13+ Email Design & Email Marketing Books You Need to Read
Check out our top picks of the email marketing books that you should read!
Did you know that companies, on average, earn $32 for every $1 spent on email marketing? Not only is email marketing a lucrative venture for any brand, but it’s also one of the longest-standing marketing strategies.
Communicating via email is one of the more intimate approaches a marketer can take and customers generally trust email much more than other forms of communication.
However, nobody is born with email marketing knowledge. What better way to master this marketing niche than learning from the masters?
If you want to expand your knowledge or you are just getting started with email design, you’ve come to the right place. We also have valuable resources for those who want to know more about email marketing in general.
This will be especially useful if you don’t like to spend too much time in front of the computer (it can be exhausting after a long day) and you just want to lay down or sit back, rest your eyes, and read a paper book for a change.
In this article, we talk about 14 of the top email design and email marketing books you have to read. Study them carefully to learn all about email design and the different types of marketing emails. Implement the ideas found in them and your brand is sure to experience immense growth.
Let’s start with the email design books first.
Email design books:
In the following email design books, you can find best practices, examples, guides, and step by step tutorials. You can learn everything about email design techniques, how to design an HTML email, interactivity, responsitivity, typography, and even coding an email template. It’s always good to know how to code an email template, but today there are many email template builders you can use to design an email template within minutes, without typing even a single line of code.
1. The Better Email on Design by Jason Rodriguez
The Better Email on Design is suitable for web designers, marketers, or any company involved in designing and building HTML email campaigns. This impressive guide to HTML email design and development will teach you can how to launch email campaigns that are robust, responsive, and interactive.
While the book unravels the difficulties encountered during email development, it also explains how to use less code and put your energy into creating content that is appealing to your subscribers. The book has plenty of features such as HTML & CSS, typography, accessibility, images, and responsive emails. It comes with guides, video tutorials, and practical examples.
2. Modern HTML Email by Jason Rodriguez
Modern HTML Email is another great book from Jason Rodriguez (the same author as The Better Email on Design) that introduces you to email marketing, design, and coding. The author uses simple language with lots of code examples. It provides a sure footing as you learn about the best practices, types of emails, designs, coding an email template, and using testing to make your email campaign successful.
This book is a second edition, including four updated chapters and some other entirely new ones. It has plenty of new content including email law, design techniques, and coding methods.
3. Responsive HTML Email Book
This is a step-by-step workbook that was truly written with the audience in mind. It’s a fantastic book that shows you the best practices for implementing a responsive email design that will result in great user experience. It describes how to set up a single column email as well as how to create a complex newsletter.
The author gives you a hands-on practice through step-by-step exercises, rather than boring you with theory and exhausting explanations. Once you complete this book, you should be ready to start working on the most important things that would make a difference in your work.
4. A Type of Email: A Book to Help you with HTML Typography in Email by Paul Airy
There are some things such as typography that are taken for granted, but they matter a lot in the eyes of your customers. Even with years of experience, some people fail to master the typography element. This book will help you with any typography that you are doing, as it has code samples that will enable you to recreate the typography in the emails.
The author, Paul Airy, also gives practical examples that fit well with any typography. It has several sections including Proofreader, Headline, Subheadings, Paragraphs, and Typographic Units.
5. Creating Stunning HTML Email That Just Works! By Mathew Patterson
This book by Mathew Patterson is a good pick for web designers desiring to create an HTML email newsletter. It has a clear-crafted layout that covers HTML email, including planning, designing, coding, reporting, and how to use email marketing as a service. It’s designed to provide guidelines on how to build HTML emails that are both responsive, attractive, and reliable.
This book is ideal for either a newbie to HTML email or just people who want to improve their email planning, designing, and coding skills. You can also use it as a reference book to get some inspiration for yourself and your team.
Email marketing books:
If you are new in email marketing, here you can find everything, starting with the email marketing basics. You will gain an in-depth understanding of the way your customers think, choosing the right words and tone for engaging your customers, how to increase your open and click rates, with real-life examples and statistical data.
6. E-Mail Marketing For Dummies by John Arnold
John Arnold takes us on a journey from the very basics. What we love about his book is the incredible attention to buyer psychology. With every piece of advice, he gives his reasoning and solid arguments in relation to customer behavior.
After reading this book, you won’t just have mastered the art of email marketing, but you will also understand the way your customers are thinking. Feel free to apply these tactics to other marketing facets, too.
7. Email Marketing Rules: Checklists, Frameworks, and 150 Best Practices for Business Success (Third Edition) by Chad S. White
In a captivating format, Chad White teaches us the most successful formulas for running a good email marketing campaign. First, we go on a memory lane to understand how email as a form of communication has endured many technological revolutions.
Of the 150 practice exercises included, almost all of them are universal. In the end, there is also some niche-specific advice to help your business. The best handbook there is.
8. Finding The Right Message: How to turn the voice of customer research into irresistible website copy by Jennifer Havice
Not many authors make the connection between research and execution, in terms of email marketing. Jennifer Havice focuses on choosing the right words and tone for engaging your customers.
She backs up her claims with data and real-life examples from the companies she worked with. It’s a no-nonsense guide to scoring more conversions and increasing revenue. Writing good copy has never been easier and more accessible to marketers around the world.
9. The Email Lifeline: How to Increase Your E-Mail Marketing Profits by 300% Using a Simple Formula by Anik Singal
By giving examples from former and current clients, Singal urges you to take a look at your existing strategy and correct what you were doing the wrong way. In a step-by-step guide, the author tackles some of the most common pitfalls related to email marketing and how to avoid them.
It’s a guide that every marketer needs if they want to retain a consistent revenue stream from email marketing. A potential 300% profit increase is not to be ignored.
10. Ultimate Guide to Email Marketing for Business by Susan Gunelius
Susan Gunelius takes a double approach to the world of email marketing. In separate parts, she tackles how you can perform both B2B and B2C marketing with easy and free methods.
You don’t need to invest in a top marketing team. All of the steps in her guide require only determination, analysis, and creative thinking. Everyone has the tools to become a top email marketer. All you have to do is be aware of it.
11. Email Persuasion: Captivate and Engage Your Audience, Build Authority and Generate More Sales With Email Marketing by Ian Brodie
Ian Brodie lists all the benefits of email marketing and gives you solutions to the most common problems. You will learn how to increase your click-through rate and how to become effective at email marketing with the least amount of effort. Additionally, there are several pages devoted to the importance of email marketing tools.
12. The New Email Revolution: Save Time, Make Money, and Write Emails People Actually Want to Read! Kindle Edition by Robert W. Bly
Email is constantly going through changes and marketers around the world should be aware of that. In Bly’s book, we take a look at the most proven and accessible tactics for every type of business.
After mastering the advice given in this book, you will know how to be convincing and how to make every email count. Your business will operate on a much more efficient level after you’ve applied the advice from this book.
13. Master the Essentials of Email Marketing Analytics by Himanshu Sharma
Analytics will always be an inseparable part of email marketing. There is no success possible unless you track the performance of your older campaigns, in addition to mastering some new methods.
Sharma gives you the tools needed to notice the importance of analytical bits and pieces every email marketer needs. From the basics to the most cutting-edge solutions, the author takes us on a long journey about what it means to be a skilled email marketer. This book was published in 2018, so it’s a very fresh resource.
14. How to Win at B2B Email Marketing: A Guide to Achieving Success by Adam Q. Holden-Bache
Approaching other businesses is a different territory than most think. You have to be more convincing because companies are wary of scams and don’t want to waste a second of their time. In this guide, you will learn what it means to be a convincing writer and marketer, with an emphasis on using the first few seconds to hook the reader.
Concluding thoughts
All of these titles are incredibly helpful for both experienced marketers and novices. By starting from the basics, you can correct the mistakes you’ve been making and embrace the new knowledge wholeheartedly. Every skilled marketer is always keen to learn new things, and you should be too!
About the author
Lauren Adley is a writer and editor at Assignmentgeek, Australianwritings, BrillAssignment, and Boom Essays Review. She is dedicated to her family and friends. She is keen on reading, playing the guitar, and traveling.