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As a small business owner, you need to be a lot of things to make your business go—but you don't have to be a marketer alone. Join host Dave Charest, Director of Small Business Success at Constant Contact, and Kelsi Carter, Brand Production Coordinator, as they explore what it really takes to market your business. Even if marketing's not your thing! You'll hear from small business leaders just like you along with industry experts as they share their stories, challenges, and best advice to get real results. This is the Be a Marketer podcast! New episodes every Thursday!
On today's episode, you'll hear from a Constant Contact community coach on the critical components of email design. This is the Be A Marketer podcast.
Dave Charest:My name is Dave Sherrest, director of small business success at Constant Contact. And I help small business owners like you make sense of online marketing. And on this podcast, we'll explore what it really takes to market your business even if marketing's not your thing. No jargon, no hype, just real stories to inspire you and practical advice you can act on. So remember, friend, you can be a marketer.
Dave Charest:And at Constant Contact, we're here to help. Well, hello, friend, and thanks for joining us for another episode of the Be A Marketer podcast. This is the 2nd in our series of conversations with Constant Contact Community Coaches. Kelsi, you know I love a good alliteration.
Kelsi Carter:I do.
Dave Charest:Just to explain for folks who may be just joining us, Constant Contact community coaches are distinguished members and leaders in the Constant Contact community who really go above and beyond. They showcase their expertise, engage with others, and offer guidance to small businesses in our online community. Now we have a total of 6 of these episodes planned for you, which kicked off last week with Tracy Lee Davis of Xingpop Social Media. We talked to Tracy about setting goals. This week, we're talking about email design.
Dave Charest:And in upcoming weeks, we're gonna be talking about growing your lists, creating multichannel campaigns, reporting, and capping things off with segmentation. Kelsey, who's joining us today to talk about email design?
Kelsi Carter:Well, I'm so glad you asked. Today, we have Erin Wesley Means, who is the founder and CEO of Activate Business Solutions, which is a full service micro agency that's based in the Asheville region of North Carolina.
Dave Charest:So, Kelsey, I wanna stop here for a second because, typically, when you hear the word agency, right, you think of this big team of people. Now Activate is, as you mentioned, a micro agency, which means that they have a small team. Now the benefit here is that they can actually move more quickly. And as a client, you typically get access to the senior leaders within the agency, and a micro agency can also become more deeply embedded with their clients. So some cool things there in terms of the micro agency.
Kelsi Carter:Yeah. And after Aaron's corporate career in direct marketing, he never really had any plans to start a business up until, actually, he started helping his wife get her idea for a dog grooming business off the ground, which I think is pretty cool. And he started researching things, like how to build a list and how to market a small business himself. And along the way, he actually discovered this great need for marketing services within the small business and nonprofit space.
Dave Charest:So in 2011, that's when Aaron started Activate Business solutions in response to really that need. And this allowed him to not only start working together with clients, but also just share these lessons that he learned himself. So before we get to our main topic on the critical components of email design, let's go to Aaron as he shares his passion for teaching and training small business marketers.
Aaron Wesley Means:Almost around the same time I started Activate, I became a constant contact partner. And in the beginning, you know, was very heavy into the speakers program, so I was able to enjoy teaching and training, which is something I had done in corporate, you know, in 2 lifetimes before that. And getting out and talking and sharing and feeling like, I don't know why I'm this way, but there's a desire to share and educate that I feel better after I've done it. And so I didn't see any of that coming. You know, I moved to a town of 5,000 people, and all of a sudden now I'm going to UNC in Charlotte and talking to 300 people at a luncheon.
Aaron Wesley Means:You know? So I think that was an exciting first 4 or 5 years. And then as I began to work with more and more and more businesses, specifically helping them with constant contact, you know, that's been a huge leg of what I do, a big piece of the pie. In any given week or month, I might work with 5, 10, 15, 20 businesses, getting them started, helping them get their branding arranged, giving them a plan, giving them the belief and the push to get there, and then following up with them. And so that takes us up to about 2015, and the webinar phenomenon occurred, and Ruther took over.
Aaron Wesley Means:It became so trendy that everything was gonna be on webinar that that kinda became a theme. And so that part of the program or rather the formatting kind of helped me to reach a little further than the Carolinas. All of a sudden, I was speaking to groups, the Caribbean Telecommunications Association, speaking to groups in Louisville, Kentucky on live webinar with, you know, a few hundred people there I would never have met. And then, of course, we know the pandemic came a few years later, which really set things deep into the online event world. Now it sort of feels like everything is coming around.
Aaron Wesley Means:It's been around about 10 years for me having spoken to, I would guesstimate, maybe 10,000 or so people, both in person and online, having helped 100, maybe 1,000 of those with their actual accounts. It's given me just a nice perspective. It's almost like it keeps me learning on the job so that when I go to execute for those core clients who do hire us to execute on things, I have so much perspective and context to draw from having my hands and my eyes and my mind touching on all of these different accounts and businesses. So, over the years, it's been, you know, about a third constant contact focused, about a third teaching and training and consulting and and projects. You know, we do full blown websites and branding as well, and then about a third specialized service offerings for people that want their marketing done for them.
Aaron Wesley Means:And it couldn't be happier. It's been the support, the help, the guidance, the teamwork that the Constant Contact team has provided over the years really has kept me anchored. Even after it, I was through some growth cycle, I never wanted that to go away, and it just continued to get better. And I feel like now we're we're even better than we were before.
Dave Charest:Well, we appreciate you for that and all the work that you do. And I also I mean, you're also, you know, a Constant Contact community coach. What's that experience been like for you?
Aaron Wesley Means:It's really neat because, again, with the being able to connect with people at such distance from a little office in the mountains, the community coach program is a wonderful addition to the constant con in fact, you can actually get there from the home page, I believe, right now. You can jump right in there. You can ask questions. You can talk to other users. You can have ask coaches questions like myself about anything from marketing strategy to literally what button do I click if I'm logged into the constant contact platform and I wanna do x, y, or z to, k, take a look at our our email.
Aaron Wesley Means:Yep. What do you think of this? And giving us a draft to review right out there in the open. So it's a neat thing because it's really taken on the life of why so many social media groups, like Facebook groups and all that became so popular because it's pulling people in that have common ground, a common theme, a common topic, letting us all help each other, have a little bit of fun. And so I've been working in that community, program since, I believe, early spring, and it's just been a ball.
Aaron Wesley Means:And I'm really excited about this ready set set coming up.
Dave Charest:Excellent. So, well, let's shift our discussion here and talk a little bit about and dive into some expertise here. So we're really here to talk about email design today. And I guess my first question to you would be, why is design such an an important factor in particular when it comes to email?
Aaron Wesley Means:Oh, I think we have to put in context the way people are digesting content in 2,024. It's heavily on mobile, and it's we're using an at a glance approach. The consumer glances and scans at their device to decide if something catches their attention to make them actually even lean in and engage. So having the proper layout, the proper design, the proper anchoring elements in your post, in your email, especially with so many on a small limited single pane mobile device, it's absolutely critical. With the level of noise going on on the Internet trying to get people's attention, you've gotta do some fundamental things to really hit that ball.
Dave Charest:So Constant Contact, of course, has templates and things like that that you can use, and then you can update those to reflect your particular business. Maybe you could tell me a little bit about, I guess, how important it is to, 1, represent your brand in those emails, but also maybe talk a little bit about digital brand kit within Constant Contact and how that really allows you to kinda get your things in place so it's easier to kinda create those branded elements.
Aaron Wesley Means:For sure. I will say that the brand kit itself, I used to do an 8 hours constant contact boot camp. And about a third of the day was helping people piece together what their brand kit would be. And by brand kit, what we're referring to is your logo, your color scheme, your style, your vibe to your business. What are those things that you want to be front and center?
Aaron Wesley Means:And so when you have an email going out that's somewhat close to your color, that's working against you. When you send out an email that has a logo that's smaller pixelated or you leave it at the bottom and you don't identify yourself at first glance when the email opens, you're really pushing the ball uphill with your marketing. Those emails should feel like an extension of your website reaching out into the inbox. It should feel completely in line and in sync with your brand voice, your brand style, and so that goes for emails. Now what we used to do is have to go into each part of the email and update the branding on every segment.
Aaron Wesley Means:And then, eventually, we were able to do that in sections. And now what we've got is the brand kit within Constant Contact. It's a special tool that lets you click in there and choose your colors, lets you confirm and or add your logo, lets you save that as one of your brand themes, and then it automatically will apply that preset layout to your email drafts when you start if you wanted to. And so this is an incredible lineup of shortcuts. Having the branding in the email is so critical, but it's also one of the gates.
Aaron Wesley Means:It's one of the hurdles even that I would get people all excited. They love everything. They're ready to rock with Constant Contact. And then a month later, I'd say, how did that email send to go? And they go, well, I can't quite figure out which blue to use.
Aaron Wesley Means:And then the thing is in matching up with the last email I sent, and they're stuck in this no man's land. And so having a systemized approach like the Constant Contact platform where all of this plays out for you is amazing. Having a brand kit that trickles down to all of those pieces. I mean, at this point, you know, we're just drinking tea. It's amazing.
Dave Charest:Yeah. I love that. You know, one of the things I like about it too, I mean, even as I'm using Constant Contact for my own personal newsletter and things like that, is that I love also too when you do create something and you have, for specific use cases or whatever it is that you want, that you can also save those emails that you've created as your own template. So you can start from those every time, which I think is really cool. So I wanna talk a little bit about what I I mean, I would consider really, like, the 7 essential elements of, like, email design.
Dave Charest:These are things that you you need to have. And I think even you mentioned earlier where people can come in and get feedback on something. And I think feedback can sometimes be just someone's opinion, and you somewhat need a frame sometimes to say, like, okay. If we look at it through the lens of the frame to say, hey. These are the things that you should have in there, then you can say, oh, you don't have this thing.
Dave Charest:So maybe we need to add that versus, like, oh, I'd like it if you had something there, but that's just someone's, you know, opinion to it. So maybe we could go through these essential elements. And I'd like to start with, you know, I think number 1 on our list of things is the header information. And and you would say, like, oh, is that really like a design element? Well, it's really the first thing that people see in the inbox.
Dave Charest:So that's why we kind of included in there as, like, a design element. So talk to me about the importance of the header and what that information is.
Aaron Wesley Means:The header is not just important. I would say it's critical because you can make the greatest email in the history of emails. And if they don't open it and know how great it is, it was for nothing. And so there's a few things that at a glance remember, you know, the average person is scanning and glancing through that preview pane on their phone to see what new bolded messages are crushing through that inbox. And in their mind, they're looking for, mostly subconsciously, they're looking for reasons to care about any of these.
Aaron Wesley Means:And so who it's from has gotta be spot on, and that means not only your company name, but are you using the right person that they expect to hear from? Or are you using someone who's the CEO that's been playing golf for a few years, meanwhile, the power team is is the face of the business? The subject line is the critical moment right there. This is all about getting the email opened the first time they see it. So if they see the email, chance and don't open it right then, we know what happens.
Aaron Wesley Means:We know what happens within 6, 12 hours. You know, you've got a page 2 situation going on in your inbox, and they it's it's into the into the rear view, and they don't remember. So getting it open the first time is critical. That's why both subject line and preheader text preheader text, these are your secret weapons to really getting the most possible value out of your marketing and your effort. So you might use a subject line that says something very direct.
Aaron Wesley Means:You might use a subject line that has a bit of mystery and intrigue and fun to it. And I'll tell you, you know, not to run on, but you may you may not have been getting to this yet, but the preheader is to me the sweet spot. Because in years past, this was just slurped up from the top of the email. Whatever the first text in the email was just appeared up in there. And now you can sit there and curate 2, maybe 3, if they have a big phone, lines of text that they're gonna see during that scan and glance on the inbox preview.
Aaron Wesley Means:So who it's from, subject line, preheader, all working together as a nice quick attention getter that allows them to lean in and drop that almighty thumb on the screen. That's the first and most important thing about the email design because you gotta get it open.
Dave Charest:Yeah. I think, you know, you bring up a good point about just the if we think about the recognizable front from name, I think that's a huge one. I can't tell you how many emails I've received when I've signed up for something, and it just comes from somebody that wasn't part of the sign up process. Like, it's just somebody random at the company, and they don't highlight the companies. So, like, I have no idea, and I'm always going like, who is this from?
Dave Charest:And so it's really important that I think, you know, to your point, yes, the subject line and then moving into that second element of the preheader are super important. But at the end of the day, oftentimes, we're always trying to do these shortcuts. And so if you can have good relationships with your customers and they know who you are, or who the business is, whatever it is, whoever that face is in many ways, it's so important because it does get people to pay attention. And then that's where that subject line and the preheader come in and be like, okay, do I need to open this now? Is this something that I need to look at?
Dave Charest:So we talked about the preheader, why that's important. I would count that as element 2 in all of this. But next up in the 3rd element here, we're talking about like logo and colors. We talked a little bit about how important it is to really make sure that we're reinforcing the brand. I guess if somebody opens it, like, what are we trying to get across?
Dave Charest:Why does that come into play as an important element here to make sure that, to your point earlier, that things are aligned right across the places people are seeing you?
Aaron Wesley Means:Well, it's kind of hard to nail down, but there's a lot of marketing that is psychological, and it's about feelings. And when somebody opens an email and they see your logo that they're familiar with, they see your color theme coming through the same way that that postcard did or the social post announcing the picnic did or the landing page on their website. There's an alignment there that keeps them feeling a good vibe. And I think equally important is the complete opposite end of the spectrum. It's actually kinda what you were just saying too, Dave, about when you see something that doesn't click easily and it causes you to hesitate even for a second, right there, you've already lost some ground.
Aaron Wesley Means:If they've opened the email and they're looking at it and they're still trying to determine who this business is, wait. What's this about? Or do I know them? Why does this ring a bell? No.
Aaron Wesley Means:It should be, oh, it's them again. And instant instant subconscious recognition. And I think having that logo perfect, having the color scheme perfect and properly balanced throughout the layout so it's not too much of one and not of the other, those are things that draw people in and make them feel comfortable, and they can actually enjoy the message.
Dave Charest:So there's another element here when we get into, like, the 4th thing, and just in terms of image or images that you use in emails. And I think sometimes people fall into the trap of using an image for images' sake sometimes. So, like, yes, it's good because people are visual. It allows you to convey information in a way, but I think that's the big thing. Talk to me about the importance of making sure that whatever images or imagery that you're using within the email actually support what's going on in that email.
Dave Charest:Why is that so important?
Aaron Wesley Means:It's critical because of the you know, and I'm saying everything is critical, but this line of you
Dave Charest:But it is. Yeah.
Aaron Wesley Means:It it is. These are the critical elements. These are the critical elements. Right? Well, you know, this is an approach that I teach.
Aaron Wesley Means:I call it the featured image approach. And what this means is that you actually can design your marketing message from the image outwards. This goes back to this to what I've kind of already said with scanning and glancing. We're scanning and we're glancing on small screens in quick little bursts to see what's curious and interesting enough to grab our attention for us to actually engage the content for 10 seconds. And so when you have an email and a small device or even a social post, and I teach this for websites too for the landing pages, you want them to be able the the image should start to tell the message.
Aaron Wesley Means:The image shouldn't just be, like you said, a photo to be nice and pretty and attractive. You want the featured image to be the centerpiece of the message to the extent that if there weren't words around, they could probably start to get an idea what the context is without the words. And then, of course, it all fits together and and plays out that way. And this is this, again, interchangeable for email, for social posts, for how you would build a web page. You wanna tell the story visually and then fill in around it with the proper copy.
Dave Charest:Yeah. I love that. I think to your point, anything design wise, right, those images should have a purpose. Right? They should have something that is driving you towards some place and not just be there for adornment's sake, for lack of a better term there.
Dave Charest:Alright. I wanna move us to text. Right? So this is the 5th thing on our list of kind of essential elements here, and I think, obviously, there's a, an argument to be made that people don't read. I, which I, I don't necessarily believe, because people read things that are interesting to them, but also you can help with that.
Dave Charest:Right? And I think it's important to think about how you're positioning text and what you're doing with text. And talk to me a little bit about the importance of, like, how you design text within an email.
Aaron Wesley Means:I think if you can use your brand scheme's font, that's the best choice. Unless it's a font that has just it's super hard to read on a small device or it's very artistic and flourishing, in which case you can use that in your regular marketing and then find something for your phone, your email. The key is we want it to be readable by smaller screen, and the way I usually lay it out is never go smaller than a 14 point at this stage. With where we are in mobile devices, 14 is really the bottom end, and I don't actually really even use 14 a lot. I think it's a 16.
Aaron Wesley Means:It's an 18 on regular text. I think it's a 21, a 24, or larger on a header. And, look, the best email conversion rates are short emails. And so when you've got a short email that doesn't require scrolling and doesn't require a lot of mental real estate from them, you can go ahead and pump that text up even more, and you're not adding anything to the downside. They're looking at it while they're in line at the bank.
Aaron Wesley Means:You want it to be applesauce easy. So big headers, big sub headers, big easy to read at a glance text, and but not too much text. If you have a lot to say, go ahead and put that content somewhere else and have a link that takes them to complete it there.
Dave Charest:Yeah. I think there's also something important to mention here about text too is just even in terms of laying it out and using kind of white space in the email and doing those types of things, which really allows you to make it a little bit more inviting. I always to your point where people are scanning and looking and wanna get pulled in in in many ways to, like, want to read something, is that if you start to take these big blocks of text and kind of throw them in an email, you really run that risk of, well, no one's gonna be able to decipher what it is, and so you've got nothing for that scanning person to get pulled into. And so it's really important to use those elements with text as well. Talk to me about you mentioned, you know, including that stuff off, and I think the 6th element in our design piece is the call to action.
Dave Charest:What do we want somebody to do? Why is that important? Do we design that with just a link? Do we use a button? Talk to me about the call to action.
Aaron Wesley Means:The call to action is definitely in the critical lineup here, and it needs to be a package. And by a package, I mean, you need the text explaining the lead up, you need the right words, and you need it to work with a button. And it's funny that we're doing the boot camps over the years. I would look at folks that have been doing constant contact emails for a while and kinda review their system, and they would have maybe 5 or 6 of these things already, but they would not have a call to action. Because in our mind, we're sitting there doing our marketing, and we assume that because the image is this way and because the message is written this way, that these folks are gonna obviously know what to do.
Aaron Wesley Means:I mean, it's logical, but what we need really is to applesauce easy, serve it up. So click here to read more. Click below to view our new catalog, view our new models. RSVP now, RSVP below before it's too late, and then click a button, RSVP now in big bold button. That actually increases conversion rates.
Aaron Wesley Means:I mean, 2 and 3 x. Just having that symmetrical answer to what the content has been about, and then there's the yin to the yang. Now here's the action you need to take, and it needs to be in bright lights and impossible to miss. And it's crazy having doesn't make them any more or less interested. It just means you're getting them to take the action you want them to take because of the way you've served it up to them.
Aaron Wesley Means:It's an amazing, amazing small addition that you would think, but for 2 and 3 x of the conversions, it's pretty amazing.
Dave Charest:Yeah. So the last item on our list here is the footer information. For me, this is typically this comes in handy when I think sometimes I'll get something from a business, and particularly if it's like a has a brick and mortar store, for example, or something that I may be not frequent all the time, or or it's something that I'm gonna forward to something else. This footer information is really the stuff that's just kind of like the nuts and bolts of company information type of thing that I think is important to just have, because when people want it or need it, it's there for them. And so talk to me a little bit about what are the types of things that we wanna put in that section.
Aaron Wesley Means:Well, there's a lot of validation in the information in a good footer. The official name of the business restated. People wanna know where you're located. Don't make them work for it. Have it right there.
Aaron Wesley Means:And, of course, with everyone on mobile, they drop the finger on that address, and here comes GPS. Now they're headed to your store. Having your phone number, which is, again, one click click to call. You can even do that on your computer now. But having that easy to find, your hours, what are the things that they're gonna think about?
Aaron Wesley Means:What are some of the first things that some a consumer might think they wanna know about you? When they've seen this nice email, the content is great, they feel good about it, and then they have some tactical questions. Clicking to open you on a map and see where you're located. Have all of that completely served up to them super duper easy, and you're putting yourself in a good spot. And do not forget those social media buttons.
Aaron Wesley Means:You need those to be extremely prominent. You wanna have links to your social channels for them to easily get to you and follow, and that's definitely a good thing to have in all of the footers of your email so that you can play that that game back and forth between email and social and and work them together as a team.
Dave Charest:Aaron, I wanna recap some of the stuff that we talked about here for folks kinda watching and paying attention today and listening. But design, really. Right? This can influence if people are gonna consume the content in your emails, really. It's gonna help you when you think about your email template, for example, that reinforces brand recognition.
Dave Charest:Of course, you can use things like Brand Kit to help save you time there. And then lastly, we need to include these 7 essential, and we're going to call them critical for this episode, but the critical elements of to create that compelling and engaging email design. If all of those things together really help you put your best foot forward in terms of what you're doing from an email marketing perspective. So thank you so much for sharing your expertise here and talking through these things with me here today.
Aaron Wesley Means:It's my pleasure. I really appreciate the chance to chat with you.
Dave Charest:I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Be A Marketer podcast. Please take a moment to leave us a review. Just go to ratethispodcast.com/bam. Your honest feedback will help other small business marketers like yourself find the show. That's rate this podcast.com/bam.
Dave Charest:Well, friend, I hope you enjoy the rest of your day and continued success to you and your business.