Use templates when you send an email within ProspectSafari or within a sequence. A template holds the subject and the text (with images, a call-to-action button, attachments) and placeholders that are filled in for each contact, such as their first name or company.
Create a template
Open "Communications" in the left menu. It opens on the "Templates" tab, beside "Short codes" and "Sequences".
Select the Communications menu.
Click the + button and pick "Template" (or "Folder" to make a folder). The + shows only while you are under your plan's number of templates; the screen shows how many you have used.
The Templates tab, with the + button at the bottom right.
In "Select document type" pick one of the two editors:
- "Text editor": right for most emails. It has fonts and sizes, bold, italic, links, a call-to-action button, colours, lists, alignment, "Insert Image", "Insert Emoji" and "Speech-to-Text" to dictate. An email can hold up to 4 images.
- "HTML editor": a drag-and-drop email designer, useful for a newsletter or promotional email with a block design. It needs a wide screen.
Then fill in:
- "Name" and "Subject".
- "Notes": they show whenever someone picks this template, to remind them how and when to use it.
- "Share with workspace" if every team member should be able to see and use it. Only the template's author can change this.
- "Set reply to address" if replies should go to another address.
- "AB Testing": see below.
Write the text. Type $ to insert a placeholder:
${first_name}and${last_name}(the contact),${city}and${company_name}(the prospect) are filled in for you.${custom_text_1}to${custom_text_3}(or any${your_word}) are asked for in the email form, so you can write a personal line for each contact.
In the HTML editor the same placeholders are in the designer's merge tags. A placeholder left empty is taken out of the email; placeholders are not filled in the subject line.
To send files with every email of the template, use "Attach files to template".
Click "Save" (in the HTML editor, the "Save" at the bottom right of the designer), then "Exit".
We recommend starting with the contact's first name and a custom text placeholder for the opening sentence. When the template is used, you are asked for that sentence, so each email starts with something personal.
Manage your templates
Each card shows "Total sent", "Open rate", "Click rate" and "Reply rate", so you can see which content works. A person icon means "Personal template", a briefcase "Available to workspace". The three-dot menu on a card offers "Preview", "Clone", "Edit" and "Delete".
Click the 3 dots menu on each template
Search templates by name or notes, and drag cards into folders to keep them in order.
Good to know:
- Editing a template does not change emails already scheduled with it. The edit screen warns you: "This template is already scheduled to send".
- Deleting a template takes it out of every sequence that uses it (a sequence whose only step it was is deleted too), and pauses the scheduled emails that use it.
- Templates can be edited or deleted by their author; shared templates also by admins.
When you pick a template in the send email form, templates sent more than 10 times show their open rate in brackets. If the template has a custom text placeholder, you fill it in for that contact.
Email template best practice
Use A/B testing to find the subject line with the best open rate, and the text with the best click or reply rate.
- Clone your finished template and give it the same name followed by, say, "B".
- Change the subject line (or the text) of the copy.
- In "AB Testing" pick the original template. The two are now an A/B pair: they sit side by side, each marked "(A/B)".
Every time either template is sent, on its own or in a sequence, ProspectSafari sends whichever of the two has been sent fewer times, so both are used equally. After, say, 50 sends each, compare their rates. Then choose "Disable A/B Testing" and delete the weaker one. You can clone the winner and start a new test.
Outside the app, a writing tool such as ChatGPT can help: paste your text and ask it to sound less like spam or more compelling for a particular persona, then use what you like.