Email templates

A template is an email you saved so you can start from it next time. Same header, same colours, same footer — you only swap the content.

There’s no templates page

Don’t look in the menu. There’s no separate place for templates. They live inside the work you’re already doing:

• Save a template: in a broadcast, the … menu → Save as template.
• Use a template: when you create a new broadcast and choose how the email should look. Your saved templates sit under Your templates.

Start a new broadcast

1. Go to Email → Broadcasts and create a new broadcast.
2. Choose how the email should look: Letter (looks like an ordinary email, just your words), Newsletter (your name on top, a heading, an image and a button), Invitation (a large image, a heading and one clear button) — or one of Your templates.
3. Write the content.

To change the look of a broadcast you’ve already started, choose Change the start in the … menu. What you’ve written is replaced, so do it before you’ve written much.

Save a template

1. Finish the email — colours, logo, footer, whatever you want to keep.
2. Choose Save as template in the … menu.
3. Give it a name you’ll recognise: “Newsletter”, “Launch email”, “Short and personal”.

The template then appears among your choices when you create a new broadcast. Remove anything specific to this particular email before you save. A template with last month’s headline still in it is a trap.

Personalisation

In the email body you can use placeholders that fill in per recipient:

{name} · {first_name} · {last_name} · {email} · {workspace_name} · {portal_url} · {unsubscribe_url}

One or two sets of braces both work: {first_name} and {{first_name}} give the same result.

Use the first name in subject lines sparingly. Everyone knows by now that it’s automatic, and someone who’s had ten emails starting with her own name stops reacting.

What doesn’t exist

• There’s no templates page in the menu where you can go through and edit all your templates.

Tips

• Make one template, not five. A recognisable email builds more habit than a beautiful one.
• Keep the design simple. Text, one image, one button. An email that looks like a letter from a person gets opened more than one that looks like a catalogue.
• Update the template when you change your logo. An old header is the first thing a reader notices and the last thing you remember to fix.