In today’s digital world, communication is much more than just face-to-face conversation. These days, email seems to be the preferred method across many different situations, both formal and informal.

It’s easier than ever to come across differently than you intend to and convey the wrong message.

Yet, there are many steps you can take to ensure that your tone and form contribute to clear communication in your emails.

One of the foundational components of an effective email is the font you choose. While it might seem inconsequential, the font can impact the readability and tone of your message.

Keep reading to learn about:

• Classifications of fonts;
• How each group affects communication;
• What is the best font for email;
• How to make the right choice.

Why Choosing the Right Email Font is Crucial for Marketing Success

The email font you choose can influence how your message is perceived and whether it resonates with your audience. A well-chosen font enhances readability, reinforces brand identity, and can even evoke specific emotions that align with your campaign goals. 

On the other hand, a poorly chosen font can detract from your message, making your emails harder to read and potentially causing your audience to disengage. In a crowded inbox, the right font helps your email stand out and ensures that your message is communicated clearly and effectively, ultimately driving better engagement and conversion rates.

Serif vs. Sans Serif vs. Script

For the purpose of writing emails, the three main classifications you’ll often be choosing between are serif, sans serif, and script fonts.

While the idea can get a little complicated and confusing, the differences between these fonts are actually very definitive. Once you learn the tell-tale traits that distinguish the three, you won’t be able to unsee them.

Serif Fonts

Think about the long history of typeface, back to the early days of printing. Whether your mind jumped to colonial-era printing presses or even back to Gutenberg, you’re likely imagining a serif-style font.

These are the most traditional types of fonts. The small flourishes on the hard edges of many of the letters set serif fonts apart. These flairs aren’t meaningless, of course: they follow after the way that Roman letters were traditionally written, with flared stroke ends.

Serif fonts, because of the classic and official style they have, are used widely today in printing, both for books and newspapers.

This style of font is also said to have the best readability of all of them, though that’s up for individual interpretation.

The best examples of serif fonts are:

• Times New Roman
• Garamond
• Georgia

Though these are good representatives, there are thousands more out there to choose from.

Sans Serif Fonts

While serif fonts are classic oldies but goodies, sans serif fonts also have an established pedigree, tracing back to the early 1800s. They emerged from a movement to keep the printed page tidier and to conserve ink.

Sans serif fonts lack the flourished details of their serif cousins. For this reason, the clean lines and perhaps more minimalist effect are appreciated in marketing and advertising, both in print and on-screen.

Of course, just because these fonts lack the serif flair doesn’t mean that they’re boring or overly simple.

There are many different types out there to choose from that convey different styles, all with a cleaner letter shape. For that reason, they’re a favorite of modern web design, and they’re also great for mixing with other font styles.

The best examples are:

• Helvetica
• Arial
• Tahoma

Script Fonts

Script fonts are the most individualistic of the three categories, but they still have their place in modern typeface usage. These fonts often replicate different styles of lettering, both feminine and masculine, and play with letter spacing and color distribution when seen on a page or screen.

Script fonts are often chosen mostly for small, complementary sections of text to highlight or emphasize a small number of words or phrases. This is because script is considered the least readable category of fonts here.

If you’ve ever struggled to read another person’s unique handwriting, then you’ll understand why!

Script fonts aren’t chicken scratch (mostly), and they do have their place as a beautiful font option. They are considered to be less formal and traditional, which is something to keep in mind when evaluating the message you want to send.

Some examples of script fonts include:

• Monotype Corsiva
• Lucida Handwriting
• French Script

How Matching Your Audience Influences Font

Now that you know which types of fonts you can work with and understand the general idea behind each, let’s dive into how you can apply that knowledge to choosing the best font for email.

Emails are standard means of communication for many situations. On any given workday, many of us write long and short, informal and formal emails. When you pick a font to use in your email, you want to keep your audience in mind.

Choosing a font that matches your tone and context is one of the premises of effective communication and reader’s engagement.

If you are sending a formal email, you will most likely want to choose a serif font, as they are the most classic and formal style of fonts.

If you’re sending an informal email to a friend or family member about the details of a trip or just to catch up, then you can skip the bells and whistles and go for a sans serif font since they are no-nonsense, not distracting, and easy to read.

If you’re writing a playful email, for example, sending out invitations to a birthday party or themed event, it makes sense to inject your email with some fun and excitement.

You can even use themed fonts or seasonal fonts to have your email look and feel upbeat.

Using a script font for pieces of your email (and not the whole text) will help direct attention to specific information and imply the emotion you want the readers to have.

To pick the best font for email, you need to understand your audience and keep the purpose of your message in mind. If you work in a largely informal workplace, sans serif could be an appropriate and even preferred font for your professional emails.

TAA And Lead Segmentation Are Critical

But what if you don’t know your audience?

Many times, we need to send emails to people and entities we’ve never met. We can do a bit of online research ourselves, but sometimes it’s best to use analytics to help us.

Both the font and tone of your email can be improved and better aligned for your audience.

Especially in sales and the business world, lead segmentation, or breaking your leads down into smaller sections based on the tones needed to best fit each, can help you tailor your message to each type of audience you need to send an email to.

Different types of behavioral analytics programs can help you perform TAA, or target audience analytics. This way, the analytics system can make those distinctions for you based on gathered information about each member of your prospective audience.

These programs can help you test out which fonts, visual design themes, and color schemes will be most effective in each designated group.

Especially in marketing and sales, it’s crucial to know how every detail of your message will be received so that it can be crafted as an intentional part of the overall message.

How to Choose the Best Font for Emails

When selecting fonts for your email campaigns, follow these guidelines to ensure readability and aesthetic appeal:

• Use different fonts for headers and blocks. There are no preferred fonts for headers, so you may use your fantasy, but don’t forget to check capabilities of email providers. Don’t use too many fonts in one email as the text will look disorganized. Two fonts will be just fine. The best option is to use one font for a header and another one for the whole text.
• Avoid fantasy fonts. You can use them only for specific elements. They are hard to read in long texts and it is doubtful that they are correctly displayed on the reader's device. If you really want to add something unusual to your promo email, add ALT text in a fantasy font to images.
• Prioritize consistency. Ensure that the fonts, used in your emails, match those on your landing pages to create a seamless user experience.
• Use sans serif for better readability. While serif fonts are traditional and formal, sans serif fonts are generally easier to read on screens and are a good choice for most email content.
• Use the right style elements. Use bold text to highlight important phrases and italics for emphasis. Avoid overusing these styles to prevent clutter.
• Pick the right email font size and color. Maintain a font size between 12px and 16px for readability on mobile devices. Use dark text on a light background for the best contrast.

By thoughtfully selecting and applying fonts, you can enhance the readability and effectiveness of your email campaigns.

Style elements in emails

You already know what fonts should be used in email campaigns. Now let’s talk about specific font elements. Changing font style can make your email look more attractive and highlight the main idea of the text. Here are the most useful style elements and their appropriate application areas:

• Bold highlights important phrases and makes contrast in the text. You can make text bold in most email editors with no need to add HTML tags. Bold is largely used for headers, signatures, single words and phrases or important sentences. Bold text in the middle of a passage may distract the reader's attention. So, if you need to emphasize only one word, it is better to use Italic.

• Italic highlights your words delicately. It is a good choice for one word or a short phrase in a section, marking subheaders, proper names or titles. Italic may be difficult to read on a laptop monitor, that is why it is better to use it for single words or short phrases.

Avoid overuse of bold or Italic font as it makes text unreadable and a user will just close your email.

• Underlined text can be mistaken for hyperlinks. You can underline headers to make it distinguished, yet it is better to insert hyperlinks to prevent your client’s disappointment while clicking underlined text with no effect.

• Change of email font sizes makes text comfortable for reading on laptop monitors. You can apply different sizes for headers and subheaders to draw the reader's attention or vice versa - to make some text less noticeable.

• Color font can improve or spoil the impression about your email. Use of dark text and light background is the most acceptable option, but not vice versa. Make sure that font color and background color contrast sufficiently.

The use of too many colors will look really weird in email and it is likely to go to spam also because of color intensity and diversity. Don’t use contrasting bright colors: blue, red, yellow, etc., especially if email consists only of them.

• Font height and indent are equally important for comfortable reading. The best font for emails should be not less than 12px taking into account that your emails are viewed on mobile deviсes. It is better not to use the font bigger than 16px, as it makes your email too long and uncomfortable to read.

5 Best Email Fonts to Use in Your Marketing Campaigns

Compatibility is another important factor to keep in mind. You may like how a certain font looks on your screen. And still, when a customer receives your message, they may only see gibberish. To avoid such situations, stick to compatible fonts.

What Are Email Safe Fonts

Web-safe email fonts are ones that are supported by all browsers and operating systems. If you’ve ever noticed the fonts that come pre-loaded for Windows and macOS, there will be some overlap. Yet, not all of the fonts will be the same.

These email fonts are considered web-safe.

A quick web search can confirm if your chosen font is web-safe or not. Some of the most commonly known ones are:

• Times New Roman
• Comic Sans
• Palatino

Of course, there are many more than just those.

So let’s dive into some specific web-safe fonts that could be good choices for different types of emails.

Helvetica Neue

This sans serif font is a great mix between something stylish and modern but also doesn’t take itself as seriously as something like Times New Roman does. It has a very unique style that can direct attention to specific pieces of information because of its bold look.

In this example, you can see that a full block of Helvetica Neue text, especially rendered in a small size, can feel a little jumbled to read, especially when the spacing between letters, or kerning, is also small.

This can be adjusted for a more custom feel, and with a font like Helvetica Neue, more space between the letters can improve readability for large chunks of text.

For an artistic effect, the use of centered Helvetica Neue with a reduced kerning can really convey a sense of class, uniqueness, and a bit of elevated style.

Roboto

Despite its funny name, this font is the default for Google Maps, and you can see why in this example.

Although it’s rendered in a small size, the kerning and the simplistic letter styles on this sans-serif font make it a very readable option for the body text of an email.

Due to being a simple but classic-looking option, it can be dressed up, so to speak, with a more formal font for very formal emails, and it can also be dressed down with something a little more individualistic for informal emails as well.

Like with many other simplistic email fonts, Roboto and similar fonts can be easily altered to compliment your message in different parts of your text. Utilizing italics or bolded texts can emphasize certain parts of your message and convey a playful and casual attitude.

Arial

This is another sans serif font that is widely popular for use in professional and informal settings alike.

Many well-known entities like Coursera use it for both web design and communications.

If you’re unsure what body text to use in your email, Arial is always a safe bet. It’s a simple and highly readable option that looks clear and clean in many email font sizes.

Like with other sans serif fonts we’ve mentioned, the addition of italic and bolded words can help emphasize your meaning and convey personality.

Because of its minimalistic look, Arial is great for pairing with other bolder fonts in emails that need to show more personality or style. It can be taken in a very clean and minimalistic direction, or it can be dressed up when paired with a funkier or even more formal email font for headings and titles.

Georgia

While Georgia is a serif font, it’s a very clean and, at the same time, bold choice that conveys style and an elevated feeling when used as a body text font.

In this example, you’ll see that it has a bit of a throw-back feel about it without seeming old or stuffy.

Because of this style, it’s a great font to use as a standalone for an entire email.

The text looks clean and well-spaced, although, again, you can alter the kerning to give a more custom feel in the headings or elsewhere.

When italicized, the Georgia font has a great self-complementing style that can really round out a stylistically aimed email without having to employ a lot of different email fonts or bells and whistles.

Courier

This very specific serif font is well-known and sometimes disliked for its overuse in inappropriate scenarios. However, when used as part of a signature, logo, or heading and then complemented by a tamer body text font, Courier can be a great, unique option.

The spacing between the letters is bigger, making this email font seem very tidy but also a little bulkier than some other fonts. So it’s not advised to use it as your body text font. This throws back to the days of the typewriter and can feel hard on the eyes.

Take a look at the examples that use Courier for contrasting portions of text. When used this way, Courier can make a great impression.

What Fonts to Avoid?

We all know those fonts that everyone loves to hate. Sadly, many have gotten a bad reputation for people’s overuse of them or use in inappropriate situations. These are some that should be kept out of your emails for that reason.

Stencil

Way overused in the 2000s, Stencil is individualistic but can be hard to read. Nowadays, Helvetica Neue and Roboto are better choices for body text.

Comic Sans

Although it’s been (purportedly) linked to higher productivity rates for people who do lots of typing, Comic Sans is very informal in nature and somehow finds its way into very formal situations with no shame. Stick to Comic Sans for personal things, but leave it out of your formal communications.

Papyrus

Papyrus is another highly individualized font that has been overused in contexts that were too formal for it. It’s synonymous with poorly made websites and elementary or middle school projects. So it definitely shouldn’t appear in any of your emails!

Times New Roman

While Times New Roman has been a standard for a long time, it’s lost its relevance among younger people and in more artistic contexts. For marketing, web designing, and fast-paced industries that are growing and changing, ditch Times New Roman and try something with a little more edge.

As we continue forward in a digitally oriented world, it’s important to know how to pick best email fonts that will work for you instead of against you. Understanding ecommerce trends can help you match your font to your desired audience.

Don’t be afraid to modify your typeface for less spacing or kerning or for any other element that impacts the presentation of the font.

Play with whitespace and background contrast by the use of texture and eye-catching paper-like elements. When in doubt, oversized titles and headings with a beautiful and unique design will always be appreciated by readers.

At the end of the day, just sending out your message is not enough anymore.

It’s crucial to know where it’s going and tailor it to the receivers and the impact you want to make. Whether it’s a formal or informal email, now you know the best fonts for email to target your audience intentionally and effectively.