9 Biggest Email Newsletter Design Trends of 2017

According to a recent Email Statistics Report released by the Radicati Group, the number of worldwide email users, which is now 3.7 billion, will increase to over 4.1 billion by the end of the year 2021 – including both business and consumer users. This demonstrates how popular email newsletters still are as the most powerful and effective medium of communication in Internet marketing.

So, the million dollar question here is: how to design a newsletter that subscribers love to read and never delete or unsubscribe? Well, if you’re thinking it is just about making the newsletter responsive and adding a few lightweight animated GIFs to it, then you’re absolutely wrong. To get the most out of your newsletter designing efforts, what you strongly need is to keep yourself up-to-date with what’s hot, new and happening in the world of email marketing. Let’s have a look at 9 innovative email newsletter design trends that are rocking the email marketing industry since the beginning of 2017.

Time to Ditch Spongy Layouts:

While more than 99% of email newsletters today are responsive, you’re no longer need to worry about sacrificing certain elements and animations to achieve compatibility as Google now supports media queries for their email clients in all devices. This is the end of coding Spongy Layouts for developers, while designers can take this as a great opportunity to focus on creating better email newsletters for either desktop or mobile view.

Additionally, since Google no longer bumps the Font of an email, there is no need to force the desktop view in Gmail for mobile devices via coding. This means designers now can create a separate email layout for Desktop and Mobile along with adding responsive support. Needless to say, this is a great positive move towards rendering responsive emails flawlessly (without ruining the design layout of the email) in Gmail and other similar email clients.

Keyframe Animation is the Key:

From announcing attractive discounts to inducing sheer delights, light-weight animated GIFs have constantly been dominating the email newsletter arena since the beginning of 2016. While this trend will most likely continue to grow in 2017, it is now slowly being joined by the Keyframe Animation – the CSS3 way to leveraging the power of animation within an email.

Animated GIFs seem to manage a perfect balance between a still image and a moving video; however, the animation is very jerky and abrupt. What makes Keyframe Animation a different and better option than using GIFs are less perceptible frame changes, which lead to a relatively smoother and less resource-consuming animation effect. Currently supported in Gmail, Android and Apple devices, Keyframe Animation is definitely going to change the way how we incorporate animations within an email.

The Magic of Cinemagraphs:

Another new breed of GIF is Cinemagraphs – still images with a few single, eye-catching moving elements. Not only Cinemagraphs are supported by a number of email clients but also they usually have a smaller file size than a video. Given their growing popularity, many businesses are now stepping towards adding Cinemagraph effects to their newsletters.

Creating an illusion effect of a seamlessly looped video, Cinemagraphs turn your ordinary email newsletter template into an interactive and engaging one that keeps the recipients engaged for a longer period of time. GIF may fail, but Cinemagraphs never fail to entice and engage subscribers. In 2017 and beyond, there is no doubt you will be seeing more and more email newsletters featuring a Cinemagraph effect in your Inbox.

The Emergence of Live Backgrounds:

Email newsletters with backgrounds that change in accordance with the time set or video playing in the background on a loop shall soon be enhancing the beauty of your Inbox. Undoubtedly this is a giant leap from the overall design point of view, but it also puts the user experience at risk in case of a broken video or layout. Hence, before you incorporate this extremely attractive and engaging element into your email newsletter design, make sure to render it appropriately without any error.

Integration of Search Box in Email:

Imagine a scenario wherein recipients will be able to search for what they want in the email itself, without opening a new tab or window to find the desired item. This is possible by integrating a search box within the email itself from where the subscriber can directly search through a retailer’s entire collection of products and then land directly on the searched item available on the sender’s website.

From a subscriber’s viewpoint, Search in email is indeed such a convenient feature that converts the entire procedure of opening an email, visiting the website, and then searching for the desired product, into a simple 2-step process. However, from the sender’s point of view, it proves to be an effective way to boost email ROI and improve email click-through rate (CTR).

Interactivity Redefined:

2017 is the year of innovative, interactive email newsletters! Hamburger menus, accordions, carousels, countdown timer integrated forms, parallax, foldable lists, rotating images, sticky CTAs, are such a few interactive elements using which you can turn your boring, long-read emails into visually engaging, compact ones.

As most of the email clients now support CSS3, you will see a notable rise in the implementation of these interactive elements in newsletters coded in 2017. It is ultimately a win-win for both marketers and subscribers as subscribers can quickly find what they are looking for and for marketers; it reduces the overall time a subscriber takes to make a buying decision.

Social Feeds Integration:

Adding social media links or buttons at the bottom of your email newsletters is a thing of the past. The latest trend is to integrate live social feeds to your emails. Putting a live social feed at the bottom of your email will not only increase viewer engagement on your newsletter but also will play a vital role in building user trust for your brand.

For example, you can embed a live stream of your recent Instagram photos or tweets into your email newsletters to increase user interaction. Besides, you should never forget to include social links/buttons in your newsletter as it is one of the most effective ways to connect users with your social media profiles. Given that social media is an integral part of everyone’s daily life, the inclusion of both social links and social feeds is inevitable for the success of any newsletter.

Increased Use of Dynamic Content:

In the coming days, email personalization and segmentation will reach a whole new level of excellence. While both tactics are not new to the email marketing game, you will experience a dramatic increment in the use of dynamic content that changes as per the defined customer persona. Needless to say that increased use of dynamic content in emails will contribute to delivering a better and more one-to-one experience to readers.

There was a time when email personalization was all about inserting a customer’s name at the starting of an email, but today it is much more than that. In today’s era, if you want to make your email marketing campaign successful, you need to reach your audience on a much more personal level – which is possible only by more dynamic and customized content based on preferences such as gender, geographic location, age, device info, purchase behavior, etc. Remember, the more targeted and personalized the email content is, the higher are the chances of engagement and conversions.

Out of the Box Designs:

This is something we saw a lot in 2016 and will continue to see in 2017 too. An out-of-the-box design means a unique, unexpected and unconventional design, which is neither available anywhere nor seen by anyone. Such email designs tend to always delight the readers because they stand out from the crowd, come as a surprise, and make a memorable impression on the subscribers. No matter how well you fulfill the expectations of your customers, if you repeat the same thing every time, your newsletters become easily predictable. So delight your customers by creating something that is unique and unforgettable. After all, sometimes the best rule is to break all the rules!

Hopefully, you’d find this article useful and informative. Now, if you’re looking for a custom email newsletter template for your business, get one with our PSD to Newsletter conversion service. Having 12+ years of experience, we have successfully delivered more than 7000 newsletters to over 900 happy clients worldwide.