Choosing a Standard or Custom Email Newsletter / Email Blast Template?

Opt-in emails, better known as newsletter emails or email blasts, help companies stay top-of-mind, provide valuable information, and build loyalty with special offers. Most marketing-savvy companies know the value of sending emails to their own opt-in list regularly. But what they might not realize is whether they need standard email templates, or custom emails. Re-using […]

By Gentian Shero

what you have to say through it. If you want to advertise different products or offers then you need a custom newsletter. Using a custom designed and built newsletter allows for more flexibility than the previously used generic template. Plus that every time your special offer will be a different one. For example, if this weekend your hotel has a special offer, you need to emphasize that from the rest of the newsletter by putting it in a colorful paragraph that is eye catching.

Why have your newsletter done professionally? Professional or custom designed and built newsletter emails have to conform to the maximum email client rules and rendering standards (ensure that the design and layout conforms to email marketing standards). They also have to be coded in a certain way so that the email client does not consider them as spam. HTML email newsletters have less flexibility than web pages. This is because they are usually read inside email software like Microsoft Outlook, Mac Mail, or they are interpreted by a web-based email program like Gmail,Yahoo, or Hotmail. Certain types of HTML code are risky or disallowed, and emails cannot play flash or videos directly. This is why you need to find a professional who is experienced with email marketing and knows the constraints.
Your email needs to be designed to have compelling information very near the top of the email, because many email programs show a “preview” of an email that only shows the top 2 or 3 inches. Your company’s name and logo usually appear at the top of the email, in the “banner.” This banner needs to be vertically short so subscribers quickly see your compelling information or article, and are motivated to scroll down to read the rest of your message.

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If your graphic artist has done a satisfactory job of defining your company’s look on your website, you may not need him or her to redefine the appearance of your email, other than just expand or work around your existing branding.

After you work with an email marketing expert to create your first email, you will start thinking about the amount of time and money you need spend on future emails. Should you save time and money by making every email based on exactly the same template (appearance) of the first email? Should you make 2 or 3 templates for different purposes? Or should you get a custom email template created for each new email?

Most companies don’t have much money or resources to allocate to their email marketing, but they want a boost to get started. They hire an email marketing professional to design and implement their email template. Then, they re-use the email template over and over, pasting in their own content. As mentioned above, re-using the same template will work if the goal of the email newsletter is to deliver information. When it comes to advertising different products, the efficacy of the newsletter diminishes and overtime it becomes even repetitive with the end result being subscribers that unsubscribe from your newsletter. However, in our experience, most companies need time to start producing quality email marketing and usually need our guidance for several months. They have to spend time getting training on how to create compelling emails. Some of them end up hiring us to create or quality-check all their email newsletters and announcements.

Eventually, companies who decide to re-use their email marketing template realize they need more than one different type of template. They have more than one type of email. A longer multi-column email with a table of contents makes a good newsletter template; a single-column email is perfect for announcements; and a 3-column email showcases products. So they can have several templates made, and use the appropriate template depending on the type of message.

Companies who need more than one email template become candidates for getting a custom email every time they send an email to their list. These types of companies put significant thought into their emails. They want their subscribers to be enlightened and engaged with every email. They want to send a laser-focus message in a neat and tidy package — the perfect look and the perfect message.
When clients need custom email newsletters, we are ready. They provide the basic materials and we assist in focusing the message and the call to action. Then, we use graphic design software and HTML programming to produce an email newsletters aimed at building relationship and getting results. We balance text with images, because image-heavy emails often get thrown into the spam folder. And we ask the client to approve the email before it goes out.

If your company is still doing old school mailers, it is time to move to the market of the future today- the Internet. Custom designed and build email newsletters, or email blasts, are highly efficient when compared to traditional mailers. The available technologies offer robust analytics and reporting tools that can be used to your advantage and improve future marketing techniques. We can help you decide whether to use standard email templates or custom emails. To get better results from email marketing, just contact us.

Best,

Genti

Chief Strategy Officer at

Gentian, CSO and co-founder of Shero Commerce, guides the company and client digital strategies. He's an expert in technical SEO, Inbound Marketing, and eCommerce strategy.