How Email Templates Can Save You Hours

Email is one of the most commonly used and effective methods of communication within businesses. Whether you are a solopreneur, run a small startup or a well-established company, email is a key component to how you engage and interact with your clients. In this blog post, we will explore the most common types of emails that are in your business, how much time you are spending rewriting them, and how you can leverage email templates to streamline your communication processes, delegate to a team member and ultimately save you valuable time.

A Common List of Business Email Types

Regardless of the type of business you have, if you are interacting with Clients, there are a certain set of emails that are always needed. Some of the most common emails that are used in businesses are:

• The introductory email about you and your services

• The follow-up email to the first call you have together

• The email with the Contract for them to sign (I hope you have a contract they sign or we definitely need to talk!)

• The email with the Invoice

• The email reminding them to pay their invoice (because we all know, life gets the best of us sometimes). 

• The email to deliver part of the contract

• The email about the next steps in the project or contract

• The email that is following up on the next steps for the project

• The email reminding them of the next meeting

• The email asking them to support you and your business with a testimonial or recommendation

The majority, if not all, are emails that you are using in your business today. The question is, how many times are you writing and rewriting these emails? 

Not only is it common to have these emails as part of your normal business practices, but it is also common that you write and rewrite these emails each time you need to engage your client while they are in that phase of your project or work with them. 

Are you spending your time writing an email that is 80% the same as the one you sent last week? Are you searching through your Email Sent box and looking for that email so you could copy it for your new client? 

If you’ve answered yes, you are wasting valuable time reinventing that wheel every time you go to send an email. 

On average, it takes between 5 and 15 minutes to write a business email to a client. If we take the middle, you can assume it is taking about 10 minutes to write an email. Now look at that list above. There are 10 emails there. That is 1 1/2  hours of your time to write those emails. 

How To Save Yourself Time Using Email Templates

The key to saving yourself time is to create Email Templates! Whether you are using GMail, CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software, or EMS (Email Marketing Software), you need to get email templates set up in your business. 

Not only can you use email templates to save yourself time, but you can also delegate the sending of the emails to a Team Member or maybe even automate it through one of your software. 

Now, wait a minute! You may be saying: “Yes Lindsay, we can template, but each Client and each business I work with is unique”. 

I 100% agree!

The trick is to give yourself space within your email template to customize it for that specific client before you send it. 

For example, as a follow-up to your Introductory Call, you  may say: 
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Hi [Client Name],

It was great to speak with you today and I’m so glad you were able to share so much about your business. 

As a recap of what we discussed on our call: 

• Item 1

• Item 2

• Item 3

I know you are eager to get started, so here's what happens next:

1. Step 1

2. Step 2

3. Step 3

Please let me know if you have any questions in the interim. Otherwise, I’m looking forward to hearing back from you. 

Sincerely,

Lindsay

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

In this example, you are only having to type out the 6 bullet points, instead of having to type all of the other niceties that are included. Of course, make this your own, and don’t make it too canned.  You want your clients to know this is coming from you, but if this is how you always sound to your clients, even the template will sound like you!

Enabling Templates

1. Log into your GMail

2. Click the Cog Wheel to open the Settings menu

3. Click See all Settings

4. Click on Advanced

5. Under the Templates section, click Enable

6. Click Save Changes

Creating Templates

1. Click on the Compose Pencil to start a draft email

2. Input the Subject line of the Email you would want to send.

• This becomes your Template Name!

3. Draft your Email

• ***PRO TIP*** If the Email should be personalized to your receiver, put some placeholder text and highlight it in the email. This will give you a visual cue to update the personalization for the recipient.

4. If you are using an Email signature by default, remove it so it does not show twice when you create a new email

5. Click the 3 vertical dots at the bottom right of the email draft

6. Click Templates

7. Click Save draft as template

8. Click Save as new template

9. Update the Template Name, if desired

10. Click Save

Adding a GMail Template to a New Email

1. Log into your GMail

2. Click on the Compose Pencil to start a draft email

3. Click the 3 vertical dots at the bottom right of the email draft

4. Click Templates

5. Click the name of the Template to apply to the draft

6. Input the name of the Recipient’s email address

7. Update any personalization fields, if necessary

8. Click Send

Et Voilà!

Now sit back and think about how much time you just saved yourself!

Interested in more ways to bring efficiencies into your business?