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Template Customisation - User Guide

Template Customisation - User Guide

The template you choose will be partially based on the type of message you’ll be sending, such as a marketing offer, transactional email, newsletter, announcement, or event invite. Different objectives call for different formats and layouts, so consider which template will complement the message and objective of your email campaign.

If you have had a bespoke branded template created as part of your on-boarding this will be a multipurpose template with all the section styles that you would need for your campaign.

In our blog we have a Template showcase where we have taken a number of our templates and reviewed from a creative, technical and design perspective to help you get the most from them.

 

Creating an email using your chosen template

Create a new design (directly from the New Design menu) you can then select the template via the Choose template button in the design editor.

select a template button in smart editor

Alternatively, choose your template from the shared tab within your account (this is where you will find your bespoke template that was created as part of your onboarding) or the stock tab if you are looking to use a template from our global library. Click on the 3 dots and then select Create design.

create a design from a template

N.B. If you are selecting a template from the shared tab, do not click on the template and start changing it. If you do this directly you are changing the master template – always make sure that you are creating a design.

 

Once you have selected the template there are various aspects that you need to update to have an email ready to send to your audience.

Personalising a stock template

  1. Amend colours to reflect your brand colours - you need to make this change within the appearance tab in smart editor, this will then apply your colours throughout the design.

  2. Replace Lorum ipsum logo with a .png of your logo (size of template image can be seen in the details panel on the right when you click on the image to guide your logo sizing)

  3. Check that all social links are set up in your link manager so that they are automatically pulled into the template.

 

Adding your content to your email design

Once the foundation of your email design is in place, you can add sections and modules to the design to best present your message.

 

Your template will be built with a minimum of 3 stripes, Header, Body and Footer.

 

It is only the body that you need to update with your content and messaging.

Within the body section you will find content blocks and you have the ability to save areas as modules to use them in different places or to add new blocks to hold additional content. So as you build campaigns you can easily replicate certain layouts or styles in future designs.

 

Building you email campaign design

We have a wealth of best practice advice in our blog that can help you create a fantastic campaign.

Here are a selection of articles that can help inform and inspire your future campaigns

·        Top 5 things to consider when designing your email

·        The design trends for this year

·        Great copy is effective and inclusive

·        Effective use of imagery

We even have an email planning checklist to help you organise your thoughts.

 

Other checklists you may find useful

pre-flight checklist

Check out our pre-flight checklist

If you don’t have an email campaign sign-off list, then we are here to help. In order to reduce email errors, our Customer Success Team created a checklist that you can use to ensure that your emails are ready to send before actually hitting the “send” button. Everything you need for your email campaign sign-off is included in this list, so feel free to save, print, and reuse.

email accessibility checklist

Check out our email accessibility checklist

For many organisations email accessibility is a significant concern. Use our simple list of checks to make sure that you have the basics right to ensure that every recipient gets a great communication experience.

Free email marketing healthcheck - icon

Email marketing healthcheck

We are confident that we can help you, which is why we offer a free healthcheck to identify potential issues with your current programme and free advice on things that could be done to improve it.

Get started