How to Use Emojis in Email to increase open and click rates?

5 min readJan 7, 2022

Creating regular emails that attract opens and clicks, build your brand personality, and develop relationships with your customers is daunting. Fortunately, there is a simple tool to help you increase the effectiveness of your emails. They are emojis.

Katherine Wildman, a copywriter and tone of voice expert, says emojis are “a fast way to engage prospects.”

Furthermore, they will attract more attention to your newsletter content because they elevate your brand’s tone of voice.

To get started with email marketing, read this article to learn how to use emojis to get more opens and clicks.

Emailing with emojis: Do’s

Emojis in email marketing can be tricky. Make sure you avoid these dos and don’ts before you add them. Emojis are used in several ways by small businesses and marketing experts. Learn about the pitfalls they can cause.

Adding an emoji is a simple process once you learn how to do it right.

1. Be sure to check your emoji across all devices

Almost every email client, operating system, and social media platform has its own set of emojis. Some look almost identical, while others may differ enough to influence meaning and user experience. Ensure your chosen emojis look the same across different devices.

There are over 3,000 emojis listed on Emojipedia. You can see how each one appears across a wide range of devices, from iOS to Android, Gmail to Microsoft, and everything in between.

Emojipedia can be used to determine whether a selected emoji will appear as a blank square.

2. Ensure that your meaning is clear

It’s important to make sure your emojis work across all devices, but do they translate well across age groups, cultures, and backgrounds?

Never use the emoji as an affirming fist bump. Many people, especially older ones, see it as a punch to the face. You should be cautious! Stick to popular emojis with clear

meanings to avoid any confusion or offense.

The crying laughing emoji is used when millennials find something hilarious. It is considered old-fashioned by Generation Z, and they prefer the skull emoji instead.

Stay connected on social media. Learn how to use emojis by listening to conversations between members of your target audience. You won’t appear outdated that way.

With this post, Upskill added humor tailored to their target audience:

3. Be positive in your tone

Whenever you send an email, use positive emojis. Emojis can be used to convey happy emotions, which can lead to sales, or at the very least pique curiosity.

Consider the feeling you want your brand to convey when people come across your emojis. Smiles set the tone, no matter what the situation.

4. Set up brand guidelines

Emojis are a great way to represent your brand. By creating a secondary logo, you build awareness and recognition for your business.

Regardless of whether your brand chooses signature emojis, create an emoji guide for everyone uploading content to your brand. This will ensure consistency of messaging for your brand.

5. Consider accessibility and diversity

Ensure that the use of emojis is universally accessible to all your audience members.

Assistive technology such as screen readers makes digital content accessible to people with visual impairments. For a screen reader to read an emoji, it must read all of its unique descriptions or transcribe it into braille. In this case, “woman dancing.” appears.

To promote diversity and inclusivity, the yellow skin tone should be used. You can do this to avoid your customers feeling excluded by your marketing. Even though it might seem like a small act, it makes a difference.

Emailing with emojis: Don’ts

Here are some things to avoid when choosing emojis for your newsletter.

1. Avoid replacing words with emojis

Never use emojis to replace words in your message if you want it to be clear and accessible. Emojis can be used to illustrate anything you have already written fully.

2. Avoid Using them Everywhere

It’s not appropriate to use emojis everywhere. It’s a good idea to keep emojis out of your Terms and Conditions and your return policy. It may cause customers to feel disrespected or less valued if they see emojis in these circumstances. You should also close the emoji keyboard for now if your newsletter deals with a serious issue.

3. Embrace your individuality instead of following the herd

If everyone else is using emojis, don’t start using them too. Does the brand personality and target audience match?

If you intend to use emojis, you need to find out whether your audience understands them. A/B testing can help you achieve this.

Increase the open rate of emails by using emojis

By now, you know what to do and what not to do when using emojis in email messages. Get to know how to make them work for you to boost open rates and get subscribers clicking on your store. Emojis need to be used strategically for this to work.

1. Subject lines with emojis

Results are pretty positive. Emojis in email subject lines resulted in an increase in open rates for 56 percent of brands. In addition to helping your email stand out, they give your reader an idea of what to expect.

Avoid using too many emojis as they may come off as spammy.

Boost your click-through Rate

Some of your subscribers opened your email, and you used a few emojis. How do you proceed?

1. Emails with Emojis

Emojis should be limited to the body copy of your newsletter. It looks messy and unprofessional if there are too many. It confuses the reader and affects accessibility. Emojis are a great alternative to bullet points if your brand is informal with a young audience.

If you’ve read this far, kudos to you. I hope this was valuable for you 😃

I have yet to master “Using emojis in a medium answer to make it more engaging”