Well written, attention-grabbing email text is not the only characteristic that makes up a cutting edge email marketing campaign. A well-designed email template must accompany the text. Some may wonder why experts put as much emphasis on the design as they do the text. The reason that the design is just as important as the written portion of an email campaign is because it will make or break marketing success. There are three reasons email marketers use templates, and these are to grab the attention of their readers, target their audiences and automate the email sending process.

Can Grab the Readers’ Attention

Visually appealing imagery is enough to compel readers to act. Emotional responses can be evoked in viewers depending on how graphics are designed. For example, an email campaign advertising a book that provides suggestions to sleep deprived parents on how they can get their babies to sleep through the night will use templates that feature images of parents looking rejuvenated and babies sleeping peacefully.

A campaign that is trying to sell a course on quickly making money selling PLR articles will have templates containing imagery portraying what kind of life will be enjoyed when success occurs, such as by showing stacks of dollar bills, relaxing on the beach and owning a fancy yacht. There may even be imagery of a family spending more time together, advocating that a successful PLR business will facilitate more time because it is largely automated. It is the marketers’ jobs to get their customers to visualize having solutions to problems that are plaguing them, and it is also their jobs to cause prospective customers to feel like they are only a mouse click away from having their desires fulfilled.

Targeting Audiences

Creating a solid consumer mailing list is key to the success of your email marketing campaign. The reason email marketing is so effective is because it is targeted to a specific person. Building this list can be time consuming, but your ROI will be much higher. Once you have your list, you need to create a template.

Email templates are an excellent way for marketers to target specific audiences. Templates that are designed to appear in the inboxes of executives will look far different than those that are designed to be received by college students. The template that is to go to a high level business professional will likely have an Arial font, use basic coloring and be limited on the amount of graphics that are used. The template that will market a product or service to college students will likely have a stylish type of font, use bright colors and pop with graphics. Marketers take much time studying their audiences so they will know how to design well-targeted templates that will produce the best outcomes.

Automate the Email Sending Process

Templates are an excellent way to automate the email sending process. After designing the templates and loading them into an auto responder, the campaigning process is almost completely automated from that point. The only time marketers will have to step in is if there are technical problems, and that is not often at all.

Examples of a Good and Bad Email Marketing Templates

When designing templates, it is critical to avoid some common mistakes that can cause time and productivity to be lost. An example of a template that can definitely use a lot of improvement is the one put out by Liaison Technologies Sure this template has a clear call to action, is neatly designed and strategically uses imagery; however, there are some major problems. For one thing, the Liaison Technologies email template only has a single call to action, and this is to download a white paper. There is no content featured that will engage people who are in differing stages of the decision making process. Another problem is that there is not enough information about what the white paper will do for its readers. Prospective customers will undoubtedly want more information about this white paper before they go ahead and download it. Few people will make a choice without knowing why there is a need to do so. A thumbnail of this particular asset will also be beneficial to concretely provide an illustration of what is being featured.

An example of an excellent email template is the one used by Forrester. This template has a clean and neat design, properly uses images, and contains an outstanding sidebar layout. Additionally, content is segmented based on the subscription preferences of various prospects.

Email marketers who take care to follow best practices for designing their templates will undoubtedly experience immense success. The pool of clientele will grow tremendously enough that profits will soar, and the business will experience expansion in a relatively short period of time.