10 Questions to Consider When Writing an Email Design Brief

Want to impress your client with a stunning email? Start with a great email design brief! The design phase is a critical step in the email production process for many digital marketing agencies. It's when your email takes shape visually for the first time. According to Litmus, out of all production tasks, the majority of senders spend the most time in the email design phase. The email production process typically involves:

1. Conceptualizing the email campaign
2. Developing content (copy and visual assets, like original photography)
3. Designing emails (this is our focus today)
4. Developing emails
5. Testing, QA, and final approvals
6. Sending!

A good email design brief ensures that you have a smooth transition from steps 1 and 2 to step 3. You need to both meet your client's expectations and communicate with your designer and design team. Let's look at 10 fundamental, albeit sometimes overlooked, questions that your design brief needs to answer to set your designer up for success.

What a good email design brief should accomplish

A good brief provides a design roadmap without being prescriptive. It should give the designer some context about the client and the scope of the project, as well as critical technical details like HTML color codes and your brand's font styles. Your brief should be clear and concise — don't make it a whole separate project just to read the brief!

1. Who is the client?

Let's start with the basics. Provide the client's name and any relevant information, like if you've worked with the client before. In a few sentences, let the designer know the client's mission and work, including why they're asking for the work.

2. What's a quick description of the project and its primary purpose?

Explain why you're sending this email. What are you hoping to achieve? What's the primary call to action?

3. What's the scope of the project?

Is the email in question part of a larger email campaign — and also part of a larger marketing campaign? Be clear about how this email figures into a larger project. Don't leave the designer working in a silo.

4. What does success look like, and how will it be measured?

Will success be measured by the number of opens, click-throughs, social shares, or by another metric? Indicate typical engagement rates for previous email campaigns.

5. Who is the target audience, and how do they view email?

Describe the audience for the campaign, and include the proportion of the total audience within a particular segment. Be clear about the email clients and devices your target audience uses, so the designer(s) can design accordingly. Since the number of email clients is growing every day, it's not realistic to have designs tailored to every user's email service — instead, know the main email services (and devices) an audience uses in order to optimize designs for the most significant environments.

6. What is the style?

Define the style in a few words. Think about the tone/feeling the client is hoping to evoke. Is the client looking for something clean and minimal, or friendly and playful? When in doubt, communicate visually. You'll also want to give the designer access to the client's style guide and let them know how closely it should be followed.

7. What are the dimensions?

When it comes to email, the most important dimension is width. Usually, 600 to 640 pixels for desktop (320 pixels for responsive mobile) is a standard guideline for legibility and good rendering in emails.

8. Are there other emails to draw inspiration from?

Often, when communicating about design, pictures are better than words. Provide examples of inspiration emails and indicate which specific elements you like and dislike, or create a simple mood board to communicate the aesthetic you want.

9. What's the content to be designed?

Always provide the copy for the email — and it should be final. Revising content after the design is in progress can become time-consuming and difficult. Make sure to indicate section delineations, header text, and CTAs.

10. What's the timeline?

This is an important one! Make sure to provide a clear timeline with deadlines for each milestone. It's always valuable to talk with key stakeholders to confirm who will provide feedback and when.