May 11, 2016
Anatomy of a Great Email Template
If you search the Internet for “free email templates,” you’ll find a lot of ideas. I mean A LOT of ideas. And, I’ve got to say that a number of these templates for business emails are perfectly serviceable–they look nice, they’re more-or-less responsive to mobile layouts, they give you some bits to customize and tailor to your brand. All good, right? Well, before you grab one of the many free examples of great email templates, take a moment to consider whether it’s more than a pretty face.
What Makes a Good Email Template?
What really makes a successful email? The best ones start with great email design, and there’s not just one formula for success – there’s a reason email marketing professionals are in high demand. It’s a complex topic that really depends upon the nature of your business, your brand, and the needs of your customers. But those intangibles aside, most successful emails hang on the skeleton of workhorse email structure templates that meet a few key criteria.
Email template best practices include:
A considerate layout: Good templates balance white space and visual elements to deliver a better user experience (UX).
Responsive design: Since many users now access email on various devices, template design should adapt automatically to differing screen sizes.
Dark mode compatibility: More and more users are turning to dark mode on their devices for an easier, battery-saving reading experience. Testing ensures essential information still appears correctly on all color schemes.
What Is the Anatomy of an Email?
Our skeletons are what keep us from being a formless masses of ooze (at least that’s what I hope for myself, anyway)! It can help to think of an email template as playing a similar role. It’s what gives a message it’s structure, and like a skeleton, it features a head, body, and feet. Let me walk you through several of the features that your email template should include.
The Email Preheader
Don’t waste the “preheader” text. Sometimes called a “snippet,” the preheader text is usually the first line of copy that appears as a preview in the inbox or in your message. The information appears next to the subject line and tells the reader what to expect when they open your message, similar to the meta description of a web page. Think of it as a subtitle to your subject line. There’s room for less than ten words or about 75–100 characters. Too many stock email templates waste that space with boilerplates like “View this message in web browser.” Yours shouldn’t do that. Replace the stock preview text with a line that clearly and compellingly previews the message content.
The Email Template Header
It makes sense to start with the header. Not simply because it comes first, but also because it contains the cues your recipient will see in the inbox. Though literally a small part of the template, it should be crystal clear about what value the reader will get from reading your message. Getting the header right will ensure whether she or he takes the time to open the message. Getting its details wrong will be a deal-breaker, no matter how good the rest of your email message.
Use a recognizable and friendly “from” name and address. It’s hard to overstate how much this matters, and it frankly shocks me how many major brand companies get it wrong. A bare “do-not-reply@companyname.com” address in your email template makes it impossible for a user to reply. Just as importantly, it sends the message that this is a bulk email unworthy of the recipient’s attention. Instead, use the brand name that your customers would expect.
Use the right “reply-to” address. When you or I send a personal email, a recipient’s reply generally comes right back to us. But, handling replies to high volume marketing and transactional emails is not nearly so simple. Your email template should not only avoid the “do-not-reply” trap described above, but also make sure that replies go to an address that’s able to process it. Depending upon your business, your email template could be populated with a reply address for customer service, sales, or even your CEO—or it could be a unique endpoint that’s tied programmatically into that individual recipient’s help desk or CRM record.
A good template encourages you to create a killer subject line. Entire books have been devoted to the art of creating a compelling subject line. What works for one business could be very different than another, but your email template should make it easy to follow a few consistent rules: keep it short and to the point. Not only does that make it easy for the reader to get the point, but it also works for a variety of devices like mobile devices. The sweet spot is about a half-dozen words, or less than 50 characters.
Don’t waste the “preheader” text. Sometimes called a “snippet,” the preheader text is usually the first line of copy that appears as a preview in the inbox or in your message. Think of it as a subtitle to your subject line. There’s room for less than ten words, or about 75-100 characters. Too many stock email templates waste that space with boilerplate slike “View this message in web browser.” Yours shouldn’t do that. Replace the stock preview text with a line that clearly and compellingly previews the message content.
The Email Subject Line
A good template encourages you to create a killer subject line. Entire books have been devoted to the art of creating a compelling subject line. What works for one business could be very different than another, but your email template should make it easy to follow a few consistent rules: keep it short and to the point. Not only does that make it easy for the reader to get the point, but it also works for a variety of devices like mobile devices. The sweet spot is about a half-dozen words, or less than 50 characters.
The Email Template Body
Now comes the body of the email. If your recipient has responded to your subject line and other header information, the body of your email template is where you have a chance to really tell your story.
A good template is visually simple. A responsive design, single-column layout works consistently in both desktop and mobile email. Moreover, using white space and generously-spaced elements lend both visual clarity and focus, but also make your links more usable for someone tapping with a finger.
Your email template should contain placeholders for personalization. At a minimum, that means personalizing the salutation and perhaps a few bits of placeholder text like store locations. A more sophisticated template could contain highly complex rules that personalize offers and content based upon multiple criteria your customer database and business systems might contain.
Your email template should use images strategically. It’s true that a picture’s worth a thousand words (and supports our next template tip below), but multiple images quickly overwhelm your message. The best templates use a structured approach that emphasizes a “hero image” or another simple way to scale gracefully on a variety of devices. And as much as you love your logo? Use it just once.
A good email template helps you enforce a concise approach to copy. If you’re a writer like me, it’s tempting to craft a perfect letter with a detailed narrative structure. Don’t do it. It’s not about dumbing it down—it’s about being pragmatic. Concise copy not only scales well to mobile devices, but it makes it a lot easier for your customer to take the action you want him or her to take. After all, your email is just one of perhaps hundreds in her or his inbox, so demonstrate you respect your recipient’s time.
Your template really needs to focus on one easy call to action. Most emails aren’t self-contained islands; they’re meant to drive some other action, like visiting a website or engaging with an app. The most successful email templates make that call to action extremely clear, easy to activate, and a natural part of the message.
Today, great email templates even include interactive elements to increase engagement for your readers. Choose a format to resonate with your users, whether video, GIF, or image carousels. Before sending emails with animation, check which providers may not support accelerated mobile pages (AMP) and reserve interactive emails for supportive platforms.
The Email Signature
The signature is your opportunity to add one last on-brand statement. You can configure an automatic signature with generic data like contact information or personalize it with taglines and logos to reinforce a positive brand association. Make your templates work overtime and promote interaction through multiple channels by adding social media account links.
The Email Template Footer
It’s easy to overlook the message footer as containing a lot of boilerplate and other items nobody reads. But the truth is, the footer of an email template is where a number of message must-haves reside. Without them, your email might suffer customer spam complaints, deliverability hits, and even legal penalties.
Contact information for your company is a must-have in an email template. Letting the recipient know how to contact you not only is common courtesy that reinforces trust in your brand. It’s also a legal requirement in most jurisdictions.
The footer is also the home of necessary legal disclosures on templates for business emails. Industries like financial services and the law have specific disclaimer language that must appear on electronic communications.
Your email template needs to contain a clear statement of responsibility that tells the recipient who sent this message and why he or she received it. Believe it or not, a user might not remember when or how he or she interacted with your brand and chose to receive emails. This sort of statement solves that problem, and when done right, also is a great way to reinforce the relationship you have with your customer.
Every email template needs to show clear, easy-to-find unsubscribe and messaging preference links. Laws in the United States (and most other markets) require that all commercial email messages include a simple mechanism for subscribers to unsubscribe or opt-out. Even for transactional email messages, making it easy for your customer to tell you whether she or he wants your email is the best path to success. Don’t obfuscate or make unsubscribing difficult; that approach will hurt you in the end.
What Is the Best Email Template?
The best email structure template for your business is the one that accomplishes your goals for opens, engagement, and conversions.
Considerations you should look for when choosing the best email template for you include:
Ease of use: For those who don’t have a coding background, a good template should incorporate features like drag-and-drop layout elements to make customization easy.
Flexibility: Good email templates include enough versatility to adapt to your messaging, preventing you from making unwanted adjustments.
A wide variety of email types: Many email service providers offer customizable templates geared toward specific objectives, like these from SparkPost.
How Do I Make a Beautiful Email Template?
If you’d prefer to create yours instead, use email template design best practices for guidance, such as:
Choose complementary color schemes: Select branded colors to evoke an association with your product or service. Take cues from your logo and use coordinating ones.
Decide on a layout and visual elements: Increase the UX happiness factor by keeping it simple, digestible, and attractive with a balance of negative space and aesthetically pleasing imagery. Follow the visual hierarchy and position elements like an inverted triangle, going from title to body to a concise CTA.
Stick with supported fonts: Choose system fonts that display identically across devices for body text and save the fancy ones for supporting optical elements.
A Good Template Helps You Deliver Great Emails
A good email template is the foundation of a repeatable workflow and success with your emails. Including these key elements will help give you the structure you need to focus on what really matters: communicating a message that connects to your customers and drives the sort of engagement or response your business needs.
What would you like to know about email templates and crafting successful email messages? Let me know! I’d love to hear your point of view and the sorts of questions you run into.
By the way, if you’d like to take a deeper dive into the best practices for emails that really work, be sure to check out some of these great resources:
P.S. If you’ve already invested time and effort into creating great templates in Mandrill, I bet you’ll be glad to know our developer team created a really useful Mandrill-to-SparkPost template converter tool.