Designing of banner

What is an email banner?

An email banner is an image accompanied by marketing copy that goes to the top of your email and sets the tone. It is not to be confused with an email signature banner, which goes at the bottom.

It can be a marketing banner you use all the time to represent your business with just your brand name and logo. Alternatively, email banners can be one-offs (almost like a mini ad) detailing an offer, like a discount, loyalty program, or a welcome message for new subscribers.

What to include in your email banner design

Even though you can use your email banners in tons of different ways, all of them should have a few key things to make your email stand out.

The idea is for your readers to instantly associate your emails with your brand the second they open the email, so make sure to always include:

Brand name

If you’re trying to build brand awareness with all of your emails, then your brand name should be prominent, taking up most of the space.

If you’re using the banner to announce something special, like a new product or promotion, then your name can be more discreet on the email banner design, since you want your readers’ attention on the offer. But remember: you still want them to be able to look at the email quickly and know it’s from you, so make sure your brand name is in there somewhere.

Brand logo  

You can kill two birds with one stone by using your logo for your brand name. Then, it becomes instantly recognizable and doesn’t feel too repetitive.

Brand colors

Like your website or ads, your email banners should have the same look and feel of your brand.

It’s another way to represent your business, so using your colors consistently is super important. That’s why boxes from Tiffany’s, for example, are that same Robin’s egg blue and they use that color everywhere they possibly can. At this point, the second you see that color (even if it’s not related to their store), you think of Tiffany’s. That’s how powerful a color can be.

You can always play around with design and sizing, but make sure you’re always using similar background colors and following your general brand guidelines. So if your colors are turquoise and grey, you probably don’t want to be using lime green for your email banner design.

Product photos

Depending on how big you want it to be, your banner can be a great place to showcase a product photo or two. Especially if the email is about a brand new product.

Since the banner is the first thing your readers will see when they open your email, it’s an opportunity to catch their attention and hook them with stuff they need or want.

Just remember that the most important part of showcasing your products is that they should be your own photos (or high-quality photos your customers have taken!). In general, it’s best to stay away from stock images.

Link to your website 

Make sure your banner image (and any other images in your email) links to your store! Your best bet is probably to use a call to action to send people to your collections page with all your products rather than your homepage so they don’t have to click around to find what they’re looking for. But if you’re showcasing a specific product, you might just want to send them directly to the product page.

Another way to do it is to include a menu-type option in your email banner design, similar to what your visitors would see if they were actually on your site. Like Lunya does here:

Just make sure you keep it simple and clean so readers can easily identify where they want to go.

Descriptive and enticing copy

Email banners are visual, so it’s not really about including tons of copy, but if you’ve got a sweet offer, it should be super clear to your subscribers.

Keep it short and to the point like “20% off site-wide.” Then you can include more copy a little further down in the email to really get them to click that CTA.

5 email banner design best practices

Your email banners are free space to increase brand recognition and get readers hooked so they keep reading the rest of your email (and hopefully continue to your store to make a purchase).

To make your life easier, make your email banner design reusable, yet versatile enough that you can easily make edits if you want to customize it for something like a holiday or new product announcement.

The simpler you keep your email banner, the easier this becomes.

1. Showcase your brand clearly

Any images you include along with the general email header design should have your style. Use your colors, logo, and business name.

When you’re designing your banners, think about your logo/name placement, since ideally that will be in every email banner from now on, even if you switch it up depending on your campaigns.

2. Keep the email banner design simple

A simple email banner design is a lot easier to play around with. The last thing you want is to come up with the perfect email then realize it’s going to take forever to customize your banner.

So don’t make it distracting by trying to include too many elements. Remember this is just the very beginning of your email. You have plenty of space below to include everything else.

3. Check your email banner size

Keeping your email banner size the same across your different email campaigns is the way to go.

Size is up to you, although it shouldn’t take up too much of your email. Try to resize all your images to stick to a height between 70-200 pixels, depending on your menu.

And make sure the email banner design your create looks good on mobile!

4. Make sure your email banners are reusable

You should have a few templated versions that allow for customization, but you want to make sure you have a couple you can plug in without having to think about it if you’re scrambling to get an email out the door ASAP. Cause that’s the way it always goes, isn’t it?

5. Customize banners by email campaign

Email banners are prime real estate for any special offers, new products, best-sellers, discounts, the list goes on.

With your reusable email header templates on hand, don’t miss out on the opportunity to customize your email banners based on the message you’re trying to get across.

Adding things like copy, images or graphics, and promo codes, are all ways to customize email banner design based on your different campaigns.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FANtCZ7y6Og&list=PLdg4YtrtIzukZpfbfIeN_1Ttm1RlDoXzo&index=9