How to Add Beautiful Email Templates in WordPress

WordPress emails typically come in plain text, which may not reflect the polished look you’d expect from a professional brand. Adding custom templates can give your messages a more appealing design and keep them in line with your brand’s style, creating a better user experience.

But figuring out how to make these changes isn’t always simple. It can feel overwhelming trying to find the right tools and know where to start.

Thankfully, there are plugins and resources that make the process much easier. In this guide, we’ll show you how to add beautiful email templates to your WordPress site.

Why Use Email Templates in WordPress?

By default, WordPress sends many email notifications. If you run a single-author WordPress blog, then you can probably get away without using any email templates.

However, if you run a membership site or an eCommerce store, then you may want to consider improving your email layout.

Using colorful HTML templates for your emails provides a better user experience for your users. Also, using your custom logo and colors makes your emails look more professional and aesthetically pleasing.

Now, let’s look at how to add beautiful HTML email templates in WordPress. Here’s a quick overview of what we’ll cover:

Let’s dive right in!

Setting Up Email Templates in WordPress

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the Email Templates plugin. For details, see our step-by-step tutorial on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, simply go to the ‘Email Templates’ page and click the ‘Open WordPress Email Editor’ button.

This will launch the email customizer window.

The Email Templates plugin uses the WordPress customizer, which allows you to create your own beautiful templates with a live preview.

The customizer has different sections.

First, you need to click on the ‘Settings’ tab, where you can enter your site’s name and the email address to use in the ‘From Email’ field of outgoing messages.

By default, the plugin will use the email address defined in WordPress settings. However, you can change that to use any other email address.

Next, let’s click on the back arrow to return to the template sections.

In the ‘Template’ tab, you can select whether you want a full-width template or a boxed layout. You can also choose a background color.

Once done, just click on the header section to set the header of your email template. Go ahead to add your custom logo or simply use text elements.

By default, the plugin will show your site’s name as text in the email header, but feel free to change that to whatever you like. You can also change font size, header text, and background colors.

In the ‘Email Body’ section, you can change the appearance of the email body area.

You can choose a background color, adjust text size and color, and choose a color for links in your email.

Lastly, don’t ignore the ‘Footer’ tab.

By default, the plugin will show your site’s name with the copyright sign. But you can customize it to fit your needs.

Then, you can also change font, background, and text colors if you want.

Once you have designed your email template, you’ll want to click the ‘Save’ or ‘Publish’ button to save your settings.

After that, click on the ‘Send test email’ tab to preview your email template. The plugin will also email the admin address in your WordPress settings.

Bonus Tip: Troubleshooting Email Not Sending Issues

If you are not receiving emails from your WordPress website, then you will need to install the WP Mail SMTP plugin. This plugin allows you to send your WordPress emails securely using SMTP.

WP Mail SMTP fixes WordPress email deliverability issues and ensures that your WordPress emails don’t end up in spam.

For more details, please see our tutorial on how to fix WordPress not sending emails issue.

In addition, the Email Templates plugin does not affect emails from third-party email marketing services. For that, you will have to design your emails using the tools offered by the email service provider.

Most email service providers like Constant Contact and ConvertKit have templates that you can use.

For more information, you can read our guide on how to add email subscriptions to your WordPress blog.

Video Tutorial

Prefer video instructions? Check out our YouTube tutorial on how to add beautiful email templates to your WordPress site:

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We hope this article helped you add beautiful email templates to use in WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on adding the ‘Email This’ option to your WordPress posts and our expert picks of the best WooCommerce email customizer plugins.

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