Free Email Newsletter Templates

jross

June 18, 2021 (Updated: May 4, 2023)

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What Is an Email Newsletter Template?
Why Do I Need an Email Newsletter Template?
When Do I Need To Create an Email Newsletter Template?
Should I Create a Newsletter Template for My Business?
How To Optimize Your Email Newsletter Template
When To Change Your Newsletter Template
A/B Testing Newsletter Templates
65+ Email Newsletter Templates

There is no easier way to keep your audience engaged with your business or brand than with email. It’s low cost and highly effective if you have an updated list of clients or interested prospects’ emails. But, creating an email newsletter campaign can take time unless you use free email newsletter templates to your advantage.

Whether you’re launching a new product, have important information you want to share, or like to keep your followers informed with the latest updates regarding your company, sending out a newsletter is a great marketing strategy.

Selecting the right design for your newsletter is also vital, allowing your users to read all the information in your email comfortably, which is why we recommend choosing a good template, especially if you’re just starting. There are plenty of free templates available online, but first, let’s review what an email newsletter template is, why it’s essential, and how to optimize your strategy to get the best possible results.

Image via Unsplash by rasfzin p

What Is an Email Newsletter Template?

An email newsletter is sent out by companies to their subscribers to keep them updated on their latest news, available content, or current promotions. These emails can be sent out on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, depending on their primary goal.

Email newsletter templates are drag-and-drop templates created by web designers. They’re molds that can help shape upcoming newsletters to be sent to the subscribers. A template is the backbone of every newsletter, and it should look professional. Instead of designing a newsletter from the ground up every time, companies use templates to accelerate the process.

To create an email newsletter template, you can work with web and graphic designers to decide the functionality and design of the template. Or, you can use one of the many email marketing tools available with built-in template designers that can help you create free personalized email newsletter templates. Most of these tools are easy-to-use and require no coding language experience.

Why Do I Need an Email Newsletter Template?

Even when you have an extensive team of creators and designers, email newsletter templates can ease the workload for everyone. A good template lets you copy and paste information directly into the file, so anyone with a little knowledge of web design can do it. You can use the same template again and again for multiple campaigns with different content.

Save time: It can take many hours to complete a campaign. But, you also have to factor in things like approvals, revisions, etc. An email template lets marketers plug content into an existing and pre-approved template that saves everyone time.
Maintain consistency: Achieving consistency in your marketing efforts provides a better overall experience to your subscribers. Email templates already have the main guidelines of your brand embedded in them, giving you a more consistent branding experience.
They’re easy to use: Not everyone has the luxury of having an in-house web designer who can create a new email newsletter every time. Instead, email templates are easy to use, and you don’t need much HTML experience to use them.
Affordable: To build out a newsletter, you’re probably looking at an investment of $40 to $200, depending on the complexity of the newsletter. However, many email newsletter templates are free, potentially saving you hundreds of dollars down the line.
Prevent mistakes: One more benefit of email newsletter templates is that they reduce the possibility of making mistakes. A template requires you to fill in every aspect of it before being sent out, so you can prevent sending out emails with missing fields, like images or buttons. It also gives you a layout to follow, so it’s easier and faster to complete by any team member.

Compared to other marketing tools, email marketing can be a cheap and more effective alternative. It is straightforward to track and measure. It also can be independent of other service providers, easy to link to other marketing channels, and requires little to no innovation once it proves effective.

When Do I Need To Create an Email Newsletter Template?

Once a company has decided to incorporate an email campaign into their digital marketing strategy for business, they can select an email newsletter template from scratch, choose a template for free, or purchase an email template and start working toward their objective.

Email campaigns tend to be a cheaper feature to drive sales, traffic, or subscribers to platforms. To keep costs as low as possible, organizations choose to work with free alternatives available online.

Regardless of your services, you should create an email newsletter template the moment your website goes live. Having an initial template will help you adapt future email blasts like promotions, updates, and more.

Should I Create a Newsletter Template for My Business?

With so many online options, creating a newsletter template from scratch might not be the best option. This decision needs to be thoroughly considered within your organization. If none of the alternatives available appropriately respond to your organization’s needs, it might be best to create a new template.

Keep in mind, a graphic designer can help you adapt an existing newsletter template to match your brand and your needs. Many online platforms also offer guidance on how to start creating your personalized email newsletter template for your business. Play with the different options available before choosing to have a customized one created by a web designer.

Luckily, you can easily find hundreds — if not thousands — of easy-to-use email newsletter templates that you can try and adapt for your business.

How To Optimize Your Email Newsletter Template

Before deciding to make changes to an email newsletter template, it’s better to check the campaign’s metrics first. It’s always possible to obtain better results from email newsletter campaigns after understanding the metrics available from the marketing efforts.

Check the Subject Line

If, for example, the open rate is low, this may be due to uninteresting subject lines. The subject line is among the first things users see when they receive an email. It’s what can help them choose whether to open or ignore a marketing email. Therefore, the subject line needs to be inviting, make them curious about the subject, indicate what the email is about, or offer them something special.

Adjusting the sender info may also be necessary since this, too, is some of the first information subscribers see from your email. You may decide to change the name in the “From” field of your email newsletter to get better results. For example, instead of sending an email from “CopyPress,” sometimes sending an email from “Susan at CopyPress” can yield higher open rates.

Update Your Call to Action

If, on the contrary, the open rate levels are on par with the industry standard (or even better than expected), the next thing to check is the click rates. This metric represents how many times users click on the content on the email or on the call to action button, which can take them to the website to purchase a new product, read a new blog post, subscribe to a channel, or complete another process.

When click rates are lower than expected, it’s recommended to experiment with other colors for the CTA button, use different wording or phrases, or even consider changing the button’s placement in the email template.

Audit the Content

The third most reviewed metric for email campaigns is the rate of users unsubscribing from the mailing list. Users might unsubscribe when they receive too many emails, they are no longer interested in the content or have a bad brand experience. This is a sensitive point to consider since it can come from different causes. It will lead to a different approach to campaigns and may help keep the audience list engaged with an organization. Find ways to write email newsletter content that drives leads.

Another equally valuable metric is bounce rate, representing how many emails are rejected due to incorrect email addresses or blocked users.

Upon reviewing these metrics, if you find that they align with the industry standard but are not getting the results you were hoping for, then it’s time to change the email newsletter template for a more effective one.

When To Change Your Newsletter Template

Changing your newsletter template regularly is not a good sign that business is going great. The time and place to make significant changes have to be carefully selected to avoid alarming subscribers. Having a new template for email campaigns every month will be perceived as a negative move by most users and will make it difficult for them to engage with that content.

However, some occasions do call for a change of template. Here are some times when you might want to change your newsletter template:

When you want to send a “thank you” email.
To celebrate a milestone.
When you’re feeling festive.
To make a special announcement.
When you’re looking for feedback.

Ensure that even when you change your newsletter template, branding elements like your logo, brand colors, and style remain the same. You want to make sure your subscribers don’t mistake your content for spam.

A/B Testing Newsletter Templates

A/B Testing templates mean sending two versions of the same email, but with one slight change, and then measuring which variation has a better success rate than the other. This helps establish new ways of sending out content, what kind of calls to action are more likely to work with users, and what other aspects of a template can be improved.

Keep in mind that for A/B tests to work, you need to compare apples to apples. For example, if you want to check the efficiency of your subject lines for open rates, you would change only that variable. The email template design, colors, and images must remain the same.

On that note, you should test for only one metric as well. Here are things you can A/B test in your email newsletters:

Subject lines.
The preheader text.
Length of copy.
Number of items in the email.
Brand’s voice.
Images.
Personalization.
Colors.

While different campaigns can have their own objectives, target, or tone, all mailing efforts must be reviewed as a whole if there is a significant decline in conversions.

65+ Email Newsletter Templates

There are plenty of good newsletter templates available online. No matter the business line, there will usually be a newsletter template option for creating engaging campaigns. Here are some newsletter templates to try:

There’s no doubt that email newsletters can be a valuable marketing tool for your company. Using newsletter templates, you can make sure your efforts pay off. Keep tweaking and making small changes to your newsletter until you find the style and content that best works for your company.