The 2015 Email Design Lookbooka collection of exceptional email design

Email templates can be tricky. What kind of template is best for an event promotion email? What about a newsletter or a drip email? Where does the call to action go?

If you find yourself asking questions like this, then take a look at the 10 examples of successful email templates included in this guide — all of which have been provided by Pardot clients — and get a more in-depth look at best practices for common types of B2B email templates.

Looking for even more email best practices? Download the Email Template Handbook below.

Introduction

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Feature Launch:Wistia

Best Practices Tip

This feature launch email from Wistia is a great example of how an email can be simple while still being informative. Including only the essentials in the copy tells recipients exactly what they need to know, and leaves them the option to view the video to learn more. Including simple visuals and a video link is also a great way to increase engagement. A few other important things to note about this email template: social sharing buttons are easy to find, unsubscribe links are present in more than one location, and Wistia’s contact information is included in the bottom right corner.

Including video links in email can increase engagement and click-through rates while decreasing subscriber opt-outs. Take a few notes from Wistia and include a visually-appealing screenshot that links out to your video’s location (keep in mind that actually embedding the video in the email can often decrease your deliverability rates and increase the chances of your email being marked as SPAM).

Newsletter:Visually

Best Practices Tip

Newsletters can be difficult templates to master, and often have poor open rates compared to other types of email content. This email from Visually has close to a 30% open rate, and an even higher click-through rate (41%!) — and it’s not hard to see why. Visually’s newsletter template is fun and colorful, but most importantly, it’s organized logically and includes plenty of options for readers to click through to view additional content on their site. Calls to action are distinguished by pink bars that stretch across the width of the email, as you can see toward the top of the image to the right. The contrast between the vibrant pink bar and the white background naturally draws the eyes of the reader to the CTA.

Make sure your call to action is featured at the top of your email (it can also be sprinkled throughout the rest of your email, but the most important place for it to appear is at the top). Many people don’t bother scrolling all the way to the bottom of their emails, so calls to action placed at the end of an email could end up being overlooked.

In the case of Visually, they’ve placed their call to action at both the top and the bottom of their email, increasing the likelihood that it will be seen by readers.

Newsletter:Twilio

Best Practices Tip

Best Practices Tip

This newsletter template by Twilio demonstrates how you can convey a lot of information with very little text, making the email easier to read and more enjoyable to look at. The heavy focus on graphics gives readers obvious places to direct their attention as they’re scanning through the email. Just keep in mind that too many images (or images that are too large compared to the amount of text) in an HTML email can cause your email to get marked as SPAM.

If you have graphics that can convey the same information as text, use them! Visuals have been known to increase engagement levels, and are easier for readers to scan than straight text content. If you do choose to use visuals, make sure that you don’t sacrifice the clean lines and organization of your email. Remember to keep your content as uncluttered as possible.

If you’re going to take an image-heavy approach to your newsletters, make sure that your CTA links stand out from images and other text. Buttons may blend in with the images around them, but in-text links that are set apart from the surrounding text can be a great alternative. Twilio takes this approach with the red CTA in-text links below each picture.

Training Email:Javelin

Best Practices Tip

Best Practices Tip

This email from Javelin showcases the value of providing content that’s divided into obvious, easy-to-scan sections. While the email is fairly long, the layout is simple and appealing, with text broken into smaller chunks so that readers are never forced to look at more than a few sentences at a time. The call to action is prominently displayed at the top right of the email, emphasized by both a different color and a border.

Keep emails simple so that the actions required by your prospects or customers are always obvious. In today’s day and age, your readers are often just going to be skimming your emails for important, relevant points. Calls to action need to stand out and should be emphasized by either color, placement, size, or a border.

Make sure that you distinguish your headers from the rest of the copy in your email, like Javelin does with their orange headers. It should be easy for readers to skip ahead to the sections that are most relevant to them.

Holiday Email:Audaxium

Best Practices Tip

Best Practices Tip

This email from Audaxium boasts a 34% open rate, and is a great example of how a clean, simple design can still portray a lot of personality. The tone is casual and humorous, yet informative, and the copy does a great job of showing off Audaxium’s personality. At the bottom of the email, Audaxium has included links to additional content in order to drive readers back to their website. They’ve also made a point to include social sharing buttons for most of the major social outlets, as well as contact information and unsubscribe links.

Whenever possible, show off your brand’s personality and culture through your emails. Your readers want to see something that looks like it came from a human, not a textbook. Take a few notes from Audaxium and don’t be afraid to make a few jokes every now and then! Readers will appreciate your candid sense of humor and your willingness to connect with them on a more personal level.

Even if you’re just sending an email about your company’s holiday hours, don’t miss the chance to provide your readers with a little extra content. You may not get a ton of clicks on this content, but it’s worth including for the few readers who will be interested in learning more.

Event Promotion:Cloud Sherpas

Best Practices Tip

Best Practices Tip

Cloud Sherpas’ event email shows how an email can still be informative while being clean, short, and to-the-point. Text is broken into short paragraphs (no more than three lines) and bullets to make it easier to read, and the calls to action are prominently placed and colored to draw the eye (the red buttons at the top right and at the bottom). This email does a great job of balancing color with black and white text, adding some excitement to the template while still ensuring that it’s easy to read. While event follow-up emails tend to fluctuate between plain text and HTML, emails that promote events are often created with HTML in order to display imagery like photos, designed pieces (like the image in this email), and event or company logos that will create more enthusiasm for the upcoming event.

Research has shown that people scan emails in an “F” shaped pattern. Keep this in mind when creating your templates. Important information should be at the top, including your company logo, your call to action, and any key points that you’d like readers to take away from your email (in the case of this Cloud Sherpas email: event, date, and time information — along with their value proposition).

Use colors to draw your reader’s eye and pull them further into the email, like Cloud Sherpas does with their header image. You want your email to stand out from the rest of the black and white emails landing in your readers’ inboxes.

Event Follow-Up:Carestream Dental

Best Practices Tip

If you hosted, attended, or sponsored an event, then you’re probably going to want to follow up with everyone that you met, including customers, prospects, clients, or other professionals with similar interests. The great thing about event follow-up emails is that they’re highly targeted, which means that recipients will find them more relevant than your average email. This event follow-up from Carestream Dental has a whopping 60% open rate. It features an image at the top to draw the eye, a clean and simple design, and sections that break the email into easily-digestible chunks. Links stand out from the rest of the email content, making it easier for readers to figure out where they’re supposed to click.

If your email content doesn’t lend itself well to bullets, break copy up into smaller paragraphs. Even better, separate them with headings so that readers can scan for the sections that are most relevant to them. This will make your emails far less intimidating once they’ve been opened, which will encourage clicks and increase engagement. You can also consider breaking up text-heavy emails with images.

Webinar Follow-Up:AchieveIt

Best Practices Tip

You don’t want to miss the opportunity to send out highly targeted webinar follow-ups, especially when your webinar registrants are expecting a presentation slidedeck or additional resources. AchieveIt makes a point to send out helpful links after each of their webinars. This email in particular achieved a 66% open rate and a 166% total click-through rate! It’s interesting to note that many webinar follow-ups will do best as plain text emails since their goal is to pass along additional (and often highly anticipated) information or content. This email in particular sets an expectation for future correspondence by including the phrase, “we will continue to send you a new chapter every three weeks,” while also including a quirky unsubscribe section at the bottom for those who aren’t interested in that kind of commitment.

If you know your readers’ interests, send them relevant content that’s related to those interests. Don’t just send a thank you email. Add value by including links to extra content that your recipients might find useful. AchieveIt’s email does a great job of this by providing links to additional helpful information — in this case, two chapters of AchieveIt’s book, which they knew would be relevant based on the webinar that the recipients attended. Content is also distributed in multiple formats, giving recipients the choice to download it in whichever format they please.

General Email:Zerochaos

Best Practices Tip

Best Practices Tip

The clean, simple design of this email template from Zerochaos makes it easy to read and digest. The language is benefit-focused, educational, and casual, and text is broken into bullets and smaller paragraphs. Social sharing buttons are featured prominently in the top right corner with additional links present at the bottom of the email.

If you are sending emails to prospects who are in the early stages of the buying cycle, keep your content light and educational. Focus on thought leadership articles and blog posts instead of promoting late-stage sales collateral like buyer’s guides, white papers, and recorded webinars.

Create a sidebar in your email if you have important information that you’d like to set apart. Think of it like this: if your readers only read one part of your email, which section would you want them to read? This is the type of information that would be great to display separately for readers who love to scan.

Plain-Text Drip Email:IVCi

Best Practices Tip

Best Practices Tip

While most emails work best as HTML emails, we’ve found that drip emails are the most successful when they’re in a plain text format, which makes them appear as though they’re a one-to-one communication between a sales rep (or someone else at your company) and a prospect. This email from IVCi is short, conversational, and includes a personalized signature to enhance the impression that the email is coming directly from a sales rep.

Do your best to ensure that drip emails are as personalized to each recipient as possible. Keep them informal and conversational while still including a value proposition, and send them from a specific person at your company, like a sales rep.

Use bullets whenever possible to make it easier for your readers to scan through important points. Long paragraphs can scare your readers away before they even get to the real meat of your email.

Acknowledgements

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