How to Create an Email Template

What makes a great email template? Well actually, you already know the answer and that's because you've received plenty of great and not so great emails before. The ones that you liked you were more likely to open, read and follow its calls to actions. The ones that you didn't, you probably didn't read and quickly deleted, if not unsubscribed.

Your own personal knowledge and experience with emails has placed you in a great position to design successful email templates. To supplement this, we've put together a list of the key characteristics one requires, plus a useful video which demonstrates how to design your own email template.

Characteristics of a Successful Email Template

An email template is like a skeleton, with a head, body and feet. It provides the structure required to get your message across to the recipient.

Email Template Header

Your email header one of the first things people are going to see when they receive your email. Short and sweet, your template header contains key information which sets the tone of the rest of the email, and can be a deal breaker when it comes to the success (or not) of your campaign. It should include:

a 'friendly' name and email address of the sender - an email service will display the name and email address details of the email sender. An address like do-not-reply@mybusiness.com isn't friendly to view and discourages email opening and engagement.
the correct reply-to address - you need your email reply address to be accurate and one that is checked regularly. People need to be able to reply to you through it.
an awesome subject line - this is a short sentence of around 5-6 words which explains what the email is about and entices the recipient to open it.

Email Template Body

Your email has been opened and now your recipient is ready to take the next step - to read more or to close and delete it. To encourage them to read it, your email template body should:

have a visually simple template - choosing a single column responsive layout will ensure it looks good for your audience. White space remains important for not only making it look more attractive, but also easier to click on links and find information.
have personalisation placeholders - Hi [FIRSTNAME] is a personalisation placeholder. Inside the brackets is where the email software will add the specified name of the recipient for each individual email. Personalised emails are far more likely to be read than a generic one.
be concise - time is in short supply for many people, and coupled with the fact they are most likely to receive multiple emails each day, your email content needs to get right to the point.
have one key call to action - one clear CTA is important because otherwise your message is confusing, and it is easier to close the email than figure out what to do next.

Email Template Footer

Your email footer may not get everyone's attention, but it needs to contain key details to ensure it follows the rules:

contact information - your business' name and contact details are vital. Your audience needs to know who the email is from and how they can contact them.
unsubscribe option - there needs to be an unsubscribe facility which lets people stop receiving messages from you. Our bulk email software will include one automatically in the email template footer with a hyperlink to click. Once an unsubscribe has occurred, their details will be removed from within the consented contact details inside our CMS too.

How to Design Your Email Template

Our bulk email solution has a basic predesigned email template which you can use as-is or edit it to suit. From here you can design your own personal email template to be saved within the CMS and then used for future campaigns. In this video we will demonstrate how to design an email template using our bulk email system that customers who host websites with us can use for free.