The design of your email is one of the most important elements of email campaigns and getting it wrong can make or break your campaign. One crucial element that often gets overlooked is the choice of fonts and how they are used within the detail. While images can be eye-catching, relying solely on them can lead to issues. Instead, using carefully selected fonts within your email design can enhance readability, ensure accessibility, and improve the overall user experience.
Why Fonts Matter in Email Design
- Readability: Fonts enhance readability, making your content more accessible. Unlike images, text-based content can be responsive so it scales better on various devices, ensuring your message is clear and legible on desktops, tablets, and mobile devices.
- Loading Speed: Emails heavy on images can be slow to load, especially on slower internet connections. Using text helps your emails load faster, reducing the chances of your audience losing interest before they even see your content.
- Accessibility: Not all email clients automatically download images, and some users disable image loading to save data or improve security. If your email is image-heavy, a significant portion of your audience might miss out on your message. Text and the addition of correct alt tags on images ensure that your key information is always visible.
- SEO and Spam Filters: Search engines and spam filters can read text but not images. Text-based content helps improve your email’s deliverability and ensures it reaches your audience’s inbox rather than getting caught in spam filters.
Web-Safe Fonts
Using web-safe fonts whilst remaining on brand can Klaviyo offers a variety of fonts that can be easily integrated into your email designs. These fonts are web-safe, meaning they are universally supported across different email clients and devices, ensuring a consistent appearance for your audience. Some of the most popular options include:
- Arial: A clean and modern sans-serif font, ideal for a minimalist and professional look.
- Georgia: A serif font with a classic and elegant feel, perfect for luxury brands.
- Helvetica: A widely-used sans-serif font known for its simplicity and readability.
- Times New Roman: A traditional serif font that conveys sophistication and reliability.
- Verdana: A sans-serif font designed for clarity and ease of reading on screens.
- Courier New: A monospaced font that gives a typewriter-like, vintage appearance.
Additionally, Klaviyo supports other standard web-safe fonts:
- Comic Sans MS: A casual, playful font often used for informal and fun communications.
- Impact: A bold, attention-grabbing font suitable for headings and promotions.
- Trebuchet MS: A humanist sans-serif font that balances modernity with readability.
- Lucida Console: Another monospaced font that is clean and easily legible.
- Palatino: A serif font known for its graceful and refined design.
- Tahoma: A sans-serif font that offers a modern and straightforward look.
By using these web-safe fonts, you can ensure that your email campaigns maintain a professional and consistent appearance, no matter which device or email client your audience uses.
These fonts are web-safe, meaning they are universally supported across different email clients and devices, ensuring a consistent appearance for your audience.
Custom Fonts in Klaviyo
For brands looking to maintain a unique and consistent visual identity, Klaviyo also allows the use of custom fonts. This feature is perfect for luxury and designer fashion brands that have specific branding guidelines. However, using custom fonts requires some technical know-how, as you’ll need to upload the font file and include the necessary CSS in your email template.
The Importance of Fallback Fonts
While custom fonts can add a unique touch to your emails, it’s essential to include fallback fonts in your design. Fallback fonts are standard fonts that will be used if the custom font fails to load. This ensures that your email remains visually appealing and readable even if the custom font isn’t supported by the recipient’s email client.
Incorporating fonts into your email design rather than relying solely on images can significantly enhance the effectiveness of your campaigns. By improving readability, ensuring faster load times, maintaining accessibility, and avoiding spam filters, text-based emails can deliver a more engaging and reliable experience for your audience. With Klaviyo’s extensive font options and the ability to upload custom fonts, you can maintain your brand’s unique style while ensuring that your emails look great and perform well.
Ready to elevate your email campaigns? Get in touch today for a Klaviyo Audit or a refresh of your email designs.
