As companies transition to remote or hybrid working models, collaborating on emails becomes more challenging for teams. Simple tasks can turn into lengthy back and forth messages that consume the workday. Composing client responses and company-approved messages becomes even more cumbersome without a structured procedure in place.
Creating a library of effective email templates can help teams coordinate responses and align emails with company values and messaging.
Are Email Templates Effective?
Before building a library of email templates for your company, you may be wondering if they are effective in the first place? The short answer is yes.
Email templates are one of the many tools for managing a company's email inbox. But using a predefined email layout is easily forgotten when composing email responses. As creatures of habit, composing the same email over and over becomes an instinctual part of the workday. While copying and pasting is helpful, email templates reduce composition time and offer employees a helpful outline to streamline productive and efficient responses.
As a practical email tool, prewritten emails can accommodate a variety of company needs.
- Email marketing campaigns
- Sales follow-ups
- Employee onboarding
- Customer support
- Thank-you messages
- Information requests
The key benefit of using email templates is the ability to customize standard formatting to fit specific messaging needs. Email templates are particularly useful for marketing, as most campaigns contain custom images or scripted web elements that are difficult and time-consuming to replicate.
If a particular email performs well, it can be used again to drive engagement in future campaigns. Not only does utilizing templates save company time, but it can also result in a positive ROI without diverting more time into custom designs and messaging.
Furthermore, email templates help companies maintain branding and authorial tone in various stages of communication. For example, a company may have standardized messages they prefer to use when addressing customer support requests. Email templates help retain that messaging and reinforce company values in every team member’s response.
Setting up email templates to establish company expectations provides an organized structure for workflow that’s easy for team members to follow. While customization and personalization are possible, the time spent composing new messages for each response eats up valuable company time and adds pressure to employees to write something new. Creating effective email templates for team members reduces stress and contributes to a positive work environment.
Effective Email Templates: How to Compose a Library of Pre-Written Emails
What makes an email effective? While most would argue effective emails are determined by engagement and open rates, an effective email should also present a company’s message in a professional, comprehensible way.
Analyze Email Metrics
Before composing a library of templates to address every company need, it's important to analyze current email results first. Viewing email data helps teams determine which emails are most effective compared to those with fewer opens and less engagement.
Review Current Processes
If you are planning to use email templates for internal matters such as company announcements or employee onboarding, begin by reviewing current company processes. For example, ask your own team members: How was their onboarding process? Were company policies clearly laid out and understood? Was the message delivered well? Asking these questions first gives leaders the opportunity to analyze processes and improve wherever necessary.
Since the employee onboarding process is a critical step to beginning a positive working relationship, start building email templates there. A library of documents explaining how to welcome new staff and communicate critical company information helps human resource teams expedite the hiring process. It will also give HR leaders more time to address employee concerns and needs instead of spending hours composing identical emails.
Here is an example of a standard welcome email template for a hybrid team member.
If your company uses a more detailed onboarding process, it is important to outline what will be expected of new employees. For example, below is an email template for new employee onboarding that requires a signed employee handbook prior to the projected start date. While every company differs regarding its policies, requesting a signature helps HR determine that an employee has received the employee handbook and also understands the information included.
Keep in mind that email templates should be to the point, clear, and concise. More importantly, they should be easy to customize.
Find the Right Platform
While there are many email template tools available online to help teams create customized responses, Gmelius offers a simple solution for teams from within their own Gmail accounts. What sets Gmelius apart from other platforms is the ability to share Gmail templates with team members.
A hybrid workplace combines in-office and remote work and grants employees the flexibility to work from home or in an office setting. The shift between in-person and online settings poses significant collaboration challenges for teams.
To address this common obstacle, Gmelius creates shareable email templates for Gmail that can be personalized and shared with team members to avoid crafting duplicate replies each day. While Gmail will allow teams to save templates and use features like dynamic fields, teams can achieve so much more with an extension such as Gmelius.
Gmail templates are accessed directly from a team member’s compose window. Custom variables help personalize customer outreach and make employee onboarding emails even easier for HR leaders hiring a large staff.
Teams can ensure messages remain relevant and updated by managing email templates as a library with just a few clicks. With a library of templates in place, teams can still deliver quality responses while leaving optimal time for critical assignments.
Building your own library of effective email templates may seem like a daunting task, but with Gmelius, your team can build customized templates that won’t go to waste in one inbox. Every team member has access to unique messages crafted by team members from inside their inbox. Answering emails has never been easier.
Ready to build effective email templates that work? Check out our features and integrations and learn how Gmelius is built to improve team communication and collaboration. Ready to get started? Sign up today!
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