HTML email design is one of the most difficult parts of the mailing process in bulk email marketing. This is because of the fundamental question “which design will make people interested enough to buy?” In all fairness, this is not the right question to really ask because you must remember that the job of selling is not what bulk email marketing is about; it might be one of the end objectives but not the governing one. Bulk email marketing is all about getting the message to the user and ensuring that the recipient actually clicks on a link. After that, the job of email marketing is done.

Back to the main question, what are the best ways to design an email to get the maximum response?

1. Imagery. There are two sides to the imagery argument. Some would argue that you need more imagery than text; however, the other side of argument would state that in today’s world, nearly all email clients will block the automatic download of media elements so the more the images, the more problematic the mail. The only way around this problem is to strike a balance in the event that your images are blocked. For this, you must ensure that the text in your HTML email is compelling no matter how little of it there is. Also, add a line of text that instructs the user to add you to the safe senders list to view the mail properly.
2. Sectioning. Much bulk email marketing material fails because it is just a flyer and not really a marketing offer that can be read. For this reason, you must create adequate sections to hold text in your email. This will make reading much easier on the recipient and even faster than having to run through the entire text.
3. Logic. This might seem to be an obvious one but often a missed part of design. A lack of using logic when designing mail is the reason that you have mail templates with images and text below it. This is one of the most irritating formats considering that most humans read from left to right. Simple points like this must be borne in mind when designing.
4. Colors. One of the most important parts of an email is the colors that you use in it. Colors that you use should ideally be reflective of your corporate branding and philosophy. In addition, you should also remember some simple design rules like using colors to mask out white space and create borders.

There are some other design elements of HTML email to think about especially, when you use links and use video in email. When you do these, your entire body of the email changes and requires a completely different design philosophy. While design is not something that will hamper the delivery of email, customers can be the ultimate spam filter and to this level, even design of an email can be a tell-tale sign of spam.