How To Optimize Your Email Design Hero Sections To Demand Attention

Hey it's Max from The Inbox Newsletter.

You have about 1.5 seconds when someone opens your email before they decide to keep reading or swipe away.

That's why 75% of your design effort should go into the hero section alone.

It's the single most important real estate in any email you send.

Today, I'm breaking down what the best brands do differently with their hero sections…

How To Make A Hero Section POP

But before we make it pop, a couple of quick best practices to get the hero bones right:

• Headline, supporting copy, button, and a strong graphic all above the fold

• A clear button up top so every reader can click without scrolling, easiest click-rate win there is

• Keep it skimmable, one job, hand them the click

Now here's the actual secret sauce…

Making that hero POP 💥

A flat headline, one font, one size, one color, centered, gets read as a wall of text and skimmed right past.

You want visual energy that grabs the eye and forces a read…

Here are the tactical things to do to make this happen:

1. Use different text sizes and weights across different parts of the headline / body copy

2. Use different fonts for your headline/body copy… a bold display font for the punchy word, a clean one for the rest

3. Mix up layouts that aren’t just centered headline, body copy, button

4. Add fun visual elements coming from the sides or the top

5. Use a top call-out bar when relevant to put the offer, free shipping, or urgency right in their face the second they open

Here is an example of what this looks like in practice.

You see the difference?

Same copy but just a couple quick changes that grab your attention!

Here are more examples and use cases:

Mess around with it!

Go in order of this list and look at how you can transform your designs with a couple tweaks.

1. Use different text sizes and weights across different parts of the headline / body copy

2. Use different fonts for your headline/body copy… a bold display font for the punchy word, a clean one for the rest

3. Mix up layouts that aren’t just centered headline, body copy, button

4. Add fun visual elements coming from the sides or the top

5. Use a top call-out bar to put the offer, free shipping, or urgency right in their face the second they open

And THAT is how you FORCE your readers to read your emails 😛

PS 

We work with over 100 7 to 9-figure brands managing their email, SMS, and retention programs, and we've generated over $250 million from email for our brands.

I'm giving away 5 free audits per week, delivered by myself.

If you have any interest in having a team scale tf out of your retention program…

Book a call here and we can get you set up with an audit.

Email Inspiration Of The Day

Brand:
Hunt A Killer

Email Design:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1A7qOjIHTSSenfjJicVdiRf5gwclq-d6z/view?usp=sharing

Notes:
Love a good national day email. Hunt A Killer used National Best Friend Day to drop four "which one are you?" archetypes for your friend group. Turns the email into something you actually want to send to your bestie.

Reply to this email if you have any questions or further content you want covered.

Cheers,

Max Sturtevant

P.S
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