The ease with which email marketing templates can be completed is a designed-in feature. It has taken somebody a lot of effort and we should be grateful to them. This simplicity is, oddly enough, a potential weakness. You could casually populate it with words and pictures and then send it out.

There is more to it than this. If you have been checking out your rivals’ marketing e-mails, and you should have been, you will probably see that many have taken time and trouble to be different. Those who have not will be equally obvious. The question that will probably cross your mind when opening the email marketing templates is how to bring yours level with the former.

The design of your email needs to be based on what your subscribers do when they open it: click on a link, contact you, pass it on, or merely read it. Breaking the process down into specifics helps you set targets and decide on what you need.

If you want somebody to continue reading your email then the copy must generate interest. Ask a question in the first paragraph which you don't answer until the fourth. If you want them to click a link then put links so that one is displayed all the time as they page through the email.

Most people will not part with their money unless they can find a good reason to do so. The answer is to tell them all the salient points early on. You don't want them to have to hunt for the sizes or indeed the costs. Email marketing templates allow you to push things around.

Often forgotten is that you want an emotional response from your subscribers. If you are after a donation to a charity than make them feel good about giving. If you want them to buy a holiday, generate anticipation, excitement and a little impatience.

A new email marketing template is hardly intimidating. It is telling you what to do but allows you to control it. The best way of doing so is to have clear targets in your mind and every little bit of the e-mail should be directed towards those goals.