Top 20 Professional Email Templates from September

It’s the end of another month, and time for our round up of the top 20 professional email templates we’ve seen in September. The templates below have caught out eyes for the reasons explained, and we hope they’ll give you inspiration when building your own email marketing campaigns, or looking for a great email structure. The below campaigns are listed in alphabetical order,

1. Asda

Emails from Asda usually follow this format. Their colour theme is proficient throughout, and their emails are split up into different areas designated by topic. I have picked this email for September’s email template list due to their retargeting efforts.

At the top of the template, the red box is prompting me to shop online. I have set up an online account, but haven’t used it properly yet. This type of targeting, via behaviour, is a great way to engage your contacts if they aren’t taking your required actions.

2. Boden

This email from Boden includes a GIF. The front doors open and close and include an offer behind each one. The offer was time restricted, and when I returned to the email a few days later, the doors opened and told me that id missed my chance. This is a great way of introducing urgency into your contacts. Make them think that they are missing out if they don’t take advantage of the offer right here and now.

3. The Body Shop

We included this template on our Twitter feed this week, and we asked our followers their opinions of the template, and we discovered the template’s designer Numan. Hi Numan!

I really like the general theme of this email. The bee is a fantastic way of encouraging the contact to read on, and scroll down. The imagery, the products and the social integration at the bottom of this template are fantastic. The bright call to actions really catch your eye.

4. Burberry

This email caught my eye. Burberry used a countdown clock in their email, instilling urgency into the contact. The clock counted down to the live launch of the Burberry catwalk show. Unfortunately this wasn’t made clear if the catwalk could be watched online, or if you needed to be in London to view the show.

The only problem with a countdown clock is any late arrivals to the party. If I had picked up this email 4 hours and 16 minutes later, I would’ve completely missed the show, and the countdown clock would display as zeros – but the contact may be left confused.

5. Café Rouge

Whilst this template is very image intensive, I picked it for this post as it gets straight to the point. The large percentage off button catches your eye, the food looks yummy, and the call to action is singular and you don’t want to click anywhere else.

6. Dorothy Perkins

Retail emails tend to follow the same conventions, for example, look at the New Look email, and look back at this one from Dorothy Perkins. The call to actions, the placement of the products, and the style of text is very similar. Some marketers will look at this and think ‘what’s the point of being the same as someone else?’ but if these templates convert, then they’re doing their job. The product placement on the white background really allows you to view the product, and understand how it could fit in your wardrobe. I especially like the ‘How to style it’ section which helps contacts put an outfit together.

7. Estee Lauder

Estee Lauder’s products are clean and slick and their emails represent that too. The call to actions are very small, and don’t particularly stand out, but the images are clickable too, and modern email contacts are savvy enough to understand to click the image if they want to know more.

Estee Lauder could’ve made the offer at the bottom more prominent in order to encourage more contacts to click.

8. French Connection

Again, back to the point of retail emails looks similar. Compare this to the Dorothy Perkins and the New Look template. This email is simple, and straight the point. If only the call to actions were brighter, then they would really pop from the page.

9. Giraffe

This email may be one of the more simpler templates this month. But I have picked it for a number of reasons: Giraffe have used personalisation within this template, they’ve included a good balance of text and imagery and the imagery and large text appears above the fold. The idea behind inviting all contacts to a quiz night is a great idea – but Giraffe could’ve gone one step further and segmented their contacts via location to send only the relevant information to the correct people, instead of a long list that won’t be relevant to a good chunk of people.

10. IEscape

When it comes to travel and tourism emails, imagery plays a huge part in selling the holiday before the contact has even read the emails. As you can see from this email, the images are beautiful and aim to trigger emotions before you’ve read the text. The call to actions under the images are not the brightest and would catch the eye if they were in button format, or another colour.

11. Imagination Soup

Again, the imagery to text ratio is skewed in this email template. There should be around 60% text and 40% images in order to pass the inbox spam filters. However, the format, i.e. transferring a story into a real life Halloween costume to tug at the heartstrings of the parents who will be buying the costumes. Imagination Soup have tried to cram a lot of info into this template, and users may switch off half way down. Plus points: informing the contact of the next email that is due to arrive.

12. John Lewis

I’m a big fan of themed emails, and this one ticks my boxes. This campaign was sent at the start of the month, around the time when the Great British Bake Off series was in full flow. This TV series has encouraged more people to start baking, according to the British press, and this email from British retailer John Lewis is jumping on the back of its success. The call to actions would have looked fantastic if they were I the blue colour used at the top of the email, and would’ve stood out more. And of course, John Lewis have used the opportunity, and included work wear to target their readership.

13. Look

Look is a UK magazine, and Look Beauty is their makeup store. This email is themed (it’s a yes from me), is simple enough to catch the eye without being overwhelming, and follows their brand. The call to action would have a hard job of standing out amongst all those colours, but the price (£2.50!!) gets me clicking.

14. Mac

This email is not the most clean cut in the world, but it gets users clicking through. The imagery reminds me of a video, and combined with the text and the play button, the users understands what they are clicking and what they will see when they land on the next page. It’s a great use of multimedia, but I wish Mac had included social sharing links, or some form of social interaction, i.e. ‘Share this on Twitter’, or ‘Follow us for the latest makeup tutorials’.

15. New Look

I have pinpointed New Look’s email templates in previous posts for their fantastic social interaction in their email campaigns. And for this same reason, New Look have made it into this month’s post. The hashtag encourages users to share content, whilst promoting New Look’s products.

16. Paperchase

This email from Paperchase is timely and relevant as it was sent at the start of September – when the majority of school pupils and students return for another year. Again, the email is themed, but they have also planted the Christmas ‘seed’ as they have featured a small segment dedicated to the holiday collection.

17. Party Pieces

As to be expected, Halloween emails are arriving thick and fast, and this email from Party Pieces is right on the ball. Whilst there is a lot to look at in this email, the template has been segmented into various sections for easy reading. Again, I really like the Christmas sneak peek in the bottom left. The green call to actions match the Halloween ‘theme’ and the social icons could be ‘prettier’ and prompt further interaction.

18. Sainsburys

A lot of supermarket emails can be cluttered and don’t seem to have a point, but I really liked this email from Sainsbury’s. The fish finger sandwich (what a classic) catches the reader’s eye, and makes you want to scroll down below the fold. If only the imagery underneath was as slick and interesting as the butty.

19. Topshop

Topshop split their email campaigns into a variety of topics, and this one is Style Notes. Style Notes don’t tend to ‘sell’ as hard as other Topshop campaigns, instead they piece outfits together, and add value to contacts in a different way. The content is timely; London Fashion Week was well underway when this campaign was sent, but the call to actions could’ve been brighter and stands out more.

20. Urban Outfitters

There is usually A LOT of information and products crammed into an Urban Outfitters email template. I have picked this one as the sections break the template up nicely, whilst the colours also help the eye take notice of the content. The coloured section, the black and white, and the coloured sections help the contact take in the information. The templates are always ‘on brand’ and Urban Outfitters do a really good job of ensuring all outbound communication matches their style book.

See which brands were included in our top 20 professional email templates from August here.