E-mail templates. They’re a lifesaver for electronic mail advertising campaigns, proper? They will prevent a great deal of time whereas preserving your branding acquainted and constant.
However, as many people have discovered alongside the way in which, electronic mail templates aren’t foolproof. Many issues can throw off a once-beautiful template – new photos or GIFs, interactive parts, content material circulation, and movies.
Testing your template earlier than each ship may help discover rendering issues which will pop up after you’ve personalized the design parts. However we wished to know extra, so we sat with just a few of our in-house consultants and the template professionals at MailNinja to find out how electronic mail entrepreneurs and builders can use templates successfully.
“There’s a whole lot of schooling concerned round what can and may’t be executed inside a template and keep away from breaking it.”
Doug Dennison, CEO and founder, MailNinja
Learn on to seek out out seven HTML electronic mail template greatest practices and a few common email-sending practices to set your self up for fulfillment.
1. Edit your photos
It’s vital to know the constraints of your template and resize photos the place essential. Keep away from copying and pasting a picture with out adjusting it. As well as, don’t attempt to crop the picture or resize it earlier than including it to your template. Dropping in a picture that’s 3,000 pixels broad will doubtless break your template and derail your complete design.
“A template is actually a format or framework – there are nonetheless restrictions to what you are able to do.”
Doug Dennison, CEO and founder, MailNinja
Understand that some electronic mail purchasers may even block your photos, so it’s vital to be sure you embrace descriptive alt textual content. Alt textual content can be vital for customers who could also be utilizing display readers to interpret your electronic mail.
2. Watch your content material circulation
Will the size of your copy circulation into the template? If it’s too lengthy, it could actually throw off the design. In different phrases, guarantee your textual content and fonts will work throughout completely different display codecs. You can too have fall-backs font stacks in place. It’s additionally vital to concentrate as to if the template has a column design. A two-column part might look a little bit unusual should you solely have just a few strains of textual content.
Have a look at how the content material is organized within the template – will your content material circulation properly? This template from MailNinja has three particular person columns for textual content.
3. Take out the default content material
Don’t neglect in regards to the filler textual content. Loads of templates come loaded with some placeholder content material (like “lorem ipsum” or “add header textual content”) or buttons that say, “add your Name-to-Motion (CTA) right here.” Make sure you’re scanning by way of the template and changing all default content material with your personal or eradicating any default content material you don’t want.
Checking default content material additionally applies to photographs. Keep away from reusing the default picture that got here with the template, and take a look at to not reuse the identical picture throughout a number of campaigns. A subscriber will likely be extra prone to have interaction in the event that they discover one thing completely different about your newest electronic mail.
Bear in mind, whenever you obtain or obtain a template from an company, it’s not prepared for prime time. Your workforce will nonetheless must customise the e-mail format and content material earlier than it’s able to ship. These customizations are why it’s essential to check your HTML electronic mail template earlier than you ship it to the lots. Content material modifications, photos, and branding parts – all have the potential to interrupt the format and trigger rendering issues.
Try this template created by MailNinja. Notice how they use default content material to fill out the textual content field. Don’t neglect to alter this!
4. Examine your private tags
Dennison says, “When testing your template, double-check your personalization tags.” Make sure the tags pull the proper data and don’t present your subscribers the default code, like “{contact: firstname}.”
5. Construct out modules for the long run
Futureproof your templates so that they’re reusable and versatile. That means, you possibly can depend on them in numerous eventualities.
“We’ll create one thing that’s seven-plus modules lengthy, so it provides the consumer scope, however in the long run, they’ll in all probability solely use two or three modules.”
Doug Dennison, CEO and founder, MailNinja
Whether or not you’re making a template your self or hiring an company to create it for you, you should definitely construct out numerous modules which may be helpful sooner or later. Positive, it’s possible you’ll not use all seven or eight modules directly, nevertheless it’ll be helpful later. Having the proper module prepared can prevent time and complications from attempting to suit content material into the fallacious format.
6. Make it responsive – mobile-responsive
Bear in mind, a lot of your readers in all probability see your emails on cellular gadgets. Don’t alienate them. Use responsive electronic mail design to create templates that adapt to completely different display sizes. Enhance readability and enhance your buyer expertise.
As all the time, should you’re uncertain about how your electronic mail will look, head over to our E-mail Preview instrument and see your electronic mail message on completely different iOS and Android gadgets in real-time.
7. Bear in mind to check
Above all, Dennison says, it’s essential to check each template, each time. Positive, templates are a terrific place to begin, however any change to the content material within the template may throw off rendering.
Check your template, even when it’s one you’ve used earlier than. We do it with our electronic mail e-newsletter each month. We do it with virtually each marketing campaign we ship.
“Testing is commonly secondary to the significance of getting the e-mail out [of] the door, nevertheless it’s so vital to take that step in-between and check to ensure it appears proper. To not check your templates is simply loopy.”
Doug Dennison, CEO and founder, MailNinja
Complement your template with a successful electronic mail follow
Now that you’ve got a terrific template with a phenomenal electronic mail design in your viewers, don’t snooze on good electronic mail content material or your sending practices. Listed here are some greatest practices to maintain the nice occasions going:
- Create an enticing electronic mail topic line that evokes your readers to open your message. Preserve these open charges up! Unsure what works greatest? Attempt A/B testing your topic line.
- Use electronic mail checklist segmentation to focus on sections of your viewers. Don’t spam your whole mailing checklist with the identical content material. This type of “spray and pray” technique by no means works. As an alternative, hit focused segments of your checklist with tailor-made content material. Then, information them to your touchdown web page with a well-crafted CTA.
- Benefit from electronic mail automation and construct higher templates for your whole transactional messages and behavior-based emails. For instance, you possibly can combine the Mailgun by Sinch sending platform along with your utility to benefit from the advantages of electronic mail automation. Mailgun even has its personal drag-and-drop electronic mail template builder.
Wrapping up
And that’s a wrap on electronic mail template design. Able to get templating as we speak? No matter the kind of electronic mail that you just’re sending, Mailjet’s template library has one thing in your wants. Or able to jazz up your electronic mail much more? Attempt utilizing interactive parts.
As all the time, earlier than you hit ship, check your emails with our Marketing campaign Precheck instrument to make sure your emails show as you propose! Attempt us out without spending a dime for seven days.
This text was up to date on October 28, 2022. It was first printed in October of 2018.
Writer: The E-mail on Acid Group
The E-mail on Acid content material workforce is made up of digital entrepreneurs, content material creators, and straight-up electronic mail geeks.
Join with us on LinkedIn, comply with us on Fb, and tweet at @EmailonAcid on Twitter for extra candy stuff and nice convos on electronic mail advertising.
Writer: The E-mail on Acid Group
The E-mail on Acid content material workforce is made up of digital entrepreneurs, content material creators, and straight-up electronic mail geeks.
Join with us on LinkedIn, comply with us on Fb, and tweet at @EmailonAcid on Twitter for extra candy stuff and nice convos on electronic mail advertising.
