How persuasive email design can influence the ecommerce customer journey | MarTech

Discussions on persuasion in an email message normally begin and end with copywriting. But your email design can also encourage your customers to click and convert.

Dig deeper: Does your email copy persuade or sell?

Think about the last time you tried to speak a friend or member of the family into doing something. I’ll bet you didn’t just present a written note with reasoned, rational arguments. Did you modified your tone of voice, wait for an opportune moment to state your case, or set the scene another way?

I’m not saying you should resort to the email equivalent of tears to influence your subscribers to act. But your email design can amplify your copywriting to encourage conversion.

Why ‘skimmability’ isn’t enough anymore

Both attention spans and email reading screens are shrinking. Now that 60% or more of all email opens occur on a smartphone or tablet, your email messages usually tend to be read on a six-inch mobile screen than a 13- to 16-inch laptop or 22-inch desktop monitor. 

With those smaller screens comes less patience to read through the entire email. The latest read-time statistics show the average read time fell 4 seconds, from 13.4 seconds in 2018 to 9 seconds in 2022.

As an optimist, I would love to imagine that this shorter reading time ends in part from efficient email design, now that now we have evolved to mobile-friendly single-column layouts, larger images and shorter copy blocks. But a thumb swipe is simpler than a mouse scroll, so readers can also miss key points that don’t stand out.

This shorter attention span means you’ve gotten to be even choosier in the images and duplicate you choose to advertise a product or tell your story. Your design also has to work even harder to ensure that your readers can see your message as you intended, understand what you would like them to do and feel compelled to act.

The most typical design advice I see is to make emails skimmable. In other words, someone who opens your email (Victory No. 1) can scan it in two to 3 seconds and grasp what’s necessary (Victory No. 2). But skimmability doesn’t guarantee motion. 

That’s the cue for persuasive design. It can highlight key features, move the eye to essential information and make it as easy as possible to click, and keep the reader in the email longer and thus more prone to view your whole offers or other necessary information. 

Overt and covert persuasion in email design

Just as email copywriting can use each overt and covert tactics to influence customers to act, so can email designers employ each obvious and subtle ways to attract attention to key points in an email message. 

Overt persuasive design uses obvious elements like images, animation and layout to call attention to necessary content like the call to motion, price changes, offer copy and the like. It’s centered in the principle of cognitive ease, which is a measure of how easy it’s for our brains to soak up information.  

Covert persuasive design uses lots of the same elements as overt design but as subtle visual cues somewhat than attention-directing elements. This approach to design is more complex and calls on a set of psychological principles that motivate customers to act.

Overt and covert persuasive design concepts aren’t mutually exclusive. In fact, combining them in a single email can make the message more persuasive. You can reach two sorts of readers — those that are engaged and want just a fast nudge to act and others who need more information and a much bigger push. 

The examples below include a choice of tactics in persuasive design that decision upon cognitive biases to assist guide customers.

1. The Principle of Least Effort

This concept asserts that folks will naturally select the path of least resistance, which lets them achieve something they need by exerting the least effort. The move toward streamlining email content for scanning relies on this concept. 

Remember first that an email’s job isn’t to deliver the conversion inside the email. It sets the stage and persuades the reader to take the next step, which most frequently is to click to the website and convert there.

To accomplish that goal, a designer can use visual cues that guide the reader to the content they need and influence them to act.

The design can be wildly obvious, using arrows or other devices to direct attention to the profit or the CTA. But do your readers have to be hit over the head like that? 

An implicit (covert) design cue can be simpler by utilizing positioning and line of sight to direct the reader’s eyes to the objective. Instead of feeling pushed toward a call to motion, image or copy block, readers can feel as in the event that they’ve discovered it on their very own. That can be more persuasive than the equivalent of an email airhorn.

As you can see below, persuasive design doesn’t require a complete template redesign. An easy but tactical reworking of the copy from a regular left- or right-justified block or a centered block of text is all it takes to maintain the eye moving down.

Source: MailCharts

2. Persuasion tactics: Anchoring and visual cues

Anchoring is the human tendency to rely heavily on the first piece of data offered (the “anchor”) when making decisions. In other words, first impressions count. 

For example, the initial asking price for a retail item sets the value to make the sale price more appealing. This is a classic discounting tactic, but it surely’s handiest when the design incorporates other persuasive elements to spotlight the anchored text like those utilized in the email below.

Subject line. Fancy saving $219 in a click?

Sender. Depositphotos

Why it really works. The anchor text sets the value for the photo collection at $299. The layout positions the discounted total of $80 immediately next to the strike-out copy. Even the most math-impaired reader can see the discount is sizable. The subject line has already told them how much they’ll save, so that they open the email expecting to see a giant discount.

The highlighted percentage-off image above the copy reinforces the value expectation, but the email copy conveys the value if the image was blocked.

Other design elements focus attention and prompt customers to act. The pastel color blocks on either side of the white box with the offer copy are stylized human profiles, and so they are shown taking a look at the offer and the CTA button. 

Visual cues. As I discussed above, mixing overt and covert visual cues increases a design’s persuasive potential:

• Overt: The brilliant red reverse bar across the top of the email and the matching CTA button stand out against the blue background and pastel color blocks surrounding the white box containing the copy block. 

• Covert: Those pastel color blocks are stylized human faces, and so they’re taking a look at the copy. One pair of silhouettes lines up with the CTA button. 

Although it can be easy to go overboard with visual cues, a mix of compatible cues, akin to overt and covert elements, creates a stronger persuasion environment in the email while also not forcing the reader to think too hard to process the message.

Source: Author’s collection

3. Persuasion tactic: Cognitive ease

As I discussed above, cognitive ease measures how easily our brains can process information related to an idea or cue. Arrows are familiar directional devices, so we almost instinctively have a look at whatever the arrow is pointing at. It’s a standard visual cue.

We can also use covert cues to assist the brain grasp that something is essential. Surrounding a duplicate block with white space takes less processing than positioning a CTA button in a single color against a contrasting background color.

Subject line. Last likelihood! Take 70% off your purchase

Sender. Kate Spade

Why it really works. Oh, is Kate Spade having a giant sale? Why, yes! Yes, indeed! The design of this email leaves little question that considered one of the biggest clearance sales of the 12 months is going on. 

Kate Spade used variations on this straightforward black-gray-and-white design for all of the emails on this campaign. This email, sent on the last day of the sale, added one more visual cue to drive home the urgency of acting — the scrolling reverse bar across the top saying, “LAST DAY! LAST DAY!” 

That’s in case the big gray arrow pointing on to the offer with “This Way to Early Savings” wasn’t attention-getting enough. Too much? For a sale like this, it may be barely enough to get super-scrollers to stop and browse.

Source: eDataSource

4. Persuasion tactic: Hick’s Law / the Paradox of Choice 

Hick’s Law says the more options you give people, the more time they need to come to a decision and the harder that call becomes. Give people too many selections, and also you can bring on “decision paralysis” or “the paradox of alternative.” 

The evolution from multi-column email design to a single scrollable column helps alternatives stand out more on the screen. But for brands that pack their emails with offers, invitations, bargains, account info and the like, it distracts from the email’s primary goal.

Hick’s Law doesn’t prevent you from giving your customers options. But an email design that helps readers find key information quickly is crucial in case your emails normally mix multiple CTAs, product promotions, dynamic content modules, account holder information, a loyalty program or other elements. 

Testing can make it easier to learn where the variety of options suggestions over from “just the right balance” to “too many.”

Subject line. 100% FREE design sessions: Spots go fast!

Sender. Pottery Barn

Why it really works. Pottery Barn packs rather a lot into their broadcast email promotions. This message alone has eight different content modules not including the admin center in the footer.

But this email design gives each module a definite appearance, which differentiates it from the modules before or after it and keeps the overall effect from becoming overwhelming. 

Source: MailCharts

5.  Persuasion tactic: The von Restorff Effect

Also called the isolation effect, the Von Restorff Effect suggests that an item that stands out like a sore thumb is more prone to be remembered. For example, an individual examining a shopping list with one item highlighted in green would keep in mind that item higher than any of the others.

An obvious but effective solution to make the most of that is to use the principle to the call-to-action button. If the CTA button tells readers what you would like them to do, make the button easy to seek out and browse.  

You also could group a set of products with one in a unique color, shape, or size. Or, use a black-and-white image and colorize one part. The difference can be attention-getting enough to stop the scroll.

Subject line. Out for delivery: Forty Carrots frozen yogurt

Sender. Bloomingdale’s

Why it really works: What caught my eye first on this email was the subject line. “Out for delivery.” Wait, what? I live in a hot climate – why would I order fro-yo to go? Once I opened the email, I caught on. Well played, Bloomie’s.

From a design aspect, the von Restorff effect works best when used carefully. The novelty can wear off quickly. It works on this email partially because the seemingly strange white call to motion, bordered by a 1-point black rule, stands out against the colourful background. 

I may need tested a CTA button color that contrasted with either of the spoon colours, perhaps, but the white is more attention-getting than it will have been had it been a “ghost button,” white and black on a white background, or the same color as the background.

Source: eDataSource

6. Persuasion tactic: Rule of three 

The Rule of three says people remember things once they are available in threes. You know, like “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” “Lights, camera, motion,” or my favorite, “Test, test, test.”

In email design, the Rule of three allows your email message to incorporate enough variety to provide your customers viable options without overwhelming them with too many selections. (See Hick’s Law/the Paradox of Choice, above.)

Gift guides or similarly themed campaigns are a natural fit for the Rule of three. You want to provide customers multiple options for gifts, but in case you throw the whole lot into the email, your customers’ eyes could glaze over before they reach the end. Or your email could find yourself getting clipped in Gmail.

Sticking to the Rule 3, you possibly can add variety upon variety in groups of three — three categories, plus three products in each category, as in the email below. Or create a hero image with three products, then rotate in several versions of every product. The possibilities are countless, but since you do the whole lot in sets of three, you retain the options to a cognitively manageable number.

Subject line. Mother’s Day Gift Guide by Personality Type

Sender. Sabon

Why it really works: Threes are all over the place here. The hero image shows three products. Farther down are three content modules, each with a theme. Two of the three modules features three products each. Including the stand-alone product in Module 2, that’s 10 products total for the guide. 

The design results in a fourth module with a blue background, clearly designating the end of the three foremost products they’re suggesting for Mother. That module shows eight more products. That’s a complete of 18 individual products in a single email. In a plain layout, 18 products could induce MEGO (My Eyes Glaze Over). Here, the design packages them so well they can all stand out.

Source: MailCharts

Final thoughts: Test designs first and infrequently

The examples of persuasive design I’ve shared with you listed here are only a place to begin. They can encourage you to begin enthusiastic about redesigning your templates to make them more conversion-centered and persuasive. 

But before you launch any changes, test prototypes to learn whether your latest design helps customers understand and act in your message or simply confuses them. 

As with any design change, success is dependent upon many things, including the quirks of your individual audience. Although I really like the pyramid design I showed you in the Snowe email (example No. 1 above), I might test it against a unique design to learn whether it could influence my brand’s audience. Some people may be indifferent to it, especially in the event that they read their emails on a big screen that doesn’t force them to scroll up or all the way down to see the whole message.  

The same is true for the Kate Spade email in No. 5, the von Restorff effect. Does it drive more email readers to envision out the sale?

I hope these examples make it easier to understand why your email design have to be greater than something pretty or trendy. What parts of your email design are holding your customers back from converting?