What are pre-built direct mail templates?

Pre-built direct mail templates are professionally designed, easily modified starting points for anyone that wants to create a great looking, high converting direct mail postcard or letter. What’s amazing about Postalytics pre-built templates – you can drag, drop, modify and replace any of the design elements, without needing to use high end design tools!

Why would you want to use a pre-built template?

Many clients are either new to direct mail or would like to get design inspiration from direct mail design professionals. Pre-built templates simplify the process of getting high quality creative started. Here’s a few reasons why clients love them:

• They’re designed by professional direct mail designers, with layouts that are appropriate for the formats chosen
• Calls To Action (CTA’s) are all featured as design elements in pre-built templates. We see so many mailers with CTA’s that are either non existent or buried!
• pURLs are properly highlighted. Many customers want to use our pURL tools, but have never used anything like them before. These templates show how they are best designed for success!

Want more inspiration and design tips? Check out these articles:

Direct Mail Design Best Practices

3 Examples of Direct Mail Marketing To Inspire

Automated Letter Design & Structure

Postalytics Pre-Built Direct Mail Template Overview

When building a new creative template, you can select Choose Pre-Built which features our growing library of pre-built direct mail templates created by professional designers. These templates offer a great starting place to help get you up and running quickly.  You can easily adjust the copy, font, color and images for your marketing needs. 

Step 1: Select Pre-Built Direct Mail Templates

From the main navigation bar select Creative>New Template.

From the Create Template panel select Choose Pre-Built to see the library of pre-built direct mail templates to choose from.

Use the left side filtering to refine the choices between Postcard, Letters, Sizes, Colors and more. You can preview or select any of the templates that match the filters you’ve defined.

Step 2: Naming Pre-Built Template

Your Pre-Built Direct Mail Template selection will load into the Direct Mail editor. 

Rename your New Template in the text field in the top left corner of the editor.

As you begin to design your Postcard you can Save your work, Save & Close your work and Close which will not save any adjustments.

At the top right hand corner are additional features to assist you while building your template:  undo, redo, alignment, zoom and snap to grid.  

Step 3: Edit Pre-Built Template Design

Properties Panel

Double click on copy blocks to edit copy. The Properties tab will display on the right side panel.

In addition to editing the copy, you can change the style as well.

In the example below, the Pre-Built Template will be changed from Dogs to Cats utilizing the Text Properties Tab.

Styles Tab

The copy changed from Dogs to Cats and the font changed to red and italicized in the Styles tab under Properties on the right hand side.  Text Styles allows you to adjust the font family, font size, text color, highlight color, weight, decoration, alignment, line height, style, letter spacing, width and height.

Arrangement Tab

Use the position arrows to move the text block on the canvas.  You can also us the up and down arrows under Top (px) and Left (px) to move text block positioning. Arrangement Forward and Backward allows you to adjust how a text block, shape, or image is layered on the canvas. 

Effects Tab

Effects provide more advanced features for creative development. 

You can put special touches on the template with these features:   Rotate, Corner Radius, Border Settings:  (Style, Width and Color), Text Shadow Settings (Horizontal, Vertical,  Blur and Color) and Box Shadow Settings (Location, Horizontal, Vertical, Blur, Spread and Color).

Template Properties Panel

Template Properties lets you select a default font as well as adjust front and back template settings and images.

Revise Default Font

By changing the Default Template Font, the Direct Mail Editor will apply the single font change to the entire mail piece rather than you having to change each copy block individually.

Front and Back Template Settings

You can easily Remove the image on the Pre-Built Template and use your own image by selecting Browse or search a library of over 200,000 high resolution free photos by selecting Search.

In the search feature, search keywords of images you are looking for.  When you see an image you like, select Preview or Select.  Preview will show the picture at the size of the mail piece and Select will import the photo into your template. You can choose background images for both the front and back of the template. 

Build, Track, and Personalize Panel

The left-side of the editor is the Build, Track, and Personalize panel.

Build Elements

You can add to the Pre-Built Templates using the Build Elements features:  Add Text, Add Bullet List, Add Image, Add Horizontal Line, Add Square, Add Circle, and Add Rectangle.

To add an additional copy block Click on the T icon under Build or click and drag the icon to the canvas. You can easily click and drag the text block for positioning, then edit the copy using the Text Properties to adjust font size, color, decoration, alignment and width and height.

Track

All of the Pre-Built Templates include Personalized URLs for tracking purposes.

There are two methods for tracking offline to online.  Personalized URLs (pURLs) and QR codes.  We recommend that a tracking code be on the front and the back of the postcard.  

Select your tracking method and click and drag to the canvas. Position the tracking to your preference and make any necessary adjustments to meet your creative goals.  

A pURL has been added to this postcard with the font color adjusted and highlight color added.

Personalize

You can personalize the direct mail piece with any of the Variable Data or Variable Logic that is in your list such as First Name.  Select the text block you want to add a variable element to and then click on the personalization icon.  In the example below we selected a FirstName variable which then added to the text block.

You can also personalize with Variable Logic that is on your list.  Select the Variable Logic icon and key in what you want the logic to be and click on Insert.  

Once the Variable Logic is completed, click on Update.

Step 4: Proof Template

When you’ve completed your design and want to use it for your campaign, you need to select the Proof Template button in the top right corner of the editor.  A pop up will appear asking if you want to use Sample Data or Your Data to populate the variable fields in the template.

A window will appear with steps to build a personalized URL that will populate in the proof to preview how it will look.

Now the proof window appears and allows you to download the proof for closer viewing. When satisfied with the proof select Save Final Proof & Close or select Continue Editing if further adjustments need to be made.

After selecting Save Final Proof & Close, your finished template will now appear when you go through the steps of Creating a Campaign.