The 2021 email design trends reflect the new and unexpected challenges B2B companies and marketers faced in 2020 – budget cuts, quick changes, and fewer face-to-face meetings. In a 2020 Gartner survey of CMOs, 44% said they would face mid-year budget cuts due to the impact of the pandemic.
Despite all of these changes, email marketing has proven to be a proven tool for reaching customers and increasing B2B sales. According to Email Marketing Platform, Mailchimp’s latest email marketing report, email engagement is at an all-time high.
With the loss of in-person events and personal contact, more and more B2B marketers are turning to email to generate leads. In this post, I am sharing 4 email design trends that need to be practiced for the year ahead to successfully generate and nurture leads while retaining your existing customers.
personalization
B2B customers demand and expect relevant and personalized content. According to Litmus online email testing software, personalized emails get 122% more ROI.
Here are a few easy ways to personalize your email:
- Enter a “from name”.
People are much more likely to open an email and engage with it if they feel like it came from someone they know and trust, rather than a business or firm. Make sure to include a specific name when sending, e.g. B. John Doe of Vandelay Industries. This helps humanize your brand and message.
- Collect data to customize content and images
You can use data to sell solutions that solve a specific problem for a specific segment of your audience. Make sure to segment your target audience and tailor the content and images in your emails to match the vulnerabilities of each target audience.
Big Bold Type
A good visual hierarchy helps customers read content faster and easier. Big, bold guy is a trend for 2021 because it creates impact and engages audiences quickly. Less is more when dealing with text; it has to be attention grabbing, but not excessive; tempting but not overwhelming.
Calming color palettes
Pantone’s Color of the Year… is not one, but two colors, Pantone 17-5104 Ultimate Gray and Pantone 13-0647 Illuminating. This medium gray and bright yellow reflects the year we all survived.
Leatrice Eiseman, General Manager of the Pantone Color Institute, says:
“Choosing two independent colors highlights how different elements come together to convey a message of strength and hope, and conveys the idea that it is not about one color or one person, but more than one. The union of a permanent ultimate gray with the bright yellow illuminating expresses a message of positivity that is supported by steadfastness. Practical and solid, but at the same time warming and optimistic. This color combination gives us resilience and hope. We need to feel encouraged and uplifted. This is essential to the human mind. “
In short, bright pops of color contrasted with neutral / calming colors will be used a lot in the coming months – which will help us all get back on our feet and get back to business.
animation
Animated GIFs will continue to appeal to and delight customers. You want something that will blind your viewers but use a reasonable file size. Instead of fully animated effects in newsletters, the 2021 email design trend is to overlap animations with other static images.
B2B marketers should change their view of email marketing not just as a sales tool, but also as a relationship building tool for 2021.