Have you ever wanted to create beautifully designed mobile responsive newsletters for your email marketing campaigns?
I mean, personally I always wanted to create one but wasn’t able to because I don’t know how to code HTML or CSS which unfortunately are required to create any responsive template.
I also know the fact that there are various premium and freely available email templates on Internet but again you cannot customize them or better to say you cannot add personalizations unless you know how to code.
So now the only solution which I had in front of me was to join any email marketing platform and then use their template builder but again there was a small problem.
Unless I subscribe to any of their paid monthly subscription plans I couldn’t get access to hundred percent features of their newsletter builder but that was until I found SendPulse.
What is SendPulse?
SendPulse is an all in one marketing platform which offers super impressive free subscription plan, as well as feature, loaded paid plans.
If you want to get access to advanced features such as marketing automation, artificial intelligence, A/B testing, segmentation, etc you should definitely subscribe to one of the SendPulse’s monthly paid plan which starts at just $9.85.
A Bit About Email Marketing
Email marketing is the act of sending information or a pre-sell to either current customers, or those whom businesses hope to potentially acquire. The primary goal of each email is to establish a brand and trust, so those who are reached have the incentive to be interested and want to place their time and financial resources behind them. Any email that is for the purpose of marketing typically aims to either educate, inform or to sell.
Email marketing is a tool for selling, and this is accomplished through facts, persuasion, and skill. In most instances emails deliver a soft sell, meaning it is direct in its message but not resorting to pressure tactics to close a customer.
Furthermore, email marketing is a way where consumers can give their permission to be solicited an innumerable amount of times by opting in and agreeing to be emailed at the company’s discretion. In simple terms, you are getting unlimited exposure to your existing customers by spending literally nothing.
How To Use SendPulse To Create Professional Newsletter Templates
In this article, I’m going to guide you through six important steps which will ultimately allow you to create a personalized mobile responsive email template within just a few minutes.
#1 Sign up at SendPulse
You can either join the free plan or any of the paid plan in case you are willing to explore advanced features such as Automation 360, Artificial Intelligence, etc.
#2 How would you like to start?
Once you are subscribed all you need to do is to log in to SendPulse account. Once you are inside the dashboard you should be able to locate “email templates” on the left-hand side menu panel.
Click on it and then you will be presented with hundreds of professionally designed, pre-built templates.
If you like any of the design, click on it and you are all set to go but if you want to create your own template then you need to click on “Add a template” button.
#3 How would you like to proceed?
Once you click on “add a template” button the page will reload and you will be offered with three different options.
Option 1: Use the inbuilt layout template editor
This option comes with 4 more options.
- Basic
- News
- Commerce
- Text
These sub-options allows you to choose the starter template for your newsletter.
Let’s say you are an e-commerce website, in that case, you should choose commerce starter template. If you are a personal blogging website then I will suggest you choose either news or basic as you started layout.
For the sake of this tutorial, I’m going to use this option that is “Layout Template Editor” and I’m going to use “Basic” as my default layout.
Option 2: HTML editor
This might be a good option for those who are familiar with coding and want to get complete control over the design and content structure.
For me personally it’s simply useless because I don’t know how to code.
Option 3: Upload your template
In case you have already purchased any premium email template or if you already have a prebuilt layout then you can just upload it and use it in your marketing campaign.
#4 Let’s explore the template builder interface
Template builder uses sections and blocks to define the structure and the content of the template respectively.
On the left-hand side of the screen, you will find section and block options.
Sections: Sections are basically the divisions which define the boundaries of the content which are added to them.
You can add as many sections as you like in your design. By default, there are seven possible section styles which you can add to your design. Furthermore, you can also drag-and-drop the inbuilt section examples in your design.
Blocks: Blocks are nothing more than the actual content which will be shown to your subscribers when they open your emails. Blocks can be text, picture, video, table, buttons, social media icons, address, etc.
On the right-hand side of the screen, you will find the advanced control settings for each and every individual block you add in your section.
These advanced settings allow you to define custom background colors, paddings, height, divisions, line height, fonts and every single possible setting related to that specific block.
#5 Add your customizations
Let’s say you need to change the logo.
In order to do that you will first click on the logo and then you will get detailed information about it (image block) under the “current element” section on the right-hand side of the screen.
Now you will have to click on the “change” button and then on the “Upload” button. Now you have simply drag and drop your logo from your computer and then click on “return to files list” button.
Now all you need to do is to click on the image which you have just uploaded and done.
To preview the changes which you have just made in your template you will have click on the “preview” button with which you should be able to find on the top of the screen.
Above is a screenshot of how your email template will look on both mobile and other devices.
#6 Save your design
Once you have achieved your final design you need to save your template so that you can use it later on in your email marketing campaigns.
To save your design, all you have to do is to click on the “Save” button.
A popup will appear asking to give your template a name, so enter the name and then click on “save template” button.
Conclusion
Congratulations, you have successfully created your first mobile responsive newsletter template without touching a single of code.
Because I wanted to keep this guide short and to the point, I haven’t discussed much about the Blocks and Advanced customization settings but trust me you can achieve far more than just custom colors and logos with SendPulse template builder.
In case you are looking for a more detailed guide you can check this video tutorial.
