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Both the appearance and content do matter when sending an email. The appearance can entice the recipient to stay on the page whereas the quality of the content determines if they take any action. While many marketers agree that appearance counts, creating an appealing email isn’t always an easy task. However, thanks to premade email templates, you can send beautiful emails with little or no design or coding knowledge.
While most of the premade designs are stunning, each one of them is built with a certain campaign in mind. A template that works well with a sales promotion may not do so well when you are trying to win a new prospect.
Below are some of the tips that can help you in choosing the best template for your campaign.
Define Your Goals
The first step is to determine the goals for your campaign and the message that you intend to deliver. Completing this step will ensure that you choose email templates that match the content you are sending. Additionally, it is also important to determine the call to action that you want to include in the email. For instance, you may need to include a huge CTA button or recommendation Ads.
Examples of campaign ideas for email marketing include announcing new products, cross-selling and up-selling, building customer loyalty, promoting new articles, solving cart abandonment, survey invitations, sourcing reviews, and attracting social media followers among others.
Choose an Appropriate Template
Once you have identified your goals, the next step is to look at a number of templates that are right for your message. This should be easy because most providers normally highlight the intended purpose of the template. The most common template labels you will come across include newsletter, new product, cart abandonment, announcement, service or product specials, holiday, news, order, marketing, and welcome among others.
When evaluating the templates, check on the following features.
Ease of use: The template that you choose should be easy to use. Most of them come with a drag and drop feature that allows you to reorder elements based on your preferences.
Mobile-friendliness: Most of the emails are read on mobile devices and thus you should check if the template is mobile friendly. A template that is not mobile-friendly will deliver emails that are hard to navigate and illegible. Other email tips that you should consider for mobile include using bigger fonts for the content, smaller images, large CTA buttons, and short subject lines.
Background images: If you intend to use background images in your emails then ensure that you go for a template that supports that. Using a background image can influence the actions of the readers and boost conversion rates. However, you should only use images that do not interfere with the readability of the text and ones that fit well on mobile devices.
Fonts supported: Each template comes with a limited number of fonts and thus check this too. Even though you will have a variety to choose from, avoid using numerous fonts in one email. Keeping it simple makes your emails tidy and professional. Remember these are work emails and thus avoid decorating the message with crazy fonts.
Video Embed: Using video in email marketing is one of the strategies that can boost conversion rates. This is because a video can easily draw the attention of the recipient and is less likely to be ignored compared to a block of text. You can have videos showcasing the products or services that you offer or a certain process.
Some of the best practices for using video in email marketing include keeping them short, using the word ‘video’ in the subject line, and creating a video series. Some templates have video embed capabilities whereas for others you can only take a screenshot of the video and provide a link to where the video is hosted.
Editing: If you are not satisfied with the templates you are getting from your email service provider and other resources, you can design your own. Many email providers will give you an option to create your own templates and even give you guidance on how to go about it. However, you may require some tech knowledge to create custom templates.
Compare and Choose
The final step is to compare a number of templates with the same features, choose the best one, and start your email campaign. Don’t forget to take into account other email tips like choosing catchy headlines, having a clear call to action, and watching the timing and frequency of your emails.
The email templates you choose play a big role in determining whether your emails get read or deleted. Thus, take your time to preview and compare to get one that is best suited for your message and one that your subscribers will appreciate best.