Color helps convey mood, graphics direct the eye and explain the message, and other visual elements also have important jobs to do, which is why every website, PowerPoint slide, and email are infused with them.
And that’s part of the reason I stick primarily with black and white.
In a world of color, it’s easier to stand out when your message is black and white. The same is true of layout and other visual elements. Our minds tend to lump together things that look alike, and notice things that don’t.
If you want prospects and email subscribers to think of your email as a commercial message, “more of the same advertising and promotions” they see from every attorney, use lots of color and graphics and make things big and bold.
If you want people to open and read your email, however, make it look like an email.
The old-fashioned kind—plain text (or html that disguises urls but otherwise simulates plan text).
When we get email, the first thing all of us do is look for a reason to delete it. If it looks like an ad or promotion, there’s a good chance it’s going in the bin.
But we don’t delete personal email, at least not without reading it first.
Make your email look like an email. Personal and important. Solemn and professional. And more people will read it and pay attention to your words.
Other benefits of plain text email are that it makes your messages easier to read and less likely to go into a spam folder. It also saves time because we don’t have to find graphics, get permission to use them, and crop and position them.
Many of these benefits apply equally to a website, which is why mine is also primarily black and white.
I’m not suggesting everything you do adhere to a plain text model. It shouldn’t. But think about this idea the next time you create something to send or show folks who can hire or refer you.
How to use email to build your practice
