July 17th is World Emoji Day! In honor of this all-important holiday, we’re digging into the age-old question of how to use emojis in emails. Emojis engage readers and can add playfulness and visual excitement into your email marketing. It is also easier than ever to implement emojis into your emails with the use of tools like Quicktools.Let's take a look at how some brands are upping their emoji game.
Emojis engage readers and can add playfulness and visual excitement into your email marketing.
Why use emojis in email marketing?
Believe it or not, emojis in professional emails have a lot of benefits. Here are a few key things emojis can do to help your marketing efforts.
Clarify your tone
If a text message is all words and no emojis, it can be interpreted in many different ways. Was the sender angry, happy or somewhere in-between? Without emojis, it can be hard to tell. And the same principle applies when it comes to marketing emails. We’re used to adding emojis to our daily written communication to convey tone. Use emojis effectively in your email marketing and you can make sure your message sounds the right way in your reader's head.
Engage readers emotionally
Just as emojis can help convey your tone, they can also elicit an emotional response. There's no better way to forge a real connection with your audience than through emotional engagement. Not to mention, emojis are just plain fun!
Boost engagement
Still not sold on the power of emojis in emails? Take a look at these stats. More than 50% of brands saw an increase in email opens when subject lines included emojis. 63% of people think positive emoji use makes you more credible. And in one study, emojis increased click-through rate by 93%. Those kinds of results speak for themselves!Before we dive into some emoji marketing examples, let’s take a look at some general emoji best practices for email marketing.
Emoji best practices for email marketing
Follow these do’s and don’ts to use emojis as effectively as possible for your brand.
Don’t replace words with emojis
While images are a great way to communicate, don’t use them to replace specific words. Let emojis come at the end of a sentence to help solidify your tone rather than making your customers read only hieroglyphics.
Don’t use emojis in serious emails
Serious emails, such as messages about current events or company updates, generally aren’t the time or place for emojis. Save emojis for lighthearted messages — such as seasonal promotion emails, event reminders or discounts and promotions.
Don’t use too many emojis
While emojis are fun, don’t overdo it! Stuffing your email with emojis can look unprofessional and distract readers from the point of the message. Instead, select a few carefully-chosen emojis to strategically place throughout your email. That’s what Black Girl Sunscreen does here, ending its welcome email with a cheerful sunshine emoji to establish its brand personality. There’s only one emoji in the body of the email, but that’s enough!Subject line: Welcome to Black Girl Sunscreen ☀️?
Do be aware of double meanings
Many emojis have double meanings. The last thing you want is to be unintentionally inappropriate in your brand’s marketing emails. If you aren’t sure about the emojis you’re planning to use, run a quick Google search for “emoji double meanings” to make sure your email stays G-rated.
Do test emoji emails
Emojis render differently depending on the email client and device your reader is using. Gmail always displays emojis, but things can get dicey with other operating systems. Test your emails before sending to figure out how the emojis will show up.
Do use relevant emojis
Don’t throw in any emoji you can think of just because you can — make sure you’re only selecting emojis that are actually relevant to your business and what you’re saying in that particular email. You might also try choosing one or two emojis that are a perfect fit for your brand and using those emojis in all of your brand communications across different social media channels. For Partake Cookies, what could be better than the chocolate chip cookie emoji used in this email’s subject line?Subject line: Welcome to Partake ?
So how can you start sprinkling in emojis while staying on-brand and avoiding going overboard? Let's take a look at some examples!
Email subject lines with emojis
Emoji subject lines stand out better in an inbox and encourage the reader to click. Compare the difference here between subject lines with emojis…
… and subject lines without.
Which ones would you rather click on? We agree! The emails that include emojis are far more eye-catching. And emails with emoji subject lines do more than simply draw the eye: These subject lines also add extra personality to your brand voice and save you valuable space.
Emojis in email anchor text
Anchor text is the highlighted text readers click on to navigate a long email. It can also be a great place for emojis in your email marketing. In this AJ&Smart email, anchor link emojis draw the eye and make the hyperlinks easily clickable:
Emojis in email footer
This Hubspot emoji email example got our heart-eyes going. By using emojis to gain reader feedback — a footer survey email of sorts — they invite reader participation and directly prompt readers to emotionally engage. Without these emojis, this feedback area would have likely gone unnoticed.
Emojis within email content
In emails that are text-heavy, emojis are an excellent tool to break up the text and make the email more readable. This email newsletter from Finimize uses emojis to make the content more scannable. Each section starts with an emoji, such as a book for “What we’re reading” and a heart for “Share with a friend.” You’ll also see emojis scattered throughout the body text denoting places to ask a question and join the conversation. And this message wraps up with a cute winking emoji in the footer, too!
Wrap-up: Emoji email templates
No matter how or why you're incorporating emojis into your email, the BEE email editor has you covered! Add emojis into any one of hundreds of responsive HTML email templates using the BEE editor, or get creative and easily build an email from scratch.We also have a few specific templates created for World Emoji Day — like this Happy Emoji Day Sale message created by Yuliana Pandelieva. Use these emoji email templates to celebrate World Emoji Day in style!
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