When you download HTML email templates over the internet, you will be faced with a dilemma that is common to most people: whether to use a paid service or to use a free one. Contrary to popular belief, using a free service doesn’t necessarily mean that the products that the service provider is offering are fundamentally bad. However, the problem starts when the range of templates being sold is too few in number and if the backend technology behind these templates is not really solid. What you could end up with is a bunch of templates that are more cumbersome to deal with and require more effort than you would save with a paid service.
The biggest problem that most people face in design with a free HTML email template service is the lack of robust designs. This is something that you must be very prepared for because a free service provider has probably not engaged very good talent for long enough to create templates. This kind of a problem may not be a big one if your newsletters or bulk emails go out once a month or more. In this case, you can invest in a simple solution from a free service provider as you can make the template last that much longer.
When you download HTML email templates from a free HTML email template service provider, you must also ensure that the provider is using a sensible code when it comes to creating the HTML page. This is where your technical expertise, or your ability to acquire it, comes into play. HTML pages are nowadays bundled along with a css file. This is basically a cascading style sheet or, in layman’s terms, the formatting and layout instructions. With regular HTML code, there is a need to continuously repeat the same design layout specifications in the programming; however, this can be overcome by the simple use of a css style sheet. This is made in xml and can be called at any time in the HTML where the design specs are required. Therefore, ensure that when you get a template, you get the css file also; otherwise, be prepared for some costly alterations.
The last and worst mistake that most free HTML email template service providers make is not differentiating between designs used for newsletters and designs that are used for bulk email marketing. The two are poles apart since the objective and purpose of the two are markedly different. Therefore, when you download HTML email templates, you must ensure that the templates are suitable for the purpose at hand. A newsletter template should be one that has the minimum amount of text, which should basically just be slugs and attention grabbers. Bulk email, on the other hand, is mails that you send out to people to try and elicit a sale; therefore, the amount of content is more in these types of mails. Also, check with your service provider if there is a possibility to embed multimedia.
karl cruize is a best practices activist and advocate for benchmark email ( http://www.benchmarkemail.com/email-marketing/html-email-templates ) a leading web and permission-based service for sending email newsletters.