A word that has gained notoriety over the web is usability or simply UX (User Experience). The term, contrary to what many people may think, doesn’t refer only to websites because it’s directly related to communication with the end user, including email marketing campaigns.

But what is UX? This form of design aims to make the user experience with the brand, the company and its products/services the best possible. The basic requirement is to meet the basic needs of the user or client through visual elements, layout and a whole information architecture incorporating what he or she expects: information in a clear, simple and easy way to be found. Reaching this point involves a constant cycle that includes interactive tests, behavioral studies, navigation analysis and the impact your brand will generate.

Sometimes it’s confused with UI (User Interface). While the former one refers to the system behavior, including the whole design strategy and development of a website, the second refers to the system layout and it’s responsible for introducing this framework, where the user will experience your brand.

In email marketing, usability's main function is to show user the importance of that content and awaken his interest for the products and services of your company, strengthening the relationship brand/customer.

How email can affect user experience

A behavior study called Email Newsletters: Surviving Inbox Congestion, by Jakob Nielsen, considered one of the “popes” of usability, points out the reader spends an average of 51 seconds with an email marketing campaign. That's because he doesn’t actually read what he receives, it’s as if the text was “scanned”, you know?

To change this situation, it’s important to focus on usability, on the ease or difficulty readers will have when navigating your campaign. As the UX is directly connected to the user experience, in the first case (easy), you conquer consumers. In the second (difficulty), you lose potential sales and customers. We highlight five key points:

Navigation

First of all, to set this you need to understand what it means for your email. Navigation is all you want your readers to do when interacting with the campaign. Start with the call to action, is it clear and visible? Is it easy to find the information within the message?

Content

Usability in email goes beyond its functionality and also extends to content. In fact, it’s a key piece to create a positive experience. If your text is weak, irrelevant and still contains grammatical errors it’s most likely to be deleted or even generate unsubscribes to your database. Good content, however, extracts sales, actions and conversions.

Design

Along with navigation, your campaign will need a well-developed design, sticking to the concept of user friendly. Is it easy to read your email on any screen? Is it helpful the contrast between the background colors and fonts to the reading? It’s also important to measure the amount of graphics, videos and images with text. The longer it takes to load, greater the chances of seeing your email being deleted.

Links

All links of the campaign should lead to existing pages. It seems obvious, but there are cases of links that don’t address anywhere or contain errors. Check if all of them lead to the right environment before sending the email. Review never hurts. You only have advance from it. It’s a guarantee the user will have access to the expected content by clicking on the link.

Email options

Users must have control over what they receive, which means any change or update of their accounts must have easy access for them. This information should also be included in the campaign and the same goes for opt-out links or buttons for social networks to share content. Everything should be clear, following the presets of UX design.

Usability applied for email marketing in practice

One of the basic rules leading the sending of emails is guided by creating a campaign with nice view to the eye and to facilitate the reading through a user friendly interface. So he doesn’t need to look for any information or do contortions in order to understand the reason of your contact. The interaction from the perspective of those who will receive the content must be agile and intuitive. These features become even more essential within the avalanche of emails sent every day.

Messages with heavy animations, extensive videos and giant images, for example, go against email good practices since not all recipients have the resources needed to access them. This goes for icons, fonts, colors, images, different screen resolutions, email clients and operational systems. We have listed some applications that impact directly on conversions when you align UX and email marketing:

1. Build and keep a visual identity

Recognizing a company by color or by some characteristic element is pleasant for those who follow it and like to keep up to date on their favorite brands. Not to mention the credibility in the market. Standardization means organization and transfers the sense of confidence between consumer and brand.

So think about a visual identity that represents the company, its products and services, site, social networking and email marketing campaigns inclusive.

2. Use logos and company own domain

Let your customers recognize your brand also by the emails you sent. Who gets the brand messages probably made some shopping or interacted with you some way. So there is already a degree of trust and recognition. After the first contact, it’s important to keep the relationship and the branding.

So take the opportunity to consolidate these feelings adding to the campaign the logo and the same colors of the site. Also choose a sender address that identifies your company.

3. Objective, relevant and personalized subject line

Title is one of the most important items of a campaign, after all it’s the first element to appear and it’s often a key factor to guide the reader to be interested in the content of your email or to throw it into the trash without even look. It doesn’t matter if it’s to grace the cover of a printed newspaper, to highlight a newsletter or to guide an email marketing campaign, the subject line is what will make your recipient stop what he’s doing to read your company’s news.

So keep short and clear titles that show relevance without forgetting the personal treatment. Be direct and convince the reader to open your email.

4. Catchy header to transmit the message at the first glance

The header is the first area that will be visible to the recipient as soon as he opens your campaign. This is the big chance to make an impact with the content with photos, graphics or other visual aids that can turn your email marketing more attractive so the reading flows.

So bet on visual to the grab the attention of your reader. Be creative and show why that content is important and relevant for him.

5. Bullet points that turn the text into concise content

The slogan of the moment is Content Marketing. The term refers to the publication of any content that prioritizes the relevance, depth investigation of information and, consequently, the quality of what is written in the text. This pursuit for quality makes the content longer content than other types.

So use lists as much as you can. Separate the text into blocks and subtitles, highlighting the most important parts for the reader, facilitating the search for information.

6. Call to Action highlighted in relation to the whole campaign

The call to action deserves outstanding visibility into your email marketing campaign. It’s largely responsible for guiding your reader to conversions. In order to be easily found, it deserves special attention, avoiding competition with other email elements.

So use isolated and flashy colors, but in combination with the rest of the campaign, to highlight your buy button. Choose a size that draws attention and facilitate its location.

7. No excessive images to compose the email layout

Images are attractive aside, no doubt about that, but they should be used cautiously. The ideal is to balance the visual with textual. The reference market is at least 60% and 40%, respectively. This makes reading more enjoyable and yet complements the content you want to deliver.

So choose good graphics to attach the text. Be creative. Better a meaningful picture than a carnival of drawings. Also explore templates and typography.

8. Alt tags help to complement the images of the campaign

Sometimes the images of the campaigns can be blocked by email providers. So the content doesn’t get lost in your recipient's mailbox, or run the risk of being sent to the trash right away. Here you can apply the alt tags. They’re nothing more than a description for those images.

So be sure to fill in the alt tags for each image that makes up your email. Write a description of what the picture is, locating your reader in the context and keeping his interest.

9. Responsive Design is a crucial and compulsory item

Today the access through smartphones and tablets are flush with the desktop. The search for remote information follows in ascendancy, but this form of consumption deserves something developed especially for her. Here comes the Responsive Design, adapting the content for different screen resolutions.

So plan a friendly layout, keep the same visual line to all, adapt font size and the width of the message. Facilitate reading and navigation the most for the user.

10. Sharing the content in social networks to engage

Another powerful source for generating leads, beyond the most effective way known, the email marketing, comes from shares in social media. Replicate the content and highlight the social networks in the campaigns to bring engagement, more traffic and conversions up for the brand.

So when creating your campaign highlight the buttons to share your content on social networks and enjoy this interaction to strengthen the relationship with your customers.

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With all the topics mentioned in this post, you can now realize the strong link between email marketing and UX design. Both have the same goal in the costumer's perspective: to provide the best experience for the user (user friendly) and increase the conversions rate.

Finally, we also recommend the application of A/B testing, which is a type of usability research, someway, because the campaign will be sent according to user interaction, based on the experience of those who will receive the email in practice. That way, you can work your brand from the expectations and opinions of your target audience.

The way you interact with your customers is the mirror of your business. This link is built through email marketing, which will show how your brand will be seen and remembered by people.

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