Creating beautiful templates that can be used for marketing is easy to do with our HTML email design suite. HTML emails are rich in content, they can contain anything from images to social media links to video thumbnails. When you receive newsletters or promotional emails from online companies you are receiving HTML emails.

Follow the steps below, or watch the video above, to get started with HTML email templates.

1. Go to the Emails page (found under the Marketing tab on your left navigation menu.)

2. Select New Email

3. In the popup menu, select "Workflow/Campaign" under the Marketing section. Then Select "HTML"

4. Below this, you will then select a template base to start from. You can always start with a blank slate, but we have several great templates to give you some inspiration. Click "Create Email"

5. At the top of the new page, you will find the following options and information:

A. Email Name (Required): The name of your email is only visible internally.

B. Subject (Required): Subject of the email when it is sent

C. Preheader: If nothing is added here, the recipient will see the beginning of the email body

D. Folder: Which folder you would like the email to be added to in Lawmatics

E. Recipient Type (Required): The intended recipient of the email. Can be Matter, Contact, or User. The selection will affect which merge fields you can add to the email template (a Contact type email will not have Matter merge fields available. Keep in mind that most marketing emails will be created as Any Contact recipient type, whereas case-specific emails for leads and clients will be saved as Matter type.)

F. Tags: If you have applicable tags in your account, you can add them for organization

G. Promotional Email: Select the toggle for Promotional Email if you would like to include an unsubscribe link with the email.

H. Show/Hide Structure: This will help you see the structure of the email while building it by adding guiding lines. These lines are not visible when sent.

6. Build your email, including any design elements and content pieces that you would like. For more specifics on the email creation, watch the video above.

You can think of the template as a framework that you will use for adding new marketing copy every time you wish to send a new marketing email from that template. For example, in the image below, we created an area where we will link to an article every month in our newsletter email. Since this is the newsletter template, we just have placeholder text telling us what to do.

7. When you are done designing your template, click the "Save" button at the bottom right.

8. Once you click create email, you will be taken back to the Email screen. The new email you created will now be available at the top of the "Emails" list. In order to edit the new email, click on the edit icon on the far right for the newly created email.

PLEASE NOTE: Depending on your screen size, the edit icon may require horizontal scrolling to see. If you don't see the icons in the table, just scroll to the right.

9. Once you click edit, you will be taken back to the HTML email editor canvas. You will see the entire template, as you created it, available for editing. You can easily replace all your placeholder content with new, fresh, relevant content.

10. Click on "Save" at the bottom when your email content is ready. Your email is now ready to be sent via any channel in Lawmatics!

How can I add an unsubscribe link to my emails?

Simply turn on the toggle option for Promotional Email, found at the top of the email when editing it. You won't see the unsubscribe link added in the editor, but when the email is sent it will include that link at the bottom. When someone unsubscribes they are automatically prevented from receiving future promotional emails.

How do I add attachments to an email template?

You actually won't save attachments on the template itself, rather you will select attachments when sending an email, either manually or via automation. First you will need to hover on the orange plus sign in the top right, select Upload File, and upload any files you wish to attach. Then, when sending an email, you will see an attachments option where you can select from any of your uploaded files. For HTML emails, you can also link to a web-hosted file using a button rather than attaching a file.

What is the best way to send out my newsletter?

You will want to use a "run once" email campaign for sending newsletters.