Don't Let a Re-Design Reduce Email Deliverability
We probably don’t associate email design and email deliverability. Really, the latter gets us delivered and the former gets us results, right? No connection.
Yes connection. Your subscribers get to know the look and feel of your email design and branding over time. They might not open nor click on every email offer, but they still recognize your email in their inbox, no matter your email design.
So when you change that up and use a new email design, keep in mind you could lose some of that familiarity in the inbox. This just happened to one of our email marketing company clients. They hired a design firm to make over their whole brand. However, that design firm changed the client’s email design look and feel so significantly that their subscribers didn’t recognize them! Lack of recognition in the inbox caused unsubcribes and spam complaints to spike because subscribers didn’t realize who was sending the emails. The result of that? Their ESP put their account on hold. That means no emails delivered at all. Zero. Nada. And that means no sales!
Rebranding is a necessity for some companies at times, but be careful your new brand doesn’t backfire in the inbox. When it’s time to introduce your new look to your email template, consider how you’ll go about making the change rather than do it all at once. Definitely test the new design to be sure your email deliverability and effectiveness both stay optimal. You must consider more than just the recognition factor. You should also consider and test elements of your email design. For example, moving a column from left to right might lead to fewer click throughs on a call to action that used to appear to the left. Finally, consider the way it renders on mobile when initiating a rebranding. You’ll need the recognition in the inbox and the readability on the smartphone.
To protect their email deliverability, many email marketers work hard for their sending reputations. Lucky for this client, the folks at our email marketing company helped them identify the source of the problem—the reason for the spike in unsubscribes and spam complaints—and quickly resolve the hold placed by the ESP.
About the Author: Sharon
