Today I’m bringing your attention to a really great example of egg-cellent food design (had to do it.) And giving you 3 things to incorporate today into the email newsletter design of your food business.
If you aren’t familiar with Good Eggs, they are a grocery and produce delivery service based out of San Francisco, CA. They caught my eye about a year ago when I happened to see that they were new to the grocery delivery scene. Too bad they don’t deliver to Oregon, but also, not really. Because they are only available in a certain area, I know that it means they are local, organic and fresh. So I say, keep doing what you are doing, Good Eggs! But that’s not the only reason why I’m writing about them today.
Good Eggs seriously knows how market their food biz with email design, and that’s what I wanted to tell you about. There’s some great email things they are doing that we can all learn from.
So here it is, 3 things Good Eggs does with their email newsletters, and how you can apply them to your own food biz today:
1. They take photos and center campaigns that feature an ingredient of the moment. They allow themselves to focus on one thing at a time in their photo, but also in their email content. Blueberries in blueberry season, rhubarb in spring, citrus in winter and so on. By focusing their content on very ingredient centric items that are hyper in season, they are narrowing in on their message and creating a greater impact. The reader doesn’t get overwhelmed. Instead they look at that one image of blueberries and think, “I’ve got to get my hands on some blueberries, now!” Which turns into them hitting that little shop now button or the call to action button below the image.
Screenshoot of email sent May 2016:
Good Eggs isn’t too pushy with their ideas of what you should do with those blueberries, they are just featuring the amazing berries themselves. This goes with Good Eggs core business: produce and grocery delivery. So, kinda makes sense that they would do that right?
Here’s another example, screenshot of email sent June 2016:
How to use this principle today: What is your core business? Are you making jam, marketing a home meal delivery company, or planning social media for restaurants? How can you narrow your photography to bring home the core of what you do?
There is a way you can make your photos simpler in content, but stronger in purpose. Just pick one main focus.
You don’t have to do this all the time, but try it for 50% of the photography you are using for your business.
2. They consistently send out email newsletters. I can always count on seeing a Good Eggs email in my inbox. I know that I will hear from them consistently every week. Because I have such a design crush on them, I love to get those emails and I open them. I don’t even live in an area where I can buy from Good Eggs (they only deliver to the San Francisco area) but I still love the brand…. now that’s good marketing!
How to use this principle today: Set up an email campaign schedule. It doesn’t have to be everyday, but try just one – two times per week. Or even less often. Create a schedule that you can keep up with. Try an easy (and free to start) tool for sending and managing email lists like Mail Chimp and start collecting emails (there are plugins with mail chimp you can use to add a subscribe button to your website or blog). Email lists are a gold mine for your business! The people who are willing to give you there email are saying “Here I am, please market to me” and the door is open into their inbox. You can use their email to send updates about your business, sell new products, and strengthen the relationship between your customers and your brand. Email marketing is HUGE.
Consistency breeds trust.
If you only have time to do ONE thing in this post, set up an email newsletter for your business and start using it. One of my favorite business ladies, Emily Thompson from Being Boss and Indie Shopography says: “Consistency breeds trust.” So use those emails and use them in a consistent way, and you will breed trust among your customers. More trust = more willing to buy your product.
3. They use other brand elements to bring some variety and fun into their brand. They use illustrations, animated gifs, and also other photography layouts (besides the single ingredient focus) to keep things from getting stale. Some of my favorite illustrations are below.
Here’s another great example, screenshot from email sent May 2016:
And here’s another great one, screenshot of an illustration from an email sent April 2016
If you are a designer, you can draw them yourself. Just be careful about using too many illustration styles and aim to narrow in on one style that fits with your brand (i.e.: flat, gradients, line drawings, painted brush strokes) and use that style in a consistent way. Icons can work too! They are, after all, simplified and instructional “mini” illustrations.
How to use this principle today: There are tons of places to get quality illustrations and icons. You can add these in as a featured image on your website, use them in some of those email newsletters you better start creating, or post on social media for a fun variation (hey, not everything on instagram has to be a photo!)
I am willing to bet that if you take a few minutes to think about other brand elements (or even review an existing brand guidelines doc for your company) you can think of some visual elements that makes sense. Start with either illustrations or icons.
Write down some of your brands core values and think creatively about what could be used to visually represent that.
Google your words for inspiration. Search for a few icon sets and illustrations that you can purchase. Here’s some of my favorite resources that are not too expensive:
Greedeals – I sometimes purchase illustrations from Greedeals. They also have freebies available for download.
Creative Market – great for icons and illustrations. I’ve also purchased blog themes here. If you sign up for their email list you get links to their monthly free resources available for download too.
Shutterstock – good for icon sets as well as illustration and photos
Design Cuts – sign up for their mailing list and you will get notified of all their deals. They are often $29 bucks for huge amounts of design and art resources you can download and use.
If you can’t find anything here, contact an illustrator or graphic designer and see if they can create some custom illustrations for you.
Well that wraps it up! I hope you check out the great design that is happening over at Good Eggs and be inspired to do one of these 3 things that they are doing so, so right. They have a great instagram too!
All images and illustrations from Good Eggs sent to me via email subscription. I didn’t design them, but they sure are cool. This post was not promoted or sponsored by Good Eggs and I am receiving no compensation for writing it. My goal is to to deliver the best content I can and give real world examples of great design in the food world.