Email marketing is one of the most widely used forms of digital marketing available. It provides a means of marketing that is highly scalable and cost-effective for businesses of all sizes. In terms of its reach and conversion rates, email marketing continues to outperform social media. However, that isn’t to say that email marketing is easy to do well. Over 333.2 billion emails are expected to be sent and received in just 2022.
The question is – how will your email stand out from the rest?
One of the biggest pet peeves people have with emails is how they appear on different devices. For example, on a mobile device, the email formatting may not work as well as it does on a desktop. 41% of email views in 2021 were from mobile devices. Hence, it’s vital to get your email formatting right on mobile as well. In a world where attention is everything, formatting errors on mobile have a high chance of turning the recipient away from your email.
Standing Out From The Crowd
One of the best solutions to this issue would be to use responsive HTML email templates. These emails consist of HTML (hypertext markup language) files with different reusable code modules. Additionally, responsive HTML email themes provide eye-catching visuals and a number of formatting options for the email’s text and photos.
Additionally, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) are also added to style the email and improve its appearance. You wouldn’t have to worry about all that technical stuff – that’s all taken care of for you. Responsive HTML email templates allow you to focus solely on the things that matter, such as creating an email that gets the recipient to take action.
How Does it Work?
A few CSS components were previously discovered to be particularly helpful in responsive web design. The key elements include:
- Fluid grids
- Flexible images
- Media Queries
Around 2016, these features began appearing in responsive HTML email designs. In particular, media queries play a major role in creating adaptable HTML email templates. Media queries allow for adjustment of the email so that it works on other devices, rather than only on desktops. As a result, the email design will automatically adjust to other screen sizes to ensure that the entire email and all its contents are visible.
Why is it important?
Personalisation in emails has become the norm. It’s unlikely that you’d get a response from the recipient if you sent them the same generic email you use for everyone. However, spending the time to personalise every email campaign can be time-consuming.
Responsive HTML email templates provide efficiency, an advantage that’s valued in any business. The entire email doesn’t need to be created from scratch every time. This is because the template provides you with the ability to quickly adjust and adapt it to any of your new email campaigns.
As previously mentioned, responsive HTML email templates tend to have a very visual style to them. In comparison to the typical email that’s made up of paragraphs of the same format of text, having a visual email will certainly help you stand out.
Thus, your recipient, whether it be a customer or another business, is much more likely to engage with your email. We’ve also mentioned how attention is everything in today’s era. What better way to keep someone engaged than to use relevant visuals?
Monitoring how well your email campaigns are doing is crucial. Continually sending emails with low engagement rates isn’t likely to suddenly skyrocket and deliver results without making any adjustments. The only way to make adjustments accordingly is to monitor the analytics on your email campaigns. This will shed light on the aspects that are performing effectively as well as those that have room for improvement.
Conveniently, responsive HTML email templates make it easy to track various metrics, especially when using the more established ESPs (Email Service Providers). This means that you’ll be able to track metrics such as CTR (Click-Through Rates) and user engagement.
As a result, you can see clearly where your email may need improvement. For example, you might notice your CTR is high but your user engagement is relatively low. This indicates you’ll need to adjust your call-to-action at the end of the email.
RSS Feeds and Responsive HTML Email Templates
News websites and social media are amongst the most popular ways in which people receive their news. However, with the massive number of sites and social media platforms out there, keeping up with everything can be difficult.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds are a great way of filtering out news and updates from unwanted sources. They act as a means of receiving content from various sites on a single feed. Any new content will be posted on the RSS feed and provide the user with a notification. This makes it much easier to follow a number of sites and keep up-to-speed with what’s happening.
RSS feeds are still very much relevant in 2022, as they have a variety of uses. Your users are likely to be eagerly looking out for your next content or news update. Normally, they would have to keep checking manually and are probably going to miss content on various occasions.
RSS feeds provide a way for your users to automatically receive updates and any new content you post. Moreover, it’s also possible to include RSS feeds in responsive HTML email designs. At By the Scruff, we’ve been working with Hubspot template integration for Frameless. Integrating RSS feeds is a great way of keeping users engaged by sending out regular news updates.
The Right Way to Send Emails
Using a responsive HTML email template is a surefire way to make your business stand out in the sea of generic emails sent every day. With mobile devices being increasingly common to view emails, it’s important to ensure that email formatting works on devices other than desktops.
Responsive HTML email templates have countless benefits. Visual emails are a great way of helping your business stand out. The ability to match your visuals and colours to your brand improves brand consistency. Moreover, responsive HTML email templates provide a means of producing highly personalised emails in a relatively short amount of time.
We’ve worked with clients such as Cambridge University to deliver responsive HTML email templates that get results. 1446 of our email templates were all responsive for mobile, and led to a 33% increase in CTR. Our team at By the Scruff is able to provide flexibility in our design, and provide either a custom or new layout for your email campaigns.
Creating responsive HTML email templates isn’t the only thing we do. We can provide additional features such as RSS feed integration, which we’ve recently done using MailChimp for Head For Points. Issues are non-existent with our responsive HTML email templates, since we hand-code all of them.
If you’d like any advice or further information about responsive HTML email templates, get in touch and we’ll help out.