Marketers are increasingly turning to email newsletters as one part of their content strategy. While newsletters are valuable tools, there’s one complication many brands are overlooking, which is the need to create responsive infographics for their email newsletters.
Responsive design began picking up steam in the early part of the 2010s, thanks largely to the advent of smartphones, which introduced a degree of chaos into web design.
Web developers and graphic designers needed a way to ensure their work would be readable regardless of the device being used by the consumer. With responsive design, elements change based on the user’s device, including image sizes and layouts.
This image comparing the variety of screen resolutions and sizes on popular types of devices illustrates the point. What works on a horizontal laptop screen doesn’t translate perfectly to a vertical mobile device.
So, if you’re looking to harness the power of infographics for your email newsletters, we’ll show you why it’s vital to consider the need for responsive design. Plus, we’ll offer our favorite tips for creating responsive email infographics, which can be made in minutes with Venngage’s Newsletter Creator.
Click to jump ahead:
- What is the best format for infographic emails?
- What is the best size for email infographics?
- 6 tips for creating responsive infographics
- Infographic newsletter templates and examples
- Infographic email template
- Responsive email infographic examples
- HTML email infographic examples
- Email sales infographic examples
- Email infographic FAQ
What is the best format for infographic emails?
The short answer to this question is that the best format for infographic emails is whichever format supports your story. Infographic emails can take on pretty much as many forms as there are types of infographics.
Infographic emails can tell your brand’s history, they can spotlight the effectiveness of your product, and they can empower readers with information. Infographic emails can come in the form of a single image, or they can be developed dynamically using HTML.
Venngage’s Newsletter Design allows you to easily create a newsletter, export it as an HTML file and import it to your email clients like Mailchimp or Outlook, for a clickable email campaign:
Related: How to Create a Newsletter From Scratch [Templates Included]
What is the best size for email infographics?
According to Perficient’s analysis of Google data for 2020, nearly two-thirds of visits to websites in the U.S. and across the world are on mobile devices. A Litmus survey from 2018 claimed that 46% of all emails were opened on mobile, which means it’s safe to assume that at least half of your email newsletter recipients are viewing your content on a smartphone.
There’s no one screen size that will cover every person reading your email newsletter. Read on for our tips, but the best piece of advice we can give you is that if you can create your email infographic in just one size, make it for mobile.
6 tips for creating responsive infographics
Whether you use Venngage’s Newsletter Design or another email infographic design tool, there are some tips that will help ensure the infographics you’re using in your email newsletter can easily be slotted into a responsive design.
1. Go mobile-first
We already gave you this tip, but it is worth repeating: If you have time to make only one infographic for your email newsletter, design it for mobile. Anything that looks good on a mobile screen will also look good on a desktop or laptop computer.
Ideally, you would make multiple versions using Venngage’s Newsletter Creator, which lets you quickly resize and modify designs.
2. Get to know your users
Depending on the email or newsletter client you’re using, you can get to know your recipients in depth. While that’s great for ensuring you’re creating content they’ll like, it also has technical benefits, like telling you exactly what devices they are using.
Develop an incredibly detailed picture of your email subscribers and tailor not just the content of your email marketing infographics but also the delivery system to them.
3. Keep it simple
Regardless of whether you’re designing for smartphones, laptops, desktops or tablets, infographics in email newsletters are at their best when they are simple. Avoid trying to cram too many things into your email newsletter infographic.
For example, this email infographic contains just the key points of what employees need to pay attention to when returning to work:
4. Keep it small (text, that is)
A good rule of thumb on text sizes for responsive email infographics is to make sure there’s no text smaller than 16 pts. But remember that some fonts appear lighter, thinner and smaller than others of the same size.
It’s good to get into the habit of zooming in and out to emulate different screen sizes, especially if you’re creating just one version.
5. Test in multiple environments
In addition to the low-tech version of just using your design tool’s zoom function, before you send your email to your subscriber list, test it on multiple devices, including iPhone, Android, multiple computer monitor sizes and in multiple browsers or email clients.
If you’re creating multiple versions, be sure that they all look exactly the way you want them to.
6. But don’t go overboard
It’s typically not necessary to send a test of your email newsletter to every person at your company, your neighbor and their cousin. Having a few devices on hand, including a tablet, smartphone and computer, should be more than sufficient for ensuring your responsive infographics will look beautiful in your email newsletter.
Infographic newsletter templates and examples
Now that you understand some basic tricks to use when designing responsive infographics for your email newsletters, let’s take a look at some inspiration that may spark your next great email infographic idea.
Email infographic newsletters should contain limited text, as this one does, giving readers only what they need. They can also support many phases of the buyer or user journey. In this case, this template is ideal for a newly registered customer or client.
Email newsletter infographics can also keep users up-to-date about upcoming events like the upper portion of this email infographic does. While the bottom expands on a seasonal awareness campaign, it’s easy to envision a version that focuses only on the upcoming events.
Email newsletter infographics are useful for many types of organizations, and a template like this one is ideal for organizations that have access to high-quality photographs of members, employees or customers.
Use an email newsletter infographic to keep your users up to date about feature rollouts or major changes they’ll see when they interact with your company. This example would be a perfect way to encourage users to click through to a tutorial or how-to video that helps them understand changes.
This simple email newsletter infographic is a perfect template for occasions when your company needs to thank customers, subscribers, donors or others. The template can be easily customized with a new illustration or even an image of the people helped by the generosity of your subscribers.
An email newsletter infographic can also help you display your thought leadership and industry authority by offering pro tips along with keeping recipients updated about events.
Using your email newsletters to provide pro tip infographics that capitalize on trends of cultural events is an especially smart way to boost open rates and encourage engagement.
Infographic email template
Once you’ve landed on an infographic email format that works for your purposes, it’s easy to update them for each new campaign or buyer segment.
Infographic emails can even be used for internal purposes as in this example that was designed to keep employees informed during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. But an internal email infographic could remind workers of important upcoming dates or it could encourage them to use all of their vacation time.
This is an example of an infographic email used for external communications. Whether they’re internal or external, email infographics can be quickly and easily customized for your brand with Venngage’s My Brand Kit, which lets you ensure all infographic emails conform to colors, fonts and icon styles.
Infographics used in emails don’t have to take up the entire screen. Use an infographic-style banner like this one to give readers a taste (pun intended) of your weekly or monthly newsletter.
Responsive email infographic examples
Let’s take a look at how some email infographics take advantage of the tips we mentioned earlier so they can work in responsive emails.
This vertical format could easily become optimized for desktop or laptop viewing thanks to the use of simple elements. The visuals consist of just three basic parts, and two of them are photographs. If you’re using real images, be sure they are high resolution so they don’t become distorted when they’re scaled up or down.
This example makes excellent use of the infographic format thanks to the text that’s big enough that mobile users won’t have to zoom in to read the content.
HTML email infographics
While email infographics can often be created as one large image, it’s also possible to make them using HTML. In fact, this is one of the newest features we’re working on, so stay tuned for more. But just like email infographics that consist of one image, HTML email infographics can come in many forms and serve many purposes.
They can help you update subscribers on major personnel changes or take them through the background of decision-making processes.
And they are highly effective in a templated format that allows you to refresh the content, images and more with every installment.
Email sales infographics
Infographics can also support your sales team, and they can be easily updated seasonally or with new promotional campaigns.
This email sales infographic, for example, incentivizes respondents to fill out a survey by offering them a promotional code in exchange.
Email infographic FAQs
Do you have more questions about email infographics? We’ve got answers.
1. How do I email infographics from Venngage?
With Venngage, you can download your infographic and add it to your newsletter:
You can also export infographics directly in HTML format to be used with your email service providers like Mailchimp or Outlook. All your hyperlinks will be clickable that way.
2. How do I email a long infographic?
Depending on your email client, sending your subscribers a long infographic newsletter is as easy as inserting it into the body of the message. However, keep in mind some recipients may have limitations on the file size their email program will allow them to read.
In most cases, that limit is 10MB, which is quite large for an infographic, so chances are you’ll be in good shape, but it’s something to keep in mind. That’s just one more reason to be brief with your text and keep things simple.
3. How do I make an email infographic?
Whether you use Venngage or another tool, the exact steps to make an email infographic will depend on your email client and how you’ll be sending it out.
But by following the tips we laid out earlier—keep it simple, make the text large, consider making multiple versions for responsive design—the process for making an email infographic is like making any other infographic. Offer your readers value and they’ll appreciate it.
In summary: Email newsletters and infographics make a lovely couple, but thanks to the proliferation of mobile devices, creating a responsive design for your email infographic is essential
Email infographic newsletters can take pretty much any form, as we’ve seen, but the reality of responsive design is that you need to make them take on more than one form, as they get scaled up or down depending on screen size.
That can feel intimidating, but it should be no trouble for a content marketer who is experienced and adept at putting themselves in the shoes of their reader. After all, what responsive email infographic design really means is taking your audience into account before you push send.
You can start creating your own email infographic for your newsletters for free with Venngage’s Newsletter Design.