5 Reasons to redesign your email template

One of the questions our design team regularly gets asked is ‘how do we know it’s time to do a redesign of our newsletter template?’ It’s a good question, as it’s important to regularly check to ensure your template is still working as well as it did originally.

I’ve created a list of potential situations that indicate a redesign is in order. Keep in mind a redesign might involve just a few tweaks – right through to a complete overhaul.

1. You are rebranding

A good reason to redesign your template is if your branding has changed. It is very important that your email template reflects your brand and is updated if your brand changes in any way. Don’t leave it to the last minute – you should coordinate your rebrand so that email templates are updated around the same time as your website and other marketing materials. Give yourself time to plan your strategy and focus on getting the most out of the redesign. Consider designing a one-off rebrand announcement email. Announcing your rebrand by email is a great way to get the message out and make sure your rebrand is clearly communicated.

2. Your template looks dated

Even if your email template matches your brand it may start to look dated if you haven’t updated it in a while. This may simply be down to changing design trends but if your template looks out of date then you risk looking out of date and out of touch yourself. Give your readers something new to look at and you may find their engagement increases as well.

3. Your content strategy has changed

If you’ve had your email template for some time, it is likely that your content strategy will have evolved over that period. It is worth standing back and looking at the content you feature in your emails now; compare that to how you used your template originally and see if it still fits. If there are areas of your template that you no longer use, or you are trying to “fit” content into areas it was not originally designed for, then it may be time for a redesign.

4. Your audience has changed

Similarly if your audience has changed since you first designed your template then it may be time to look at it again. Review your subscriber list and make sure you know who you’re sending to. Look at your reader habits: if you’re a Newsweaver customer then the Click Map is a good place to start. If a particular area of your template gets a lot of attention, it might be worth moving it closer to the top. On the other hand if there is important information that no one reads then it may be worth redesigning to ensure this gets the attention it should.

5. You’re missing features or functionality

Are you making the most of new features such as video or social media? If you haven’t updated your template in a while then it’s likely you’re missing out on some of the new developments in email newsletter templates. Some Newsweaver features worth checking out are: the Twitter Feed widget, Social Sharing links, Commenting and Video. A quick update to your template would allow you to make the most of your email and take advantage of the latest features.