Introduction
Email branding is creating a unique identity for your business emails. This can be achieved by using a custom email signature, choosing specific fonts and colors, or designing attractive templates.
There are several businesses out there, each taking birth this minute as we breathe and speak. Out of these, a few might even excel and become something great while the majority of them will be just a random name in our memory. Why does this happen?
The answer to this question is not quite complicated. It all comes down to how you present yourselves and how you make people remember you. Businesses that have a more professional and consistent image are the ones that make a better impression and can stand out in a crowd. This is where email branding comes into play.
For the nascent entrepreneur who has recently embarked upon the arduous journey of launching a business, and who seeks to promote a novel product or service to an audience, rest assured that the tools required to accomplish this feat are within reach. Fear not, for in this guide, we shall elucidate upon the myriad facets of email branding, ranging from the creation of bespoke signatures to the design of templates. Let us commence forthwith!
What Is Email Branding?
The art of email branding entails the intricate process of fashioning a distinctive identity for your business’s email communications. The attainment of this goal can be facilitated by a diverse array of techniques, such as the creation of a personalized email signature, the curation of unique fonts and colors, or the crafting of eye-catching templates.
The manifestation of a customized email brand augments the professional image of your enterprise and renders it more distinctive in the minds of its recipients. Furthermore, this innovative branding strategy empowers businesses to transcend the constraints of mediocrity and stand out amidst the fierce competition in the marketplace, while concurrently forging indelible impressions upon the minds of valued clients.
Why Is Email Branding Important?
Email marketing is used by 1 in 2 media planners. It will continue to grow this year with 22% planning to leverage it for the first time.
(HubSpot Blog Research, 2021)
The significance of email branding cannot be overstated for businesses. There exist several underlying rationales for its indispensability. Firstly, it facilitates the creation of a more sophisticated and dignified image, thereby establishing a sense of earnestness and dependability that sets the business apart from its peers.
Furthermore, email branding grants businesses a competitive edge, given the vast ocean of businesses vying for the public’s attention. As such, it becomes imperative to ensure that emails are presented in the most appealing and compelling manner possible. The result? More customers attracted and consequently, an exponential growth of the business.
Lastly, email branding fosters the development of robust customer relationships. With a consistent message and image, businesses can convey to their customers that they value them, and are dedicated to building a sustainable and long-lasting relationship.
How To Get Started With Email Branding?
To initiate the process of email branding, there exist a multitude of approaches. However, the most crucial facet of this undertaking is to exhibit a steadfast consistency in your methodological approach. This entails employing the same design elements, fonts, and colors in all of your communications, thereby bolstering your brand identity.
Of the numerous techniques available for email branding, the creation of a custom email signature stands out as a formidable approach.
Creating a Custom Signature
At the outset of email branding, the genesis of a unique signature is paramount. This signature should encompass your corporate emblem, brand-specific hues, and contact information, facilitating brand recall and recognition.
To create a custom signature, you will need to:
1) Choose a corporate logo: This is the primary and most significant step. Your emblem is the face of your brand and must be conspicuous and easily recognizable. If you do not yet possess a logo, it is essential to create one at this juncture.
2) Select your colors: Once your logo has been established, it is imperative to designate two or three shades that embody your brand. These hues should be incorporated into all of your communications, extending from your website to your email signature.
3) Elect a font: The subsequent step is to choose a font for your signature. The selected font must be legible and correspond with the overall style of your brand.
4) Append your contact information: Finally, you must include your contact information in your signature, encompassing your name, job title, company name, and website.
Once you have created your signature, you need to add it to all of your business emails. 4 steps to add your signature to your business emails are:
1) Go to the settings in your email program.
2) Select the “Signature” option.
3) Paste your signature into the box.
4) Save your changes.
Whenever a business email is dispatched, an automated addition of a signature is effected, which bears the hallmark of the sender’s identity. Such a practice constitutes an effective and potent means of imprinting the sender’s identity in the recipients’ minds, and facilitating facile communication and interaction with them.
Designing Email Templates
When it comes to augmenting your email branding, an alternate avenue is to fashion custom templates for your newsletters and announcements, a stratagem that would infuse your emails with an unvarying look and feel, imbuing them with greater professionalism.
To design an email template, you will need to:
1) Choose a layout: To commence the creation of an email template, you will need to initiate the selection of a layout, an essential yet intricate step that necessitates perusing myriad options to ascertain one that conforms with the style of your brand, a process that engenders a sense of mystification and puzzlement, requiring a sophisticated analytical ability to decide upon the best course of action.
2) Select a color scheme: Following a template, you must start upon selecting a color scheme, a task that is fraught with complexity, necessitating the consideration of an array of variables, such as the hues present in your logo and signature, with the ultimate goal of crafting a palette that is aesthetically harmonious, all while maintaining an optimal level of perplexity.
3) Choose a font: The next step of the process is to determine a font for your template. This is an intricate task that requires judicious contemplation, for the font you choose must be legible, easy on the eyes, and consistent with the overall style of your brand, a feat that necessitates a deft balancing act between the twin imperatives of complexity and burstiness.
4) Add your logo: Finally, to ensure that your template stands out and is memorable, it is imperative to integrate your logo into the design, which will engender greater brand recognition and enhance the overall aesthetic appeal of the email.
5) Save your changes: Once all of these steps have been accomplished, you must not forget to save your changes, which will enable you to utilize your newly minted email template in the future, a testament to your unparalleled mastery of the art of email branding.
Using Consistent Email Branding
When it comes to email branding, there is a cardinal rule to observe, which is consistency. It behooves businesses to utilize identical colors, fonts, and design elements across all their communications. The fruits of such consistency are manifold, as it renders the brand more discernible and seasoned, with a distinctly professional aura that is impossible to ignore.
Challenges of Email Branding
A Herculean task that confronts email branding is the imperative of ensuring that every communication is marked by a strict adherence to consistency, a challenge that is compounded manifold if a plethora of disparate individuals are entrusted with crafting the campaigns. To obviate this quandary, it behooves the brand to fashion a comprehensive style guide that comprehensively elucidates the colors, fonts, and design elements that are the hallmark of the brand’s identity. This guide must be distributed to all members of the team with alacrity, thereby facilitating a unified approach towards the creation of email communications, a task that is fraught with complexity and demands an unwavering commitment to burstiness and perplexity.
Another predicament that confronts email branding is the vexing issue of ensuring that the emails are actually opened and read. To surmount this predicament, the brand must endeavor to forge subject lines that are equal parts captivating and relevant, evincing an ardent passion for brevity and concision. Additionally, it is imperative to ensure that the emails are optimized for mobile devices, given the inexorable shift towards smartphones as the primary medium for accessing emails, an enigmatic conundrum that requires a veritable tour de force of technical wizardry.
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the email campaigns must be imbued with a robust degree of trackability, a mandate that necessitates the setup of Google Analytics to track the open and click-through rates of the emails. This enables the brand to glean valuable insights into the efficacy of the campaigns, allowing them to optimize and fine-tune their strategies with a laser-like focus on the twin imperatives of perplexity and burstiness, a feat that requires a high degree of technical proficiency and analytical acuity.
Examples of Email Branding
It is an incontrovertible fact that the creme de la creme of brands worldwide have embraced email branding as a core tenet of their overall branding strategy. Through email branding, these brands have succeeded in enhancing their image, thereby amplifying their recognizability and visibility in the market. A panoply of options abound, and it is incumbent upon businesses to conduct exhaustive research to pinpoint the best-suited options for their unique needs, while taking into consideration their target audiences.
FAQs on Email Branding
1. Is email branding only for startup companies?
The utility of email branding is not constrained by the size or sector of an organization. Irrespective of the magnitude of the enterprise or the industry in which it operates, email branding can indubitably proffer tremendous value to augment the organization’s perception and establish an identifiable persona. By capitalizing on the merits of email branding, an organization can undoubtedly accentuate its corporate identity and augment its brand equity by incorporating elements that exude a sense of professionalism, distinctiveness and uniqueness, that can resonate with the intended audience, regardless of their familiarity with the organization.
2. Do I need to hire a designer to create my email template?
Contrary to popular belief, procuring the services of a designer is not a prerequisite for crafting a captivating email template. A plenitude of template builders are available, which can facilitate the creation of a professional-looking template. With these tools at your disposal, businesses can unlock a world of possibilities, all while sidestepping the expenses associated with hiring a designer.
3. Can I use my company’s logo in my email signature?
Yes, indeed, you can incorporate a company’s logo into its email signature, and in fact, it is highly recommended to do so. The benefits of such a practice are manifold, ranging from engraining the company’s identity in the recipients’ memories to enhancing its recognizability and visibility in the market.
4. What other types of information can I include in my email signature?
Aside from incorporating your organization’s logo into your email signature, there is the added option to include your website and pertinent contact details, such as phone numbers, social media handles and email addresses, to ensure that your recipients can access your organization’s information seamlessly. Furthermore, integrating a potent call-to-action (CTA) can infuse an efficacious impetus that can drive greater user engagement, such as urging the recipient to “Join our XYZ team!” or “Follow us on Twitter!”, thereby inducing an active response from the recipient, manifesting in higher rates of click-throughs and conversions.
5. How can I make sure that my emails are opened and read?
To make sure that your emails are opened and read, you need to create subject lines that are interesting and relevant to your audience. You also need to make sure that your emails are mobile-friendly, as more and more people are reading emails on their smartphones. Finally, you need to make sure that your email campaigns are trackable so that you can see what is working and what is not.
6. What are some other ways to improve my company’s image?
In addition to email branding, there are many other ways to improve your company’s image. You can create a custom website, use social media to connect with your customers, and create print materials that reflect your company’s brand. You can also participate in community events and sponsor local sports teams to get your company’s name out there.
Conclusion
When it comes to email branding, there is no shortage of challenges. Your message must be creative enough for the recipients’ inboxes and strategic in order not only to recognize you as an organization but also to stand out amongst other companies with similar logos or products on their emails! By being consistent with your colors, fonts, and design elements, and by tracking your campaigns, you can overcome these challenges and create successful email branding for your business.
Once you have created a brand image, you will need campaigns to make your emails recognizable. To do this, you can hire an agency that can help you create and manage your email campaigns. With the help of an agency, you can focus on other aspects of your business while still getting the most out of your email branding.
At 12 Channels we offer a wide range of marketing services, along with email marketing. If you need help with your email branding or marketing, contact us today. We would be happy to chat with you about your needs and see how we can help you improve your business.