and Interested in Your Newsletter

By Mail Designer 365 Newsletter Academy

So you've recently launched an internal newsletter? Congrats! This is a great way to improve your team's workflow and keep co-workers motivated. Although you've taken the first step to create your newsletter, the hard work doesn't stop after you've built your first issue!
In order to really keep your team engaged, it's important you maintain your newsletter and keep it relevant and interesting for them. Here are some easy ideas on how to achieve this without breaking a sweat...

Introduce new content

One way to make sure that your company newsletter remains interesting is by regularly introducing new content and sections to the newsletter layout. This prevents your newsletter from becoming boring and monotonous and encourages your team to keep opening it when they see it in their inbox.

Ideas

There are countless examples of content which you could be including in your newsletters each week/month/etc. Fun and engaging content such as quizzes, competitions, thought of the day segments, employee of the month, book/film recommendations, recipe ideas, etc. Get creative!

Keep things relevant

Following on from this, one useful tip is to try and keep your newsletter content relevant. Don't just recycle old stories or features you've used in the past, try and actively search out content which you know is relevant to the time of year or what's going on in the news.

Ideas

You could start polls or a discussion board based on controversial news stories, or, if there is a holiday coming up (e.g. Christmas or Easter), try and incorporate that into the theme of your newsletter. Even the smallest mention of something seasonal will be enough to keep your team interested in the content and get the office talking.

Include topical and seasonal themes into your newsletter to make it more relevant.

Include a mix of content

Another important thing to consider is the balance between work-related information and lighthearted content. Too much of one or the other can make your newsletter seem either too boring or not informative enough. You need to try and find the perfect balance to make sure your co-workers are benefitting from the newsletter.

Ideas

Start your newsletter off with the most important, work-related information (e.g. upcoming meetings, events, new protocols, new employees.) When those things have been covered, you can get started on the more lighthearted, social aspects of the newsletter. This way you're clearly prioritising work matters without compromising on fun!

Play with the style

Although we recommend you try and stick to a trusted format in order to make the editing process easier, there's no harm in trying to spice things up a bit if you feel your newsletter layout or color scheme needs to be updated. A small refresh every now and again might be all your newsletter needs to remain interesting.

Ideas

You could try adapting your theme to the different seasons in order to make your newsletter as relevant as possible. Mail Designer 365 has tonnes of creative tools which you can explore to make this happen. Try including a seasonal mood picture for each newsletter - you can find all you need in the Unsplash library in the app.

To keep things interesting, update your design with imagery which reflects the seasons.

Find out what your team is interested in

Of course the most effective way of finding newsletter content which your team is interested in is to directly ask them what they want to hear about. Once you know the type of content your co-workers enjoy and don't enjoy, it will be much easier for you to refine your newsletters to their taste.

Ideas

There are many websites like Google Forms which allow you to quickly create a survey or questionnaire for free. Use this to send to your co-workers to find out more about their interests. The key to this is to keep the survey as brief as possible so staff are more willing to give up their time to fill it in.

Send a survey out to your team to get their feedback on your newsletter.

We hope you'll test out some of these ideas when you're putting together your next internal newsletter. The more you try to keep things interesting, the more of a success your newsletter should be with your co-workers!

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Feb 15 2019

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How to Create Crisis Communication Emails for Your Team

By Mail Designer 365 Newsletter Academy

No matter how big or small, when crisis strikes, it's important your team is briefed as soon as possible. For many managers, the crisis email is probably one of the most important you will send, as it allows you and your team to productively move on from a problem while avoiding widespread panic.

Here are some of our best tips on keeping calm and putting together effective crisis communication emails...

When to send a crisis email

In crisis situations, timing is everything. You should aim to send your email as soon as possible before the news starts to spread around the office. This being said, you should also make sure you have asked yourself the following before you send out the email...

Do I have the full story? Providing only part of the story could cause more harm than good. Waiting for more details is much more effective than panic sending.
Is the information sensitive? Some information may be legally sensitive or confidential and you should check before sending it out to your staff.
Have I fact checked the information? It's important to make sure you have established the facts, as sending out incorrect information will make the situation worse for you and your team.

Who to send a crisis email to

Before you get started with putting the message together, it is important to consider who you need to inform and whether you need to send one mass email, or multiple emails to different groups. One way of identifying who to inform is by assessing who will be directly impacted by the crisis. Some examples include:

Management: This will be your first port of call. The senior management team should be informed about everything before deciding who else will be affected.
Staff: Anything which will have a direct impact upon staff should be shared with the whole team. This includes funding cuts, branch closures, security breaches, or technical issues (e.g. network problems or power outages)
Shareholders and investors: Anything related to company finances or the profit making potential of the business should be shared with investors.
Customers: Your customers are the core of your business and it's good practice to keep them up to date. This could include issues such as a serious data breach, changes to your normal operating hours, or problems with the website.
The press: If a problem is likely to become public, it's advisable to inform the press as soon as possible to avoid false information being leaked. This includes legal allegations against your business or serious financial problems.

What to include in a crisis email

Here are some ideas of things you can include to effectively communicate the problem to your team...

1. Outline the crisis

You should start the email by briefly recapping the problem for anyone who might not know what is going on. This is also an effective way of making sure everyone has received the same information and helps you to avoid any confusion.

2. Give practical advice

As a manager or team leader, your staff will look to you for direction in times of crisis. Make sure you include some kind of strategy or way to move forward from the incident. This will help to motivate your team and get the problem resolved faster.

3. Use subheadings and paragraphs

If you are experiencing a major incident, your email must be clear and concise. It's easy to forget about presentation when you are in panic mode, but long chunks of text will only make your email harder to comprehend. Take the time to put together a clean cut email and include logical sub-headings to help the reader navigate through the most important information:

Make your crisis email easy to read by using clear paragraphs and sub-headings.

4. Provide contact information for the crisis

Some of your recipients may have further questions or concerns. You should provide a way for them to get in touch with you or the person in charge, such as an email address or phone number.

If the crisis is large scale, you may want to consider setting up a crisis hotline to efficiently manage incoming questions. For press statements, you should include a designated contact to deal with any follow up questions from journalists.

Contact information for a crisis situation

Include contact information so readers can get in touch with any questions or concerns.

5. Create a dedicated crisis landing page for the public

Think about which of your business activities (e.g. delivery times, services, opening hours, stock availability) will be affected by the crisis and briefly summarize the answers on a dedicated FAQ page on your website.

This will help your customers find the information they require faster, while also reducing the strain on your support team.

Tip: Provide a temporary link to this page on the support area of your website to help answer common support queries before your inbox and phone lines become overloaded.

6. Keep sensitive information private

In Mail Designer 365, you can quickly build a professional email to keep your team informed in times of crisis. If there are things which need to stay confidential to eliminate the risk of sensitive information falling into the wrong hands, you can send securely via your own servers using your own address - directly within the app.

Sending a crisis email from Mail Designer 365

Send via your own servers using your own email address.

How to create a crisis communication email for your business

We've created two new crisis communication email templates suitable for keeping your customers up to date during a crisis:

Email template to update customers about the coronavirus crisis

These templates are ready and available to edit now in Mail Designer 365. Simply update the messaging to fit your business and send to your entire mailing list to keep them informed.

We hope you have found these tips helpful. Remember to keep calm and work proactively. The crisis won't last forever and your customers will appreciate you keeping them informed. If you want to use one of the above templates, sign up to Mail Designer 365 free to get started today.

Until next time,

Your Mail Designer 365 Team

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Jan 18 2019

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How to Convert Keynote or PowerPoint Slides to Email - Our Quick Guide

By Mail Designer 365 Newsletter Academy

As people are getting busier and technology is advancing, you have probably found yourself looking for a practical and interesting way to share important information with your colleagues and business partners. Here are some of our top tips on how you can easily convert your Keynote or PowerPoint presentation slides to compelling emails and keep your whole team up to date...

Select the most important slides

Before you get started with your email, identify the most important parts of your presentation which you want to relay to your colleagues. By only including the key points, you'll keep your readers engaged and share information more efficiently. Remember you don't need to use every slide! Once you've identified these key points, you can start to build an email layout...

Export slides with graphics

To save time and hard work, you can export your content-heavy slides as images to share with your team. This is a quick alternative to manually inserting or rebuilding charts, infographics, graphs, and other graphics.

This is easy to do in both programs. For example, in Keynote, go to "File" > "Export to" and select "Images". You can then select the slides you wish to export and then save them to your computer.

Export content heavy slides as images to use in your email.

Crop slides to keep it short

To reduce the length of the email, you can also crop slides to only show the important information. Things like the header with your logo and slide title, or the footer with contact information aren't required to convey the key points of the presentation.

Crop slides to cut out any irrelevant or unnecessary information.

Creating your email layout

Nobody likes to read a long list of information, which is why you should try and keep your layouts interesting! Here are a few quick tips you could use to make your email quick and easy to read:

Insert clear headings to explain slide content. This will distinguish the sub-headings from the main body text and allow busy readers to quickly skim the email and still understand the key points.

Keep the length under control. It's a good idea to keep your email as short as possible so readers aren't endlessly scrolling to get to the end. Do this by arranging text and images side by side or inserting multiple text columns:

Column layouts help arrange text in a more interesting way while also reducing email length.

Use tables to clearly present information. A table layout is a simple yet effective way of presenting information such as project status updates and pricing plans without taking up too much space in your email. You can use a table to summarise more detailed slides.

Tip: Mail Designer 365, you can use table layout blocks to present information to readers. Check out this tutorial for building professional project status tables.

Use tables to visually convey how a project is going.

Stay on brand

Once you've converted your presentation to email, you only need to make a few minor changes to make sure the email is still professional and on brand.

If you haven't already, make sure your company logo is clearly incorporated into the email design. If you're sending to external colleagues, partners, or shareholders, this will make it clear who the email is from.

Try to match the colors used in your presentation throughout your email. Not only will this compliment any slides you have included, it also gives your email a clear color scheme so it is on brand and aesthetically appealing...

Keep emails professional and on brand by incorporating your logo and color scheme.

We hope you have found these tips for converting presentations into email useful. It really is that easy to take your existing presentation content and transform it into a well-presented, easy to read email. If you like what you've read here today, why not try out these tips in Mail Designer 365? Download the app for free and see what you can create!

Until next time,

Your Mail Designer 365 Team

Give Mail Designer 365 a try today for free...

Mail Designer 365 helps you create stylish, professional HTML emails on your Mac. Download for free to see what you can achieve.

Jan 06 2019

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How to reduce Email Size - 5 Smart Hacks

By Team equinux Mail Designer 365 Newsletter Academy

How to reduce email size is an important topic for every marketer. An oversized email can lead to many problems. As well as creating difficulties when loading, in some email apps, email designs above a certain size limit could appear incomplete; leading to less than ideal results. In Gmail, email messages above 102 KB will be cut off. To help you prevent this from happening, we’ve put together 5 helpful hacks on how you can use Mail Designer 365 to keep the size of your email design down.

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5 Smart Ways to Reduce the Size of Your HTML Email

Be smart with email content

This may sound like a no brainer, but cutting down on your email content is the easiest way to quickly reduce the size of your email design. If you notice your email is getting too long, think about how much content you have included and whether it's relevant.

Including links to landing pages with more information is a great way to cut down and still keep readers up to date.

Cut down on layout blocks

Layout blocks are a great way to stylishly arrange email content, but too many of them will significantly increase the size of your email design.

One way in which you can smartly use layout blocks is by utilising combi layouts. Combi layout blocks allow you to save space by arranging image and text side by side instead of having to double up and insert separate blocks for each:

Use padding instead of spacers

Another smart hack is to make use of the padding tools. These can be found in the Style menu. Instead of inserting a spacer layout block to create space between blocks, simply adjust the padding to give you your desired amount of spacing. This helps cut down the HTML and reduces the email size.

How to reduce email size in Mail Designer 365 by optimizing images and layout for better performance

Use the padding tools to reduce use of spacer blocks

Optimize newsletter images

This is arguably one of the most important factors when it comes to saving space, as images can add a great deal of weight to your email design.

Luckily, Mail Designer 365 offers an image optimization feature, which automatically recognises the optimal image type for your design. You can also use this tool to compress the size and quality of images.

How to reduce email size by optimizing image quality and file format in Mail Designer 365

Use image optimization to configure the optimal size and resolution for images

Keep alt text concise

Every little helps when it comes to saving space. One further way of cutting down the size of your HTML is by keeping any alt text descriptions brief and concise - especially as alt tags which are too long will get cut off in email clients such as Gmail.

Adding an alt tag to an image is easy in Mail Designer 365, simply click on your image and select "Edit Link & Background" in the Style menu:

How to reduce email size with optimized image areas and alt texts settings in Mail Designer 365

Keep alt text tags short and concise to reduce the amount of HTML

Bonus tip...

The Pre-flight checker in Mail Designer 365 tells you the exact size of your finished email design so you will know whether you need to cut down:

How to reduce email size and check final mail size in Mail Designer 365 before sending

The pre-flight checker lets you know the exact size of your design.

We hope you have found these tips on reducing email size useful. Don't forget to use them next time in Mail Designer 365!

Get started with Mail Designer 365 today

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Dec 27 2018

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Inspiration for your 2019 Email Marketing Calendar

By Mail Designer 365 Newsletter Academy

2018 is coming to an end, and for email marketers and businesses, going into a new year can be a daunting prospect. With so much to plan and consider, we wanted to make things a little more straightforward for you in 2019. Here are 12 inspiring dates for your 2019 email marketing diary...

January 21st: Blue Monday

Officially named the most depressing day of the year, Blue Monday is hardly a cause for celebration. As marketers, you can be clever and do your best to take advantage of this day by giving your customers something to smile about. This may be a special offer or discount, or simply a kind email to remind readers to hang in there!

Travel company EasyJet launched an 'Orange Monday' campaign offering discounts across flights and holidays as a way to cheer up customers from the Blue Monday gloom.

Take your customers' minds off the Blue Monday gloom by offering a sale or promotion like EasyJet's Orange Monday...

February 5th: Chinese New Year

Vibrant and colorful, the Chinese New Year is an exciting event observed by Chinese families worldwide. Get involved by integrating some aspects of Chinese culture into your email campaigns to celebrate the start of their year.

This clever email from Karen Millen is a humorous way to incorporate Lunar New Year celebrations into a marketing campaign:

March 8th: International Women's Day

International Women's Day is a great opportunity for you to celebrate your female customers and colleagues. A marketing campaign giving back to women's charities or simply an email recognising the day would be highly effective way to show women your appreciation.

April 1st: April Fool's Day

Widely known as a day to joke around and have fun, April Fool's Day gives you the perfect chance to show off your funny side to your customers. Try integrating an appropriate level of wit and humour into your emails to make your campaigns more interesting, but remember to stay on brand whilst doing so!

This funny email from Domino's Pizza is well on brand and incorporates just the right amount of humour for readers to appreciate it as an April Fool's campaign:

Keep the humour of your April Fool's campaigns on brand and relevant to your business

May 15th: International Day of Families

It is important for businesses to be family friendly and cater to different age groups. The International Day of Families is a great time to show that your business does just that. Try coming up with a promotion to benefit families, such as kids eat free, or discounts across children's toys or clothing.

June 1st: LGBT+ Pride Month

LGBT Pride is quickly becoming one of the biggest celebrations of the calendar, with large scale events and parades taking place worldwide. As a business, it's important for you to show your support for this movement and email marketing offers you a convenient way to make this happen. Whether you incorporate the rainbow theme into your design, or build a specialised campaign, any support will be widely appreciated.

This bright and colorful email by Harry's effectively communicates their support for the Pride movement. Donating the proceeds of their shave set to LGBT+ causes is a further way to give back.

Bright colors and genuine displays of solidarity like this one from Harry's are highly effective

July 20th: Moon Landing Anniversary

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. Depending on the nature of your business, this could make a unique and interesting theme for an email campaign. Try incorporating celestial imagery such as stars and planets to create a space theme, or take the opportunity to promote any products with a connection to outer space.

August 11th: Eid Al Adha

Eid Al Ada is a great celebration for Muslims all over the world and for many, marks the start of the pilgrimage to Mecca. If you know you are likely to have many customers celebrating Eid, it would be a good idea to send out an email greeting, wishing recipients a happy Eid.

This effective email design from drumbeat is a lovely way to reach out to customers celebrating Eid and shows they care as an organisation:

Reach out to customers celebrating Eid by sending out an email greeting

September 13th: International Programmers' Day

This is one for all the software and tech firms out there... Show appreciation for your fellow programmers by giving a nod to them in your email campaign! Try offering a discount on new software which developers may find useful, or provide programmers with early access to your beta releases. They'll definitely appreciate you going the extra mile for them.

October 27th: Diwali

Diwali is a Hindu festival of light, which is particularly prominent in India, but also celebrated throughout the world with fireworks and colorful lights. Recognising Diwali in your email campaigns is a nice way to include all the recipients on your list who may also be celebrating this festival.

November 11th: Singles' Day

Originating in China, Singles' Day is a day dedicated to celebrating single people and is now massively growing in popularity. Many businesses use this as an opportunity to offer discounts and great deals to their customers. In particular, this holiday is popular with younger people in China, the UK and the USA.

NastyGal effectively celebrate singles with this cat themed email design offering 25% off their entire site:

Give your single customers something to celebrate by offering deals and discounts for Singles' Day

December 3rd: Giving Tuesday

Taking a break from the hype of Black Friday and Christmas marketing, Giving Tuesday is another charitable way to demonstrate your business's CSR and encourage customers to get involved in good causes. In the last few years, many big brands have gotten involved in the Giving Tuesday campaign.

This festive email design from ONA inspires customers to purchase a camera strap to support charity water:

Choose a charity to support and encourage your customers to give back for Giving Tuesday

We hope we have given you some ideas and inspiration for your 2019 email marketing calendar. Alongside the regular holidays and events in your planner, these events should give you some fresh and interesting new subject matter to create engaging emails with in 2019.

Until next time,
Your Mail Designer 365 Team

Give Mail Designer 365 a try today for free...

Mail Designer 365 helps you create stylish, professional HTML emails on your Mac. Download for free to see what you can achieve.

Dec 19 2018

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B2B Holiday Emails: Dos and Don'ts

By Mail Designer 365 Newsletter Academy

With Christmas just around the corner, many businesses will be getting ready to send out their festive email campaigns to customers. While most businesses will be focused on sales and promotions this month, for B2B companies, holiday marketing is slightly different. To help you get started, we've put together a useful guide of dos and don'ts for business to business holiday emails.

Don't send your emails last minute

Remember that most offices will be closing over the holiday period to allow their staff some well deserved down time. If you send your emails out on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, it's highly likely that they won't be read. Make sure to send your emails in the week prior to Christmas (at the latest) to ensure they will be seen before the big day.

Do keep things professional

Although it may be tempting to get into the Christmas spirit and adopt a more informal tone, as many B2C companies do, it's important that B2B companies remain consistent all year round. This means if you have always kept a professional tone with clients, you should continue to do so. This doesn't mean your email has to be boring. Mail Designer 365 has hundreds of font and design options which you can integrate into your email to keep things interesting:

Utilise Mail Designer 365's wide selection of business fonts for a professional holiday design.

Don't feel obliged to sell

The holiday season is hugely commercialised and businesses try everything they can to boost sales during December. For a B2C company, this is usually an effective strategy, as consumers are looking out for the best gifts and special offers. As a B2B company, it is often much more effective and professional to send out a simple email thanking your clients and wishing them all the best for the holidays.

Do include useful information

Including information which your clients and customers will find useful is another highly effective email strategy for B2B companies. Let clients know your opening hours over the holiday season, or remind them about last delivery dates before Christmas. This is something they are bound to appreciate you going the extra mile for.

This email by Zenmed is a nice way to inform customers about using their express shipping service over the holiday season:

Provide your clients with useful information they may need to be aware of over the holiday season.

Don't just send to all

There is never an occasion where we would recommend you send one email to your entire mailing list. Not only is this a large risk, it can also be counter productive when sending unnecessary emails to the wrong target group. Instead, make the effort to segment your list based on who would find a holiday themed email appropriate or beneficial. It is useful to consider aspects like culture and geographic region when doing this.

Do include an incentive

Gifting is a common tradition during the holiday season and it can also be used effectively in a B2B email, where business relationships are especially important. Show your clients you appreciate their custom by offering them a gift or incentive which they can use in the New Year. This is a great way to improve customer retention levels.

In true holiday spirit, this email by Trello gives clients a free license for a month to use for themselves and share with friends and family. This is an effective incentive to keep users using the service:

Give your subscribers a holiday gift to keep them coming back in the New Year.

Don't assume all customers celebrate Christmas

Last but not least, it is more important than ever with B2B companies to be aware that not all customers celebrate Christmas, and there are many other holiday taking place during this time of the year. For this reason, it's much more appropriate to use neutral terms like "Happy Holidays" to appeal to a wider audience.

We hope this quick guide has been useful for B2B companies looking to send out a holiday email campaign this month. Feel free to try out all of these tips in Mail Designer 365!

Until next time,
Your Mail Designer 365 Team

Give Mail Designer 365 a try today for free...

Mail Designer 365 helps you create stylish, professional HTML emails on your Mac. Download for free to see what you can achieve.

Dec 14 2018

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The Best Christmas Email Designs and How You Can Recreate Them

By Mail Designer 365 Newsletter Academy

Christmas is coming and we hope you're as excited as us to get started on your festive email campaigns! With so many great designs out there, it can be hard to know where and how to get started. That's why we've picked out these super christmassy designs from our Pinterest board which you can easily recreate using Mail Designer 365. Time to get inspired!

Festive gift guides

Christmas shopping can be tough for everyone with so much choice out there. Narrow down your best products to create a gift guide for your customers. This magical gift guide from Pandora is a simple, yet elegant way for a store to display their top products for Christmas.

Make it in Mail Designer

Mail Designer 365's extensive selection of layout blocks provides you with all you need to build a festive gift guide. Use a combination layout block to cleverly combine text and images.

Spread Christmas cheer with bold fonts

Got a Christmas offer to promote? Use bold and big text to show your customers what you've got in store for them. This design from J Crew gets the message across using clear, bold fonts. The red emphasis on certain letters makes it extra festive for holiday designs.

Make it in Mail Designer

In Mail Designer 365 you can apply text styles to your newsletter text to create effects similar to those seen in the J Crew design. Use the style tools to apply emphasis to certain letters and phrases which you want to stand out for your customers. This is a much more reliable way to integrate stylish lettering into your email designs than using images which may not be displayed in all email clients.

Vibrant color blocking

Christmastime is all about bright and vibrant colors which represent the fun of the holiday season. Urban Outfitters hit the nail on the head with this colorful email design. The use of color blocking makes their gift guide even more effective.

Make it in Mail Designer

Mail Designer 365 gives you ultimate freedom when it comes to choosing a color scheme for your design. Use the color picker tool to apply the perfect shade to your layout block and create the color blocking effect seen in the design from Urban Outfitters. For more inspiration on festive color palettes, check out this blog post.

Stand out call-to-actions

Your call-to-action (CTA) brings your entire email design together and instructs your readers on how to view your seasonal products and festive offers. For an extra effective CTA, choose a vibrant color which stands out from the rest of your email design - just like in this super christmassy design from J. Renee.

Make it in Mail Designer

Building CTA buttons is quick and easy in Mail Designer 365. Explore our graphic library and choose from pre-made buttons which you can edit to suit your design, or build up your own using shapes and graphic text styles.

We hope these festive email designs have left you feeling inspired for your own holiday designs. Remember, all of these design techniques can be easily recreated using Mail Designer 365. Get creative today!

Until next time,

Your Mail Designer 365 Team

Give Mail Designer 365 a try today for free...

Mail Designer 365 helps you create stylish, professional HTML emails on your Mac. Download for free to see what you can achieve.

Nov 27 2018

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Create Failsafe Email Designs with Mail Designer 365

By Mail Designer 365 Newsletter Academy

It's every email marketer's worst nightmare: You've just sent your newsletter out to your mailing list and suddenly noticed an error in your design. It's too late to correct it now, but it's a good idea to come up with a way to prevent mistakes like this in future emails. With a little help from Mail Designer 365, you'll soon be well on your way to creating failsafe email designs...

Typo fails

There's not much that can top a typo in terms of embarrassing email mistakes! You can easily avoid typos in Mail Designer 365 by using the integrated spelling and grammar checker. To check your design for mistakes, head to "Edit" > "Spelling and Grammar" > "Check Document Now."

Avoid any spelling mistakes by using the built in spellchecker in Mail Designer 365

Picture perfect emails

Your images are the central part of your email design and probably what your readers will notice first. For this reason you want them to appear sharp and clear to reflect positively on you and your business. Several problems can occur when using image in emails:

Blurred images
If your recipients are viewing your newsletter on a Retina Display (e.g. iPhone, Mac or iPad), it is possible that images which are not high-quality will appear blurred and out of focus.

To combat this issue, Mail Designer 365 generates an automatic warning when an image is at risk of appearing blurred or low resolution after being sent:

Mail Designer 365 generates a warning for images at risk of appearing blurred

Slow loading images
Another common problem is the use of images which are too large. Larger images are more at risk of loading slowly (or in some cases not at all!)

In Mail Designer 365, you can use the Image Optimization tool to apply the optimal settings to your images and reduce the risk of issues after sending. Simply click on your image, click on "Edit link and background" in the Style menu and select "Optimize image." Mail Designer 365 will automatically pick out the optimal settings for your image:

Mail Designer 365 applies the optimal settings to your images

Broken links

A broken link can cause countless problems for you and your email campaign. Luckily, checking broken links is included in Mail Designer 365's list of pre-flight checks. If you somehow manage to include an incorrect link in your email design, Mail Designer 365 will automatically detect this and inform you via the pre-flight check in the top menu:

Mail Designer 365 automatically detects incorrect links for you

Mobile magic

A large amount of the email mistakes we see today are based on designs which haven't been correctly optimized for mobile devices. Here's how Mail Designer 365 can help you combat these errors:

Smartphone editor

A mobile responsive version of your email design is automatically created and can be edited separately from the desktop version in the Smartphone view.

Mobile previews

Your mobile optimized design can be previewed on the latest mobile devices, including the iPhone XS, iPhone XR, and Apple Watch Series 4 using our smartphone preview tool:

Mail Designer 365 automatically creates a mobile optimized version of your design

Inbox optimization tools

In order to check if your subject line fails or thrives, you can use the inbox optimization tools in Mail Designer 365.

Subject line editor:

You can come up with a clever subject line which you can view alongside your design at the top of the design window. In the inbox snippet section, you can preview how this will look in your readers' inbox.

Inbox snippet preview:

Many email marketers underestimate the power of an effective inbox snippet text. In the inbox snippet section in Mail Designer 365, you can come up with a creative text to display to readers in their inbox and entice them to open your email.

Use the inbox optimization tools to ensure your subject line and snippet are effective for readers

Testmail service

With the help of all these fail detection methods, you should be feeling pretty confident in your email designs. However, for ultimate peace of mind, we recommend sending a test version of your newsletter to yourself and your team.

This is made easier than ever with the Mail Designer 365 Testmail service. Simply click on the dotted aeroplane icon to open the Testmail service where you can enter the email addresses of your team:

Use the Testmail service in Mail Designer 365 to send a test version of your design to your team

We hope you feel safer in the knowledge that Mail Designer 365 has your back when it comes to email errors! By taking advantage of our tried and tested fail detection methods, you can enjoy smooth sailing with your email designs from now on!

Until next time!

Your Mail Designer 365 Team

Give Mail Designer 365 a try today for free...

Mail Designer 365 helps you create stylish, professional HTML emails on your Mac. Download for free to see what you can achieve.

Nov 20 2018

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Optimize Your Pricing Tables to Boost Sales

By Mail Designer 365 Newsletter Academy

Pricing tables are a must have for any business looking to help customers understand the key differences between product offerings. Whatever you're selling, it's crucial your customers understand the main selling points of that product or service.

Here are some of our top tips on how you can put together informative pricing tables which make the shopping process easier and, in turn, will help boost your sales.

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Top Tips for Optimizing Your Pricing Tables

Use a clear font

A clear to read font is a must have for any pricing table.

Your customers need to be able to read and understand the information presented in your table. This means you should choose a font size which isn't too small and also aim to avoid any cursive, italic, or calligraphy style typefaces. We recommend using a sans serif font, as these are the clearest to read and also add a modern touch to your design.

Mail Designer 365 offers a wide range of sans serif fonts which you can easily apply to the text in your pricing table. Some of our favorites include: Open Sans, Encode Sans, and Martel Sans - all available under Web Fonts.

Find modern and stylish sans serif fonts for your pricing table in the Web Fonts section in Mail Designer 365.

Include product photos

Including a photo of your different product offerings is a great way to help customers visually distinguish them from each other. As the saying goes, a picture speaks 1000 words, and will make your tables much more interesting and informative. Having a picture is also more likely to entice customers to take more of an interest in the product.

Amazon often include useful product tables where shoppers can compare items based on their specifications and other criteria. These tables include images of the products to help shoppers visualise the product better:

Amazon's comparison tables incorporate product photos to make them more informative for customers.

Top tip: In Mail Designer 365 you can created mixed text and image tables. This means it's easy to incorporate images of your best product offerings into your pricing table. Simply click on a cell to change its content type in the style menu.

Use color coding

Color coding is another visually effective way to make your various product or service offerings easier to compare. For example, if you are a service based business offering different tiers, you may find it useful to color code each tier based on the pricing. This makes it easier for your customers to remember the differences.

This price comparison table from Airtable subtly includes color coding to add value to their different plans. The two higher priced plans are labelled gold and black which clearly demonstrates that they are the more premium option:

Try and label your plans according to their value. Gold and black stand out here.

Top tip: In Mail Designer 365 you can apply colors to your table by clicking on any cell, column or row, and adjusting the colors in the style menu.

Keep detail to a minimum

It's important for you to not include too much content in your tables. Overloading customers with unnecessary information can make the decision process more difficult.

Aim to only include the key information your customers need and link out to more detailed information if required.

You should also try and narrow down your comparison criteria to price and key features or characteristics. Generally, a bullet pointed list is more effective than paragraphs.

In this example from Spotify, they have narrowed down their criteria to the most important information which will be of interest to customers:

Bullet point the most essential information in your table.

Highlight the best option

If you have a plan or product option which you think your customers should be purchasing, let them know! You can use an eye-catcher to inform customers of which option you think they should go for. Phrases such as "most popular" or "best value" are particularly convincing.

Thanks to a clear eye-catcher, this pricing table from Litmus clearly demonstrates which plan is the best value for money. Not only is this helpful for their customers, it also encourages more people to buy the plan or product you want to sell more of.

Highlight the best deal in your table to help your customers decide.

Don't forget the CTA

You've filled out the table with text and product photos, now it's time to integrate an effective call-to-action (CTA) button to show customers exactly how they can purchase your product. This is one of the most important parts of your table's design, as it helps to finalise the sales process.

Make sure your CTA button is visible by choosing a color which stands out from the rest of your design.

In their comparison table, Slack use a vibrant green for their upgrade CTA, which clearly shows customers how to go about purchasing one of their plan offers:

Make your CTAs vibrant so that they stand out to your customers.

Top tip: In Mail Designer 365, you can take advantage of pre-made CTA buttons, or use our range of shapes and text styles to easily create your own. Explore the Content menu to find out more.

Make it mobile

The last, but arguably most crucial part of your table design is making it mobile responsive. Because so much content is consumed on mobile devices, it's massively important to make sure your tables look just as good on mobile as they do on desktop.

In Mail Designer 365 this is easy, as the app automatically creates a mobile version of your table with a stylish card style. You can even edit mobile content separately in the Smartphone view:

Mail Designer 365 creates a special card layout of your table for mobile.

We hope these tips for building effective pricing tables have been useful to you! Remember, you can use the Tables tool in Mail Designer 365 to quickly and easily build mobile responsive tables to integrate into your next email newsletter.

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