Broadcast Email Templates

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Templates let you wrap your broadcast messages in your organization's branding — header images, colors, footer text, social media links, and more — so you don't have to rebuild that styling every time you send.

Broadcast Messaging offers two editors, and each one handles templates differently:

• Classic Editor — Uses Email Templates. You build a template once on a guided, multi-step setup screen (name, header image, colors, footer, etc.), then select it from a dropdown when composing a message.
• Advanced Editor — Uses Advanced Editor Templates. You start from a drag-and-drop template (either a built-in standard layout or a custom one your organization has saved) and build your message visually on top of it.

Which template tools you see depends on which editor(s) are enabled for your organization in Broadcast Messaging Global Configuration. Both sets of template tools are reached from the edit/manage menu on the Broadcast Messages list page.

Classic Editor Templates ("Email Templates")

Creating a Template

From the Broadcast Messages list page, open the edit menu and click Email Templates. On the template list page, click the Create New Template button. This takes you to the Basic Options page. At a minimum, you'll need to give your template a name and upload a header image before the template can be used.

Editing a Template

From the Broadcast Messages list page, open the edit menu and click Email Templates, then click the pencil icon next to the template you'd like to edit.

Basic Options

The Basic Options page lets you set the following:

• The name of the template
• Set the template as the default
• Hide the template to prevent its use (useful for test templates)
• Select or change the background color
• Upload a background image (this overrides the background color)
• Select or change the border color
• Set a border width (measured in pixels)
• Set a header color (fills in around your header image and sits behind any text you add on the next page)
• Set the header image alignment (center, right, or left):
• This alters the width of the image. When an image is uploaded, it is sized according to the alignment currently selected.
• If you change the alignment but do not re-upload the header image, the existing image will not be resized.
• View the currently set header image
• Change the footer color (fills the bottom portion of the template, where your footer text and the system's default information appear)
• Set the system footer text to white (recommended when using dark footer colors, so recipients can still read system information such as unsubscribe links)

Advanced Options

Clicking Next takes you to the Advanced Options page, which shows an example of how your colors look, along with the following:

• Template Header Text — Information you'd like next to or below your header image (depending on the image alignment). Good for slogans, social media links, or anything you want recipients to see first.
• Template Content — For advanced users, or for adding extra images before and after your message body. This is not where you type the broadcast message itself. You must keep the ##CONTENT## placeholder in this area — it marks where your message will be inserted.
• Template Footer Text — Information for the colored footer area, such as social media links, extra images, or sponsor information.

The address shown in the template footer is drawn directly from your Organization Address in Configuration → General. Any changes made there will be reflected in this address automatically.

Preview

Clicking Next again takes you to a preview page showing a sample message wrapped in your complete template. Along the top of the page are links to Broadcast Message, Edit Template, and Preview using an Existing message.

Previewing with an Existing Message

Clicking Preview using an Existing message presents a dropdown of your recent broadcast messages, so you can see how a real message looks in the template without going through Broadcast Email Messaging. Select a message and click Next to load the preview page with your chosen message in place of the sample.

Selecting a Classic Template When Composing

When composing a Classic message, choose your template from the Template dropdown. A live preview thumbnail updates as you change the selection. You may also choose No Template to send the message without one.

Advanced Editor Templates 

The Advanced Editor uses a visual, drag-and-drop builder, so its templates work differently from Classic templates. Instead of configuring options on a setup screen, you choose a starting template and then build your message directly on top of it.

Choosing a Template When Composing

When you start a new Advanced Message/Newsletter, you'll be prompted to select a template to start from before the editor opens. A preview thumbnail is shown for each option. Two kinds of templates are available:

• Standard — Built-in layouts provided with the system.
• Custom — Templates your organization has created and saved as Advanced Editor Templates.

Once you select a template and continue, it becomes the starting point for your message, and you build and edit it in the drag-and-drop advanced editor.

Managing Advanced Editor Templates

From the Broadcast Messages list page, open the edit menu and click Adv. Editor Templates to create, edit, or organize your custom advanced templates. (A related Adv. Editor Categories option lets you organize templates and newsletters into categories.) These options appear only when the Advanced Editor is enabled for your organization.

Tip: In Broadcast Messaging Global Configuration, you can designate a default advanced template. When set, messages launched pre-populated from other modules (such as event invitations) will have their content wrapped in that template's branding rather than starting from a blank message.