How to Turn Boring Plain Text Emails into Responsive Gmail Newsletters

You have plain text email creation in Gmail down, but what about sending out visually engaging email newsletters in Gmail? Yes, it’s now possible to send Gmail newsletters, but why do you need to? Read on to understand why and how we should jazz up our important professional email messages and send them as email newsletters.

So you’re using Gmail…

In 2004, Gmail burst onto the scene with mass adoption. Users of Hotmail fled to use Gmail’s clean and smart email interface. Fast forward 13 years and Gmail is still one of the most widely used email platforms in the world.

Impressively, it’s a platform that helps 1 billion users every single day send and receive emails. Gmail is one of the most popular email clients with a market share of around 20%.

Gmail is a great platform for sending and receiving basic text messages.

Over the years, clever marketers and large businesses have leaned on third party email platforms like MailChimp, Active Campaign, Campaign Monitor, etc. to send out visually impressive email newsletters. In fact, 82% of B2B marketers use newsletters for content marketing. 

These third party email platforms have been created with the idea to send bulk email newsletters. Most companies utilizing these platforms, require a person or team dedicated to sending out bulk emails to get the full functionality out of the platform. In the end, these email tools work great when you have a combination of money, time and resources to devote.

Unfortunately, if you’re in any other profession than an email marketer, you won’t be able to rely on these third party email services to help you with your one-off, custom emails that each of us sends on a daily basis.

That leaves the rest of us in our professional life to rely on the same simple email text formats we’ve been sending since the early 1990’s…

Yep, not much has changed for us in the last 25 years.

Regardless of whether you’re sending emails to your team, clients or prospects our plain text emails contain three visual elements text, hyperlinks, and attachments to grab the attention of our audiences.

If your email message is important than it should be:

1. Opened
2. Read
3. A call to action should be taken!

It’s time to bring the power of email newsletters to the masses. You should be empowered to create and design email newsletters in a fast, visually appealing and professional way.

Newsletters in every sphere of life!

Regardless of your position or industry, you send important emails to your teammates, prospective clients, customers, vendors, partners, etc. These emails contain information that needs to be read, clicked on and more often then not require a response back.

We’re all getting inundated with emails. It’s never been more important for your emails to stand out from the rest so that you get the interactions and response you need to do your job.

Before we jump into how to send off visual newsletters, we’ve put together some insightful case studies that show how converting plain text emails to visually appealing email newsletters will:

1. Make your emails & message stand out.
2. Showcase your professionalism.
3. Help your audience retain information.
4. Encourage audience engagement.
5. Be viewed as important.

Don’t worry if you don’t see your exact profession below; you quickly will be able to relate. As you go through these examples, we challenge you to think of ways you should start incorporating visually Gmail newsletters in your every day email correspondence! Let’s get started…

THE SALES PROFESSIONAL

If you’re involved in sales at any level, a big part of your job is to share your product or service offerings to customers and prospects. Most sales professionals focus on their subject lines and email copy to end up with the perfect template. More often than not they settle on an email template that includes plain text and hyperlinks similar to something like this:

Your prospects and clients receive a lot of emails that look fairly similar and basic. All sales professionals look for ways to stand out from the crowd and look for shortcuts to save time crafting emails.

Don’t do what everyone else is doing.

Imagine, if you took nearly the same amount of time that you took to create a plain text email template and turned it into a visually appealing email newsletter that looked something like this?

You’re sharing the exact same information. Instead of sharing a bunch of boring text and web links, you’ve turned them into a professional customized email to engage your customers and clients.

Now you might be thinking that looks and sounds amazing, but it might be a bit complicated. The best part is the technique we’re going to show will take nearly the same amount of time as creating a plain text email template! We promise, you will not have to deal with any HTML code to create Gmail newsletter template.

THE INFLUENCER

If you’re an influencer who has an awesome following on social media as well as on your blog/website, emails are a great way to stay in remain relevant to your audience.

Many influencers use email newsletters to share:

• Recommended products
• Daily industry news
• Latest blog posts
• Latest videos and social media content

Sending helpful daily or weekly email newsletters will allow you to be seen as a thought-leader, grow your audience and increase your engagement with your followers. Here’s an example of what a curated visual email newsletter can look like for an influencer:

It’s important to be creative and find ways to engage and capture your audience’s attention. Remember, you’re number one goal as an influencer is to be perceived as relevant.

Every internet user in the world has a phone number and an email address. These are the only two truly direct forms of communication. Take advantage of email addresses of your followers and start shooting off engaging emails to grow your follower base!

THE R&D DEPARTMENT

Regardless of the size of your company and whether you have a formal R&D department or not, every company conducts research on their industry, competition, future ideas, market needs, etc.

Most research is conducted online and contains articles, press, reviews, research, white papers, graphs and a wide variety of digital content. Everyone of us shares this information in a mesh up of links that we either email or create spreadsheets out of and distribute our findings across internal and external teams. Your research emails probably look something like this:

The amount of time and effort you spend reading and curating the most important information around the web should be reflected in the email you send off. Don’t let this important research get buried amongst other emails. Make your emails pop and stand out to your teammates and managers with an email newsletter that looks like this:

Creating a visually appealing email newsletter reflects professionalism, showcases the work you have done and most importantly creates engaging content that your team appreciates and reads. The best part is, the time it takes to create a plain text email or a Gmail newsletter is nearly the same! 

THE CEO

Whether you’re a CEO, on the executive team or a manager of a team it’s important to share your vision with your employees. Leaders need to share strategic insights, industry trends, company/team updates and reinforce organizational culture.

In addition to meetings, it’s important to send daily, weekly and monthly update emails. Most of us send and receive the good ‘ole reliable 1990’s style email:

Although words have power, unfortunately when it comes to online content nothing beats visuals when it comes to interacting with content.

By taking the same message and turning it into an email newsletter it suddenly makes it look like a lot of thought and effort was put into creating it (shhh…no one has to know that it took nearly the same amount of time as a normal email).

Sending out engaging email newsletters will inspire your employees, provide them with food for thought, encourage greatness and reflect the professionalism you want your employees to show to each other, partners and customers!

THE BAND MANAGER

If you’re managing an artist, you have to coordinating between event venues, management, collaborations with other artists, merchandise sales and more. Email is one of the most important ways to coordinate and keep everyone in the loop, to get things done.

It’s hard to make your artist and group stand out by sending out plain text emails like this:

A much better way to showcase your artist’s brand and identity is with visually appealing newsletters that you can quickly make and customize depending on who your audience is. Turn a ‘blah’ email into a memorable and engaging one like this:

Imagine all of the engaging ways you can promote your artist/band. Email newsletters are a great way to standout from the crowd of emails and draw attention to your artist. The crazy part is the time it takes to create an email newsletter versus the standard boring email is nearly the same! Read on, and we’ll show you how to do it!

THE EDUCATOR

Teachers are constantly finding creative, engaging ways to grab their students attention. Often there are assignments that have to be given to inspire outside learning, class discussions, homework and more. Online educational resources and articles can be shared by sending out an email that looks like this:

Unfortunately, the information behind these links maybe interesting, it doesn’t engage the student and get them excited to click the links. Now if that plain text email was turned into an email newsletter that looked something like this, you can draw the attention of students to interact with your content.

By creating engaging visual email newsletters, educators can grab the attention of their students. Play around with ‘click-bait’ style titles that scream for attention, and help your students study outside the classroom.

Okay, so you get the point, sending Gmail newsletters is pretty darn important and can engage your audience!

The use cases are endless. Mic drop.

So how can you send email Gmail newsletters in minutes!

By now that your mind is probably overflowing with all kinds of ways email newsletters will change the way you communicate. Let’s jump into the ‘how’ to create and send gmail newsletters. The technique we’re about to show you will make it easy for you, so you don’t have to send HTML emails (deal with messy coding) or stress about the design of your gmail newsletter.

The fastest and easiest way to send Gmail newsletters is through elink.io.

Elink.io allows anyone to send out the perfect, well-crafted and visually appealing newsletter in a matter of minutes! The tool works by turning web links automatically into visual content blocks (including a picture, title, and description), you can edit and add your commentary, add a header, publish and send to your Gmail account as an email draft.

It’s the fastest way to create a professional looking email newsletter that looks like a lot of time and effort was placed in creating it. Little does your audience know that you created and sent it to them in a matter of minutes!

Here’s a quick look at the steps you need to follow to create an email newsletter from elink.io & shoot it off from Gmail.

Step 1: Create a New Post

You can either start building youe elink from scratch or choose from a variety of awesome pre-made templates. Don’t worry, you can change the layout of your elink at a later stage too by choosing between 17 responsive email newsletter templates that are all unique and visually appealing.

Step 2: Add Web Links You Want to Share

Copy and paste the web link (https://…., www….) of any content around the web. It can be articles, videos, websites, online documents, and elink.io will automatically fetch an image, a title, and a short description. From there you have the option of editing any of the information to add your voice. Take the time to create an engaging title, add an eye-catching image, and speak to your audience.

Step 3: Add a Header

Give your gmail newsletter a title that’s catchy enough to lure in your audience from the get-go! Format the text to make sure your audience does not miss out on any important information.

Step 4: Add Your Branding

Add your brand logo or personal profile, so everyone knows it’s coming from you. Quickly add links to your website and social media accounts so that your audience can connect with you on various other platforms.

Step 5: Publish it!

That’s it, you’ve created your email newsletter now hit publish!

PS: You can make changes to your newsletter even after you have hit “publish” 🙂

Step 6: Export Gmail Newsletters

You’ll come to your dashboard that shows your published content. Click on the newsletter button, and from there you can integrate with your Gmail account. Shoot over your email newsletter as a draft to your Gmail account.

Visuals help, but videos help tie everything together. Here’s a quick 1-minute video that shows how to create gmail newsletters in minutes!

We have a feeling your mind might be racing with all the ways you can use email newsletters in your life. You’re now fully equipped to create quick, easy-peasy, professional and beautiful gmail newsletters in minutes!

In the era of 8-second attention spans, it’s a necessity for all of us to engage our audiences when we share important information! At the same time, it’s incredibly important that if we’re making content engaging that we don’t have to spend a lot of time on the creation process. elink.io is the smartest way to accomplish that. Out of an average of 121 emails, we receive daily, make sure your email stands out from the rest.

Here’s to email greatness!

What are your thoughts about plain text emails versus Gmail newsletters? We would love to hear how you plan to create and send Gmail newsletters in your every day email correspondence life!

PS: You can also use Active Campaign or Constant Contact instead of Gmail to send out awesome Newsletters in minutes!