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The Footer is The Final Handshake in Email Marketing—Make it Count
January 9, 2024Save Time with an Email Newsletter Template
When it comes to marketing, one of our favorite words to live by is SIMPLIFY.
In other words: The key to consistent and effective marketing is to streamline and templatize your efforts to save time without sacrificing the quality of your work.
With email marketing, templates are a time-saving tool. With them, you can easily maintain a regular publishing schedule and work on your newsletters in bite-sized chunks whenever it suits you. They also ensure that your voice, colors, and style stay consistent across all your communications.
How to Get Started
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Determine Newsletter Goals
In gearing up to create an email newsletter template for your farm or food business, the first step is to establish clear goals. Essentially, this means outlining what you want to achieve with your emails. For instance, you might aim to cultivate a sense of community by sharing engaging behind-the-scenes narratives from your farm, spotlight seasonal produce through visually appealing content and recipes, or promote exclusive discounts to boost sales at your farmers' market stand.
These goals act as a strategic guide, shaping the content and design of your newsletters and providing a framework for evaluating the success of your email campaigns. Ultimately, this process contributes to the growth and impact of your brand within your audience.
2. Choose an Email Marketing Platform
If you don’t already have a subscription to an email marketing platform, find one that aligns with your needs. We like to use Mailchimp and Drip for our email clients because of their user-friendly interfaces, variety of customizable templates, and ability to set up email automations, workflows, and audience segments. We especially like Drip for its e-commerce capabilities. Other popular choices include Constant Contact and Klaviyo.
3. Brand Your Template
Customize the template with your farm or food business logo, colors, and fonts. Consistent branding builds recognition and trust among your audience.
Most email marketing platforms will have a help article that can give you a step-by-step guide on how to create an email template. Some general tips and things to consider when branding your template:
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Use Your Logo and Colors
Display your business logo prominently in the header of your email, and choose a color scheme that aligns with your brand.
PA Produce incorporates their logo into their email header image
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Stick to 1-2 Fonts
Use a consistent font style and size throughout your emails. This helps maintain a cohesive and professional appearance. -
Include Branding Elements in the Footer
Add social media icons and links to your website in the footer. This reinforces your online presence and encourages audience engagement.
Red Hill Harvest includes contact information and social links in their branded email footer
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Customize CTAs (Calls to Action)
Design custom buttons for your calls to action (CTAs) using your brand colors. -
Consider Responsive Design
Opt for a responsive email design that looks good on various devices. This ensures your brand is represented well, regardless of the device it’s viewed on. -
Add a Signature Line
Consider including a personalized signature line at the end of your emails to add a human touch.
Elmwood Stock Farm closes out their newsletter with a family signature
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Prioritize ADA Compliance
Your email design should be accessible, meaning everyone can read and understand your email — including those with visual, auditory, mobility, or other disabilities. The Bureau of Internet Accessibility offers 10 Tips to Optimize Email Accessibility that covers best practices like using a large font size, using enough color contrast, and including alt text for images.
4. Plug-and-Play
Most email marketing platforms have drag-and-drop features to help you easily build a newsletter template. Use pre-designed sections or provided templates to easily add headers, images, product highlights, and calls-to-action.
Content Ideas
Not sure what to write about? Here are 12 thought-starters to help you:
1. Meet the Team
Introduce the faces behind your farm. Share short bios and fun facts about your team members to create a personal connection with your audience.
2. Seasonal Spotlight
Highlight seasonal produce or products. Discuss their unique qualities, benefits, and creative ways customers can incorporate them into their meals.
3. Customer Stories
Share stories or testimonials from satisfied customers. Include their experiences with your products and how it has positively impacted them.
Riemer Family Farm featured a positive customer review in their newsletter
4. Farm Events and Festivals
Promote upcoming events, festivals, or farmers' markets where your farm will be featured. Encourage subscribers to visit and engage with your business in person.
5. Exclusive Discounts or Promotions
Offer special discounts or promotions exclusively for newsletter subscribers. Create a sense of exclusivity to encourage sign-ups and customer loyalty.
Parsons Creek Steak offers a discount code to email newsletter subscribers
6. Behind-the-Scenes
Showcase the daily operations, share interesting facts, or provide sneak peeks into upcoming projects.
7. In-Depth Product Features
Provide a detailed look at one of your key products. Discuss its origin, production process, and unique qualities that set it apart from the rest.
Red Hill Harvest included some snapshots of their latest project on the farm
Aura Bora highlights their best-selling products
8. Local Community Spotlights
Highlight other local businesses or community initiatives that align with your values. This builds a sense of community and supports local collaboration.
9. Ask the Farmer
Create a section where subscribers can submit questions, and you provide answers. This adds an interactive element and helps build a sense of connection with your audience.
10. Featured Recipe from a Subscriber
Encourage subscribers to share their favorite recipes using your products. Feature one of these recipes in each newsletter, giving credit to the contributor.
Put the Template Into Action
The last step is to carve out time to create an email newsletter on a regular basis. We suggest reserving specific time slots in your week or month for email marketing. Content calendars are also a farmer’s best friend—click here to get a copy of our content calendar template. The last step is to carve out time to create an email newsletter on a regular basis. We suggest reserving specific time slots in your week or month for email marketing. Content calendars are also a farmer’s best friend. Know when your next harvest is coming? Schedule an email around it. Planning makes it easier to slot in the right content into your newsletter template.
You can also batch your work by writing a few newsletters or gathering all of your images at once. It's like meal prepping but for your marketing!
