email design
Our responsive email designs ensure your emails look stunning and function flawlessly on any device. We specialize in creating adaptable designs that automatically adjust to various screen sizes, providing an optimal viewing experience for your audience.
Send emails? Stand out with custom email designs by Plan Bee Direct. We specialize in creating tailored email templates that reflect your brand’s personality.
Why Choose Custom Email Designs?
- Brand Consistency: Ensure your email aligns with your brand’s identity, from colors and fonts to logos and messaging.
- Increased Engagement: Eye-catching, well-structured templates grab attention and encourage recipients to take action.
- Mobile Optimization: Responsive designs look great on any device, ensuring a seamless user experience.
- Time Saving: Reuse professionally crafted templates for multiple campaigns, saving time and effort on design.
Design Services
- Tailored Design: Built to fit your brand.
- Responsive Layouts: Designs optimized for desktops, tablets, and mobile devices to maximize reach and impact.
- Advanced Functionality: Interactive elements like clickable buttons and embedded videos.
- Editable Formats: Easy-to-update templates so you can tweak content without starting from scratch. Source files are available for conference email deployments at an additional cost.
How it Works
- Submit your text, images and branding guidelines.
- Design & Approval: We’ll craft a stunning email template and send you a proof link for review.
- Implementation: Receive a fully coded, ready-to-use email template compatible with major platforms and mobile devices.*
*This is not offered for discounted conference attendee email designs. Template copies are available for a small additional fee.
Email Tips and Guidelines
We use a universal system font by default on our email designs because email clients only support a limited set of fonts. While custom fonts might display correctly in some email clients, they will default to a standard system font if not supported.
- Email Safe/Friendly Fonts: Arial, Courier New, Georgia, Helvetica, Lucida Sans, Tahoma, Times New Roman, Trebuchet MS
- Web Safe Fonts: Lato, Open Sans, Oswald, Oxygen, Poppins, Quicksand, Merriweather, Raleway, Roboto, Rubik, Ubuntu.
Web-safe fonts and email-safe fonts are different. Web-safe fonts are specifically made for use on websites and can’t be found in operating systems or software. They’re added to websites using special tools. Email clients, like Gmail or Outlook, have their own set of email-safe fonts. These fonts may not be the same across all email clients. For instance, Gmail supports fonts like Open Sans and Roboto, but Outlook and Apple Mail don’t. However, if an email client doesn’t support a specific font, it will use a default font instead: Apple Mail: Helvetica, Gmail: Arial, Outlook: Calibri.
Available personalization fields:
- First Name: first_name
- Last Name: last_name
- Full Name: fullname
Placement examples:
Subject line examples
- first_name, join us at Booth 2414
- first_name, see what’s new at _____
- Important update for you, first_name
Salutation examples:
- Hello first_name,
- Dear Dr. last_name,
- Hello fullname,
Prefix examples using last name
- Dear Mr. last_name,
- Dear Ms. last_name,
- Dear Dr. last_name,
If possible, please include the placeholder (blue text) as shown above.
Note: If you are requesting personalization, include first name, last name with prefix, or full name for each testing address you add when you complete your setup form.
Quick Reference
| Subject Line | Preheader |
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| Best practice: Keep under 50 characters | Best practice: Keep it under 50 characters |
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Email Subject Lines Tips for effective subject lines:
- Keep it short. Mobile screens often cut off after 30–40 characters.
- Avoid excessive punctuation, symbols, or all caps.
- Test and optimize. Try different lengths and wording to see what works best.
- Remove unnecessary filler words.
- Use clear, direct language so recipients immediately understand the purpose of the message.
Character Limits by Platform
- Gmail: 70 characters desktop, 38 characters mobile
- Yahoo Mail: 46 characters desktop, 40 characters mobile
- Outlook: 60 characters desktop, 30–40 characters mobile
- Apple Mail: 60 characters desktop, 40 characters mobile
- iPhone Mail App: 35 characters
- Android Mail App: 30–40 characters
Tip: Most platforms show 50–70 characters on desktop and 30–40 on mobile. To improve visibility across devices, aim for subject lines under 50 characters.
Preheader Text (Snippet) Optimal preheader length is 80–100 characters. Recommended range is 100–120 characters, with a maximum of 130–150 characters. On mobile, only 30–55 characters often display, while desktop can show 100 or more. Place the most important words at the start to cover both. Best practices:
- Keep it concise. Avoid long filler text.
- Complement the subject line instead of repeating it.
- Add context, a teaser, or a call to action.
- Front-load important info to avoid truncation.
- Specify custom preheader text so the first lines of your email body do not appear in its place.
- Personalization, such as a recipient’s name, company, or city, can help increase relevance and engagement. Include a short call to action whenever appropriate. Emojis may be used sparingly if they fit the audience and tone of the campaign.
Let’s Get Started
Ready to transform your email marketing? Request a quote today or order your Email Design.
Responsive Email Designs
Click image to enlarge.
The Buzz
It was great working with Barbara on a promotional email. Her template turned out great and the whole process was a breeze.
Barbara was extremely easy to work with. Her follow-through was great as was her enthusiasm to get our information out in a timely, efficient manner. She also followed up quickly with a campaign metrics report before I even thought of asking for one. I would highly recommend her services and hope to use her again in the future.
Plan Bee Direct helped us create an html formatted email to raise awareness of a breakfast symposium we held at a congress. We appreciate their high level of flexibility and responsiveness. We had a positive experience working with them.
Working with Barbara and Plan Bee Direct made the process of getting our promotional emails created, tested and sent for Heart Rhythm 2025 so simple and easy! She is very communicative and responds very quickly, or if there’s something urgent, she’s always available via phone.
She built all four of our emails (HTML files), which not only saved myself and my team time to work ahead, but she was patient while we were getting our content in. She was also willing to adjust deadlines if we needed it.Overall, I would definitely work with her again for future events (I have already recommended to our MET team that we go this route for 2025/2026 events) – thank you SO much Barbara! You are beyond amazing!
We had a great experience with plan bee direct for our first tradeshow. We needed to created a html file for our marketing eblast and Barbara was extremely helpful to work with and her turnaround time was so quick! We appreciated her creative guidance and direction on the design and were very happy with the final product! I would definitely work with her again!
