Getting the Most Out of Your Email Template

Your email template , when sent to your recipients, does more than show off your products or services. It shows your readers what type of company you run, whether you're a professional operation or a small, sloppy shop, and this can make the difference between big open rates and sales and a failure of an email campaign. Because the professionalism of your email templates is an issue you will have to address, follow these three rules to make the most of this representation of you.

It's certainly tempting as an email marketer to cut corners with images and graphics. After all, you want your email marketing recipients to read your email and respond rather than stare at it all day long. However, don't underestimate the power of good graphics and images to enhance your email templates. If you don't have professional-looking images to get your message across in your emails or newsletters, sign up with a subscription to a reputable stock agency that carries both graphics and images that can help illustrate your message. Once you've placed these graphics and images in your layouts, make sure they're clickable links that can send readers back to landing pages on your Website for more info or a purchase.

A permission reminder message is a sentence that shows recipients where and how they signed up for your email or newsletter. The importance of a message like this cannot be underestimated, as recipients are deluged with hundreds of email marketing campaigns every single day, some masquerading as opt-in operations even when the customer never signed up at all. Place your permission reminder at the very top of your email so it's one of the first things your readers see, either in the preview pane or when they open the email. As an added bonus, telling recipients where they signed up for your campaigns shows them that you're not a spammer, thus saving your email marketing reputation.

Simply stated, avoid throwing everything but the kitchen sink in when you create your email campaigns. Your email template should be able to breathe by using white space and a clear message. When you place too many items in your email, you'll find your readers bogged down and confused, unsure where to look and what to focus on. You want your email templates to showcase no more than three products at a time. Focus on quality, not quantity with your email template layouts, using a carefully crafted pitch with good graphics and a few marquee products to help boost sales and drive your message home.