87: Mastering Email Templates and Branding in HubSpot

In this episode of the The Web Canopy Studio Show, we're diving deep into the world of HubSpot with a focus on email templates and branding. Join us as we explore:

• The essential steps to set up a brand kit in HubSpot
• How to customize email footers for a polished, professional look
• Tips for personalizing default values for properties to make your emails more engaging

We’ll also guide you through creating and editing emails using saved sections and managing templates like a pro. Whether you're a seasoned marketer or just getting started, this episode is packed with insights to elevate your email marketing game.

Don't miss out on this comprehensive guide to mastering email templates and branding in HubSpot. Tune in and take your email marketing to the next level!

What is The Web Canopy Studio Show?

Everyone wants to grow their business, but not everyone has the time or patience to learn all the ins and outs of marketing, sales enablement, and making the most out of a CRM such as HubSpot. Join the Web Canopy Studio team, a HubSpot Diamond Partner Agency, as they chat about various topics all designed to help you grow your B2B business.

Elizabeth: 00:05

Hey. It's Elizabeth flying solo with the Web Canopy Studio Show. Today, we're gonna continue the momentum train. Last week, we've talked about, you know, deduplicating contacts and how it's important to keep your database clean. And the next step in this equation to get to launching a campaign inside of HubSpot, well, actually, any CRM really, is to, create some email templates and branding.

Elizabeth: 00:28

And so, for those listening on the podcast, make sure you go find our video on YouTube because I'm gonna do a little screen share today, do a really, really quick crash course on some little hidden nuggets inside of HubSpot. So I'm going to share my screen, and this is a test portal, so there's all kinds of funny weird data in it. But the first thing you wanna check, especially inside of HubSpot and a lot of other content management systems have something that is compatible, but in HubSpot, it's super duper easy. You wanna go and create your brand kit. Right?

Elizabeth: 01:02

This will include favicons if you're using Content Hub. You can use different logos, URL if you want a logo on things. You can set colors, primary color, secondary accent, additional colors. If you're using a theme, if you're using, HubSpot example for, your website, so content hub, you can set up your theme right here. And then HubSpot also has a few, AI tools available, as well.

Elizabeth: 01:31

That's what that brand voice piece is. The next thing and so this is really for your website. Right? But then you can also use it to grab things for, email, stuff like that. The other thing you'll wanna not forget about inside of HubSpot is to go to the email tool under marketing and then set set your footer.

Elizabeth: 01:52

Right? Because you need a footer inside of HubSpot, inside of marketing email, that's just marketing email good practice. So you'll want to set that footer in here. The branding I just showed you, this is the classic editor. You'll wanna use the first one that I just showed.

Elizabeth: 02:08

But then the next tab is personalization. So what this means is you can actually edit default values for different properties that you use inside of your email campaigns, like first name, last name, company name, things like that. You can come in and set these are the global values. You can still overwrite them on an individual basis. But if you have things that you want to use all of the time, like, for example, some people, instead of first name, like, first name is unknown on a on a contact record, for example, you could do something like friend.

Elizabeth: 02:40

Right? As long as it's brand appropriate, you could do, something like that for the default value instead of it showing up as a blank space. The next thing you'll wanna do is go to marketing and then email. So inside of HubSpot, you've got a lot of different options to create an email. You can create from scratch.

Elizabeth: 03:00

You can create from template. Most of the time, you'll do a regular email. Automated is for any email that you want to use via a workflow. And don't worry if you create a regular email and you're like, oh, dang it. I need it to be in a workflow.

Elizabeth: 03:15

Not a big deal. HubSpot lets you, change it to an automated one. But in here you can do things like manage your saved templates. You can even create a new template inside of HubSpot. If you want to edit a template, right, you want to select this and then hit edit.

Elizabeth: 03:34

And what this will do so this won't apply if you edit a template that's existing. The changes won't apply to any email that you already have in your HubSpot portal that used this template. So this will be, you know, future forward. So if you wanted to do things like change where the button was or something like that, you can do that. And in HubSpot, just like on pages, you can actually drag the email and, you know, rearrange things as needed.

Elizabeth: 04:01

And then if you look right here, you can see that there's sections inside of the email. If there's a layout that you like, as long as the components are inside of a section, you can actually save sections for emails, which is really awesome. A common use case that I have very frequently for this is, like, text that's got some complicated formatting, something like an event or, you know, a webinar or something like where it's all bulleted. And everybody knows Outlook, you know, messes up your text formatting. So sometimes it's just easier if you work out the kinks on one thing, save the section.

Elizabeth: 04:35

And the reason why I'm bringing up save sections is because you can actually use those sections in something that's not the template that you just picked, which is actually pretty awesome. But we're gonna exit this because I already have a podcast example ready to go, so that we can go in and edit it. You'll hit edit on the email name. So here, you could see, like I showed you in the template, you can drag things around. You can also clone them if you want to, but I recommend getting things situated, putting in things that you already had in your settings.

Elizabeth: 05:16

By that, I mean, your brand settings, using save sections, things like that. So let's say you've used a template, but it gets you most of the way there. Just like in the content editor in HubSpot, you can actually drag, more modules, if you will, over to your email. So let's say you wanted to put in a video, you can do that as well. You can also like I mentioned, you can remove things, you can drag them around, you can change colors, and it's really easy to do all inside of HubSpot.

Elizabeth: 05:49

This looks like it's an image, so if you don't want it, you can remove it. A couple other things. So if you wanted to let's say you needed to add something to your email, you can drag over a 2 column if you needed something that's 2 column. And now I've got a section, that I can put things in. In HubSpot, if you have a product library, you can actually drag and drop and add products here.

Elizabeth: 06:13

So if you're an ecommerce brand, you can do that and as long as your product library is built out, you can, pull information from there. And then let's say you want text over here, and then I wanna get rid of this, and then I wanna make this a CTA for the bottom. You can do things like that, stuff like that. Obviously, this is not a well designed email, but I think you guys get where I'm going. Right?

Elizabeth: 06:38

The other thing to keep in mind, the email best practice is to have, a 5050 at least balance of image to text. And you'll also wanna make sure that your images all have alt text. That's just good practice, guys. Be ADA compliant, please. Please.

Elizabeth: 06:55

Please. You can adjust a few of the styling, corner radius, things like that inside of here, but, make sure you have those brand settings available. And if you set it on the template, and then you use the template, all you would have to do here would be to replace the images. Right? Just fantastic.

Elizabeth: 07:15

Another few things to look at are from names. You can come in, edit those subject lines, stuff like that. The last thing you'll want to check before sending an email is, recipients. So, this one, don't send to unengaged contacts, is just email best practice that's gonna help your email health. And since you've the last step you're gonna do, before scheduling an email is putting the list on.

Elizabeth: 07:39

Right? So, you'll want to make sure you have your list built. If you don't, that's okay. You can actually import a list in HubSpot or you can create a new list, but you'll wanna select a list of recipients. And then the other thing you'll want to do is to also include a don't send list.

Elizabeth: 07:56

So, for example, let's say this is a marketing email for a product and you have a list of clients that's already using that product. You wanna make sure that they don't receive it. Double down, add a suppression list here of those clients that already have that. And then, you don't have to that that way, they won't send it or receive the email, and then you'll schedule as needed. I hope that little crash course in HubSpot was helpful.

Elizabeth: 08:23

Hopefully, you learned a couple tips and tricks, specifically with the saved sections. I love that piece. And then working from a template, but make sure to manage those templates. Go into the saved template and edit it if you needed to, update something or create versions or things like that. Work smarter not harder.

Elizabeth: 08:39

The templates are there to get you most of the way there. They, a lot of times, don't do the full job, but they can at least make quick work of stuff for you, especially when you're super, super busy. So thanks for watching and joining, listening. This is Elizabeth. Next up, we'll have more tips and tricks to get your email marketing campaigns up and running in no time using HubSpot.