The number of choices can be overwhelming, but when selecting the right font for your email communications, it’s wise to avoid the fancy scripts to make sure your message is well received. Most email clients take the guesswork out of this choice by offering a default font like Helvetica and Arial for each new email you compose, but even these may not be the best selections for your message. The average American spends about 30% of their day reading emails, this doesn’t include recreational e-reading and web surfing which raises that number closer to 50%. This excessive screen usage can lead to eye fatigue and can cause your email communication to be lost in translation when the font is difficult to read and decipher.
“When focusing your efforts to increase email open rates remember, an open email with an illegible message isn’t any more effective than an email left unread.”
Apple Mail defaults to the Helvetica font, the reigning trendy choice most brands use. In small doses, Helvetica offers a clean, neutral design but the spacing of the letters isn’t consistent. In longer documents Helvetica can be difficult to read and easy to misinterpret. The exact mirror image of the letters like b and d plays tricks on the overused eye and could turn your target off of reading your message in its entirety. When focusing your efforts to increase email open rates remember, an open email with an illegible message isn’t any more effective than an email left unread.
Other email clients like Gmail and Outlook use similar default fonts from the san serif font family. These fonts present more effectively on low-resolution screens because they lack the end stroke details. Now that higher-resolution is becoming more common for commercial and personal use, the options for fonts to use in your email have become significantly more diverse but what font is the best choice for email?
Obviously, readability is key when selecting a font for your email. The shape and spacing of the letters must all be taken into consideration when working to find the most legible font. You can carefully examine each font option in your toolbox, and spend valuable time and marketing capital choosing the most reader-friendly typeface, or you could take these useful suggestions to save you the trouble. Georgia, a serif font, is an excellent alternative for Helvetica and Arial. The open shapes of the lettering create an easier reading experience and are easier on the eyes. Verdana is also a great choice for your emails. This font has even spacing between lettering that allows the eye to move more swiftly and effectively over your message. Google’s Gmail email client offers both of these options for composing emails and users can customize the width of the letters to suit their needs. Apple Mail has an even wider font selection.
“Getting recipients to open emails is already difficult enough, don’t let a poor font choice stand in the way of your conversions.”
Until our email clients catch up to the valuable information we have learned about how important font choices are to your email marketing efforts; you can change your email defaults to Georgia, Verdana or even Calibri. Getting recipients to open emails is already difficult enough, don’t let a poor font choice stand in the way of your conversions.