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When it comes to building an email campaign, you shouldn’t have to reinvent the wheel for each new idea. Promoting brand recognition or communicating with your target audience, custom-built email templates are the way to go.
Email Marketing tools are at the forefront of advertising a company or brand. So it’s essential to have a good understanding of the benefits and the challenges that come with creating a custom-built email template along with your best options. It can simplify your job, making it a lot easier.
But what is a custom-built email template? Unlike a one-off email, an email template allows you to design and write your email campaign in advance, where the formatting is retained for all subsequent campaigns. The great thing about using templates is that you can swap out your company or brand logo, text, product description, and so forth without having to start from scratch.
Thankfully, Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC) offers a comprehensive variety of custom-built email templates, one of its many features as a premier Email Service Provider (ESP), which is found in its handy tool called Content Builder.
But before we delve into the benefits of SFMC’s, Content Builder, let’s go over some of the challenges that come with building HTML/CSS templates from scratch to use within an ESP. If you’re sending a high volume of emails and your cadence is multiple times a week, a homemade email template can be the primary culprit for why your email campaigns don’t make it past the spam folder and into the inbox.
First, let’s take a quick look at a few challenges you may run across when building from scratch.
Challenges Of Building Custom Email Templates From Scratch
Even the best-laid plans can fail at times, and having a keen understanding of email best practices can make a difference in whether your email campaign is flagged as spam. These best practices are tried and tested behaviors that reap successful results.
When formulating these practices, your HTML plays a key factor when determining if your template is trustworthy. Not having responsive code can cause your email campaign to get flagged by an Internet Service Provider (ISP). One of the main ways to figure that out is through engagement, opens, click-throughs, and conversions.
A template that is created without giving consideration to error-free code can cause your email to get bounced, which is the failure of email delivery. Your email gets rejected by the ISP’s mail server, is either a soft or hard bounce. A soft bounce is temporary and can be the result of a full inbox or server outages. A hard bounce is three failed attempts to make it into a recipient’s inbox and is permanently removed as a result.
How Content Builder Make Custom-Built Email Templates Easy
According to Salesforce, “Content Builder is our cross-channel content management tool that allows you to consolidate images, documents, and content in a single location for use in the Marketing Cloud.”2 What makes it so great is that it’s easy to use, even for a beginner with a drag and drop interface.
Content Builder allows you to craft professional-looking emails without the experience of knowing HTML. The WYSIWYG preview makes it so you can view the changes as you go, in real-time. You can also benefit from its “more intelligent HTML paste such as color coding and line numbers.” There are an array of code snippets to use to enhance your email campaign, like Forward-to-a-Friend, link to Social Media, Open Tracking, and more.3
One of the best things about Content Builder is that it allows you to create custom-built email templates without the hassle of starting from scratch. Salesforce has provided a broad range of custom templates that can be used with its layout tool. It’s as effortless as pasting in your HTML. Plus, there are multiple ways to insert your content and images to showcase your email.
SFMC Default Templates Improves Compatibility Across Desktop, Web, And Mobile Clients
When using Content Builder custom email templates, you get the satisfaction of knowing that Salesforce went a step further. They tested and verified the content and layouts of “emails built using default templates with email and web-based clients, apps, and devices” for compatibility.
Then, Salesforce recorded its results on a grading scale, highlighting the most to least supported desktop, mobile, and web clients. Based on their research, this is how the grading scale works (also see table below):
- A – Thoroughly tested. Email templates are fully supported in these email clients.
- B – Not thoroughly tested. Email templates are assumed to be functional in these email clients. Defects are investigated and fixed, if possible.
- F – Explicitly unsupported and untested email clients.4
Benefits Of Using SFMC Content Builder, Custom-Built Email Templates
If you want to expand your business through advertisement, the Internet is one of the best and cost-savings tools to use. As business innovations evolve, custom-built email templates lead the way for promoting your business or brand awareness. The Internet can help enhance your customer’s experience and boost customer loyalty and increase future earnings. Custom-built email templates are the way to go, and when properly leveraged, SFMC Content Builder can keep you on the cutting-edge.
Martek Ventures can show you how to save time using the SFMC custom email templates in Content Builder. On average, several hours are needed to create a well thought out email, along with editing and testing. Content Builder can shorten that time to a minimum of 30 minutes. This frees you up to focus on consistency and the customer experience within your brand’s products and services.
According to Diving Bell Creative, “Customers depend on brand consistency whether they will respond to marketing offers or not. They are looking for trustworthy brands…it can be done by adding a personal touch to your predesigned templates.”5 The aim is to promote better communication with your target audience, thereby improving their customer experience, leading to conversions and income growth.
SFMC Content Builder Doesn’t Leave Email Design To Chance
SFMC Content Builder is a powerful, cost-effective tool whether you’re just beginning or have been looking for ways to accelerate your business growth. Martek Ventures takes all of that into consideration and is here to help you take advantage of this. They will demonstrate the benefits of using SFMC’s top-rated tool for creating custom-built email templates in Content Builder. Visit Martek Ventures today and fill out the contact form to receive your free consultation.
Email design should not be neglected or left up to chance. It is as critical as the data. Even if you have amazing content, it means nothing if your email design is poorly crafted. Using Content Builder, SFMC “gives you impressive email templates, and the great thing about them is that they’re mobile responsive by default.”
Remember, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to improving your custom-built email templates. Promote your business or brand with easy, straightforward email templates by using Content Builder. SFMC has a broad range of templates to choose from, and they’re designed to maximize your choices. Book your free consultation today!
Take a look below at a few samples, custom-built email templates you can choose from within Content Builder. Their wide array of assorted templates lowers the risk of redundancy, and each provides a fresh, new look for rebranding.6
Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Content Builder Custom Email Templates
Martek Ventures, a Salesforce Consultancy, has over 30 years of marketing communications experience and expertise. Fill out the contact form on MartekVentures.com to learn how they’ve helped mid-sized to Fortune 500 companies to improve their marketing operations needs through scalable solutions.
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References
- John Coker. December 31, 2019. The Consequences of Bad Email Templates – Misfit Email Series. https://www.mailgun.com/blog/bad-email-templates-consequences-misfit-email-series/.
- Salesforce Help. Marketing Cloud Content Creation: Content Builder. https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=mc_ceb_content_builder.htm&type=5.
- Salesforce Help. Marketing Cloud Content Creation: Get Started with Content Builder. https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=mc_ceb_get_started_with_content_builder.htm&type=5.
- Salesforce Help. Marketing Cloud Content Creation: Email Client Support for Default Templates. https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=mc_ceb_email_client_support.htm&type=5.
- December 4, 2019.4 Benefits of Using Custom Built Email Templates. Diving Bell Creative. https://divingbellcreative.com/custom-built-email-templates/.
- Manish Thaduri. Posted on May 8, 2019, in For Marketers, Guides. 5 Key Things to Consider When Designing Email Campaigns in Salesforce Marketing Cloud. https://www.salesforceben.com/5-key-things-to-consider-when-designing-email-campaigns-in-salesforce-marketing-cloud/.
