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Jan 24, 2019
Let’s start with something unusual for our unbiased reviews: I’ll begin with a shortcoming of Constant Contact templates….
They are not organized in categories.
Yes, this means you’ll have to scroll through a ton of them before you find something that meets your needs. But in all honesty, it’s not the end of the world. Besides, I pored over their 200+ designs so you can know what to expect.
Here are some templates I selected for various categories, along with general thoughts on their quality.
These boilerplate designs give you what you need to get started, but it’s up to you to add some flair. You can also peek under the hood and create a template through HTML, if that’s your kind of thing.
The example below is for a Basic Announcement, you have to upload pictures, and maybe play around with the fonts to make it pop, but the structure is pleasant.
There are a lot of event templates in Constant Contact. You’ll find some for: birthdays, anniversaries, contests, fundraisers, save the date, graduations, school events, and more.
Below is an example of the latter, which highlights three dates of your own choosing.
A big number of templates are holiday themed. You’ll need to type in the right keyword in the search bar to reveal templates that cover: St Patrick’s Day, Easter, Christmas, Mother’s Day, Cinco de Mayo, Memorial Day and more.
A lot of the holiday templates are linked to sales or special offers, so pretty useful for ecommerce, as you can see with this retro Father’s Day Sale template.
Another useful category of templates dedicated to new products, great deals, coupons, promotions, special offers, limited editions and the likes. While some are modern, playful and eye-pleasing, I’ve selected the one below to show something more traditional, and maybe a bit less exciting.
You’ll send a lot of emails to get a response from users and customers. Constant Contact has a wide selection of feedback templates, including: feedback request, event feedback, Facebook review, RSVP, and specific forms, like one for a real estate agent feedback.
One positive about the Constant Contact search bar is that it isn’t a stickler for the keyword you type in. They’re more like tags. So for instance, typing “Yoga” will bring up designs in similar niches, like general fitness services or the following Spa template.
I mean emails that help run your business, rather than make sales or reach customers. In this section, I found some simple templates, B2C welcome letters, and no less than 2 email templates designed specifically for the GDPR. The one below is for a basic, effective board member update.
I’ve already mentioned that it can be frustrating to search for templates with keywords. But below are a few more cons.
The Cons
The Pros
For more information on how Constant Contact works, check out our detailed review.
And a cool little extra: you can create a template that matches your website colors, simply by entering your URL. This is one it generated from www.emailtooltester.com:
I was skeptical at first, but it turned out pretty neat! It only took a minute, and you get to choose from three suggestions. It’s a good, fast stepping stone, because you can then tweak the images, fonts and colors to your liking for maximum control.
Generally speaking, the Constant Contact email templates do a fine job. There’s a good amount of variety, and the designs are effective. Maybe not life-changing, but with email marketing, sometimes simplicity is best.
Now at the risk of repeating myself, it would just be great if Constant Contact spent a bit more time organizing their templates. Just look at how GetResponse does it, for instance:
Now that wouldn’t be too hard, would it?
Finally, there are two extra points to consider. One: if you have a marketing budget and want complete customisation, Constant Contact offers a template design service. I haven’t tried it, but I imagine it’s very professional – especially as they can design a whole campaign from scratch.
Two: Constant Contact users don’t have to rely on the company's templates. There are plenty of free HTML template available online, so you can always find one that works perfectly for your needs elsewhere and import it into the platform!
> Try Constant Contact for free and check out their templates
