3 Tips for Designing the Best Brand Collaboration Emails

Collaboration is a good thing. When two brands come together, they each benefit in plenty of ways. There's the synergy of working together, the fun of creating something you couldn't or wouldn't have alone, and the added exposure of accessing each other's audiences. Hopefully, a bump in sales is a benefit, too. So it's no surprise we see tons of brand collaboration emails in our inbox. Today, we'll look at some stellar examples and offer design tips for how to make your own!

Tip #1: Call out the collaborators immediately

Share the spotlight! List the brands you're featuring at the tippy top of your email, and in your subject line, too. One collaboration email from a jewelry brand announcing its partnership with another company names both brands at the very top of the email and in the subject line itself, a trend that's almost ubiquitous in collaboration emails. Many use images of the brand logos for added recognition and clarity, since our brains process images more quickly than words. Another collaboration email, though entirely image-based, offers inspiration through its design choices: an ultra-narrow body width that's easy to read, generous line height and line breaks for an airy, spacious feel, and a striking hero image with white text overlaid on top. Incorporating live text and making the CTA button pop would strengthen it further.

Tip #2: Structure the email like a product launch

A collaboration is a special event! Treat it like one by designing the email like you would a product launch email. Unveil the collaboration with vibrant images and festive language; your collab is a big deal. One collaboration email reads like a true product launch, with images carefully selected to show off the product, ending with a quote from a product development manager instead of a conventional piece of user-generated content, worth A/B testing to see how it performs. Another uses alternating bold colors in each module, skipping brand logos at the top in favor of live text layered atop the image or a matching HTML background color, with just one image per module so the reader can focus on one exciting characteristic at a time.

Tip #3: Don't be shy about making emails look "off brand"

One way to catch readers' attention when they open a collaboration email is to depart boldly from your usual brand standards. After all, a brand collaboration email isn't all about you, it's about your partner brand too, and about the new brand image you're creating together. One meal-kit brand known for a very blue palette incorporated a bold red banner and pink background for a celebrity collaboration, immediately signaling to readers that something different and special was happening. Another shoe brand went softer and more feminine than its typical look for a collaboration, using pale pink tones and "hand-written" illustrations for a sweet, stand-out message, paired with brand logos at the top and a combination of product stills and modeled images.

Create your own brand collaboration emails

Is a collaboration in your future? Design one-of-a-kind brand collaboration emails with an editor that's easy to use and offers plenty of options for fine-tuning and customizing templates.