First, I can imagine that some believe sending an HTML newsletter is an immediate turn-off due to so many bad html email newsletters. Understandable. But compare the two emails illustrated here, both of which are mostly text, and decide what would be more alluring and pleasant to read. One is more likely to be read in the first place.

You don't need flashy to make an email more interesting, but well formatted isn't a turn-off for anyone. When sending a sequence of emails within a campaign, a combination of simply formatted emails, along with more snazzy email layouts, would be refreshing if you carry a few consistent design elements and colors across all email styles. So now that we've quickly addressed the issue of the "non-email-newsletter newsletter" let's address emails with intensive design considerations.

Many emails come from an existing design or brand. One of the most popular is to remake your website into an email newsletter, especially a new or newly redesigned website. This idea is great for many reasons, just don't try to put your entire website design into the much smaller format of an email newsletter.

If you're trying to rework a website design for your email newsletter, you want just the essential look and feel of your website layout reflected within the newsletter. Take the strongest design elements and the prominent colors from your website and rework them into your email.

Use the website buttons in your newsletter, but only use basic navigation. Your email header should be a variation of your website header, again using prominient colors and design elements. You will probably need to structure your email layout differently from your website layout to accommodate for the more vertical format of an email.

The type of email newsletter, too, will affect the email design, whether a press-release, news-style, postcard, or announcement. So keep in mind a one- or two-column layout and which would be best to suit your needs. Not often, but on occasion, a three-column layout may be best, especially for a catalog style newsletter.

If you need to send a sequence of various email styles within a single campaign, you will need to repeat the process of reformatting your existing design elements to match each email style. As we mentioned earlier, using a combination of simple email formats with just a few consistent design elements along with more flashy emails works well. So an announcment about a product launch could be more easily accessible and quickly read if kept simple with just a few consistent design elements; and then a promotional email could accomodate more of the existing design elements to support one large, short message, as an example, "Sale Now!" or "Race Day This Weekend!". This process is similar to what you may do when redesigning your brand over several types of printed material, say, from an annual report, to a brochure, to an advertisement.

When your email newsletters are ready they should have the overall look and feel of the existing design or brand you're are trying to emulate. Having consistent design elements and colors helps your readers immediately recognize you within their inbox.

But through this process of reworking your brand into an email newsletter, keep in mind your primary goal - your message, it should always be obvious. While I've suggested that a consistent look helps with reader recognition, don't keep 'em guessing as to the message of each newsletter. Take a quick look at your email newsletter when testing and ask yourself, what does it look like I am asking my reader to do? Your reader should know what they should be doing or reading without having to see the entire newsletter design and layout.