What Are Email Templates? And How to Choose a Good One

The email marketing stats are in, and they all say the same thing: email marketing is well worth your time and energy. In fact, the average email has a return on investment of $36 for every dollar spent.  But not just any email will get you those kind of results.

Using well-designed email templates can help you create the perfect email that will encourage your audience to open and engage with it while defining your brand. 

What is an email template? 

An email template is an editable template you can use to create mass emails with ease. The perfect email template is styled to match your brand’s vibe. It should feature your colors and/or logo and be recognizable as your brand.

Instead of designing every message from a blank screen, an email template provides a prebuilt structure that already includes:

• A layout with a header, body, footer, and call to action
• Brand elements like your logo, colors, and fonts
• Formatting and spacing that works on desktop and mobile

The goal of an email template is to expedite the emailing process. Without a template, every time you wanted to send out an email campaign, you’d have to worry about designing something mobile-friendly, aesthetically appealing, and on-point for your brand. But, when you have a template, those aspects are already taken care of. 

Templates allow you to focus on creating strong email content that will be useful to your recipients. You save time on each email you craft while simultaneously sending out more effective emails. 

What are the different types of email templates? 

There are two major types of email templates: text templates and professional email templates. Rather than choosing between the two, picking the right template type will depend on your need. It’s similar to the difference between a screwdriver and a hammer: one is not better than the other, but you always want to have the right tool for the job you’re doing. 

Plain text email templates

Text templates are usually stored in Google or Outlook. They’re ideal for boilerplate messaging used in one-on-one emails with clients. 

• What they’re best for: Answering those questions you get over and over again. Think quick, personal replies for customer service, sales follow-ups, or internal team updates where a full marketing design would feel like too much.
• Advantages: You’ll save a ton of time — just copy, paste, and personalize a few details before hitting send. Plus, because they look and feel like a regular email, they come across as personal and direct, which is great for building trust. No fancy formatting also means they fly past spam filters and load instantly on any device.
• Examples: A follow-up with pricing details for a new client, a friendly confirmation for an upcoming appointment, or the answer to that common question you get about your business hours or return policy.

Consider, for example, if your brand offers a scholarship. If you frequently receive emails asking about scholarship submission guidelines, it would be inefficient to look those up each time you need to respond.

On the other hand, you could have a text template that is crafted once, uses polite and professional language, and includes the scholarship’s due date, rules, and a link to the application form. Then, any time you receive a question about the scholarship, you can easily copy and paste the answer into a reply. 

Email marketing templates

Email marketing templates are suited for internal and external newsletters, small business marketing strategies, and multi-stage email campaigns. 

These email templates  are designed to keep your audience engaged. Even the smallest business can create the perfect marketing email without hiring an entire marketing team. 

Drag-and-drop technology allows you to set up your template once and use it over again. Every email will have the same mobile-friendly online appeal, and the only elements you’ll need to change are the images and text. 

How do you find an email template? 

Some email templates need to be crafted by hand, while others can be found through online services and tweaked to meet your unique needs. 

How to find text templates

Finding and using plain text templates is something you can start doing right now. You don’t need any special software; these are the templates you create and save directly within your everyday email client, like Gmail’s “Canned Responses” or Outlook’s “My Templates.”

They aren’t about fancy design; they’re about efficiency. You write a clear, effective message for a recurring situation, save it, and it’s ready to go whenever you need it. The main benefit is saving yourself from typing the same thing over and over while still sounding like a real person.

How to find HTML/design email templates

When you’re ready to send beautifully designed, branded emails, you’ll need to use an email marketing provider.

Why? Because there’s a lot going on behind the scenes to make sure your emails look professional everywhere. A dedicated provider handles all the technical headaches like making sure your design automatically adjusts to fit a tiny phone screen (this is called responsive design) and ensuring it looks right whether it’s opened in Gmail, Outlook, or Apple Mail.

When you’re looking for an email provider, make sure the one you choose offers:

• Best-in-class deliverability rates
• Mobile-responsive designs
• A variety of email templates to fit different situations
• Easy customization with drag-and-drop editors

What makes a good email template? 

Designing the perfect email template requires a bit of finesse. More people read emails on their phones than on desktops now, so prioritizing mobile-friendly email design is a must.

In addition to focusing on mobile optimization, email templates should follow email design best practices. These include: 

• Easy-to-read font choices: A good template comes pre-set with professional, web-safe fonts that ensure your message is always clear and legible on any device.
• Your logo and brand colors: It should have a dedicated, prominent spot for your logo and make it simple to apply your brand colors, ensuring every email instantly feels like you.
• Simple, minimalist email design: The best templates use a clean, uncluttered structure and plenty of white space to serve as a professional frame for your message.
• A clear content hierarchy: A great template guides the reader’s eye with a smart layout that has clear placeholders for headlines, body text, and images, putting your most important content first.
• Built-in personalization: Look for templates that already include the code for personalization fields (like [First Name]), making it easy for you to add that personal touch.
• Mobile-first design: This is a core feature of the template’s code. It’s built to be responsive, meaning its layout automatically and perfectly adjusts to look great on any screen size.
• Flexible layout: A strong template provides a variety of sections and content blocks that you can easily add, remove, or rearrange to fit the specific goal of any campaign.
• Prominent CTA buttons: The template should include pre-designed, eye-catching buttons that are impossible to miss, making it effortless for you to add a powerful call-to-action.
• Pre-loaded with your brand: A superior template lets you apply your branding (logo, colors, and fonts) with a click so every new campaign can start off perfectly on-brand.
• Visual balance: The template itself should be designed with a balanced mix of placeholders for images and text, preventing it from feeling too heavy or lopsided in any one area.
• Built for accessibility: It should be created with accessibility in mind, using a proper HTML structure and color-contrast-friendly design that works with screen readers.
• A compliant footer: A good template comes with a pre-built footer that already includes the non-negotiable elements: your physical address and a clear unsubscribe link.

How to choose the perfect email template

Choosing the perfect email template for your brand will depend largely on how you’ll be using the template in the future. The perfect email newsletter template looks different from the perfect welcome email template. 

Even similar emails may have different needs. For example, while they would both follow email marketing best practices, internal newsletters may require a different template from external newsletters. 

Most brands have a few different email templates, including templates for: 

• Newsletters: Regular updates, curated content, company news, and promotions.
• Special occasions: Connect with customers on holidays and other key dates with timely, relevant messages.
• Announcements: Share major company news, a new product launch, or important updates with your audience.
• Press releases: Formally announce newsworthy events or milestones to the media and the public.
• Sales promotion: Drive immediate revenue and excitement with a focused email designed to highlight special offers.
• Industry-specific emails: Use templates tailored to your field (like real estate email templates) to speak directly to your audience’s needs.
• Event invitations and save-the-dates: Announce your next webinar or in-person gathering and make it easy for people to RSVP.
• Creating a welcome email series: Make a great first impression and introduce new subscribers to your brand.
• Saying “thank you”: Show appreciation after a purchase or action to build customer loyalty and make people feel valued.

What to do after choosing the perfect email template

Having the perfect email template is great, but it’s only the first step to sending perfect emails. After you have the right template, the next step is to ensure you maximize how you’re using that template. 

Follow email marketing best practices

Every email you send should follow email marketing best practices. Use a simple, easy-to-follow layout — which should be taken care of by your template — and make sure you use clear, concise language. 

If you’re creating an email for the general public, write it for an eighth-grade reading level or lower. Keeping your text brief and concise is key since many people will be reading your message on the go from their smartphone. You can use online tools like the Hemingway Editor  to check the readability of your email content before you send it. 

And speaking of editors, make sure you edit your emails — and then edit them again. Studies show that typos and the overuse of capital letters make content come across as less trustworthy. 

Research also shows that it’s incredibly easy to miscommunicate via email.

While your word processor will catch a lot of basic grammar mistakes, using an editor like Grammarly or the Hemingway Editor can improve more than basic grammar.

These online editing tools aim to help you simplify your language and improve clarity, which can limit digital miscommunications. 

Finally, run tests on the emails you send out. A/B testing can be used to help you decide the types of emails that have the highest open rates or click-through rates. These can help you craft more engaging emails in the future. 

Create a landing page for an event

If you’re using an email to advertise an event, make sure you have a landing page for that event as well. 

Landing pages can be used to generate hype around an event and provide more information than you could fit into an email. They are also easily shareable, so recipients of your email newsletters can direct friends and family members to your page without having to forward the email they were sent. 

Use email marketing automation

Email marketing automation combines the benefits of text templates with email templates to create different email sequences that engage and nurture your leads. 

With marketing automation, you can, for example, set up a series of welcome emails that will go out automatically whenever someone new signs up for your newsletter. These emails would be designed to:

• Welcome the new reader
• Tell them a little more about your brand
• Provide specials offers and coupons to entice them to shop your store
• Prepare them for the type of content they can expect from you in the future

Welcome emails aren’t the only emails that benefit from email automation. Other popular automated email sequences include: 

• Abandoned cart email series
• Lead nurturing emails
• Re-engagement emails
• Subscription renewal emails

Email automation allows you to put these types of emails on auto-pilot so you can focus your attention on crafting quality newsletters, announcements, and other one-time emails. 

Having email automation in place does more than just prepare your emails. By segmenting your lists and adding rules to your sequences, the emails will be sent out automatically when people on your email list take specific actions. Allowing you to send the right message at the right time without spending a lot of time and energy doing it.

Sync with social media

Since social media and email marketing are two of the most popular marketing channels, ensure that they align. Syncing social media and email help you make the most out of both forms of marketing. 

Use social media to grow your email lists

The easiest way to sync email and social media is to use your social media accounts to grow your email list. 

One way to do this is to provide an email sign-up link on all your social media channels. Facebook makes this especially easy; they offer a “Sign Up Now” call to action button that brands can use on all of their posts. 

Another way to sync social media and email is to use a social media contest to boost your email list. Offer to enter everyone who signs up for your email, within a certain time frame, an entry into a drawing. Improve the chances that this tactic is successful in bringing the right people to your email list by offering a prize that your target audience would covet. 

Use email to grow your social media following

Just as you can use social media to grow your email list, you can use your email list to grow your social media following. 

For example, you can include your social media icons in your professional email templates, allowing readers to easily connect to your social media page(s). 

You can also include a call to action in certain emails to encourage readers to follow you on social media for more content. While it would be tiresome for readers to see this every time they read an email, including a reminder on a monthly or quarterly basis can boost your social media following. 

Another way to do this is to suggest that people who unsubscribe from your email list follow you on social media instead. While this may seem counterintuitive, your followers may be unsubscribing for a myriad of reasons. Just because they’re purging their email list doesn’t mean they dislike your brand. Suggesting they follow you on social media instead is a great way to keep them engaged while respecting their choice to unsubscribe. 

Use email templates to boost your email marketing game

The right email template isn’t just a shortcut. It’s your launchpad for sending professional, on-brand emails without having to start from scratch every single time. The right templates allow you to spend less time designing emails and more time running your business.

Ready to stop staring at a blank screen and start sending more effective emails? Explore our huge library of mobile-responsive email templates and see how easy it can be when you sign up for a free trial.