Free Blog Newsletter Email Template: Meadows

Inbox Ideas | Email Marketing Tips by AWeber

Posted by Marc Kline

We’re getting HTML email templates published at a faster pace than ever before, and today we’re happy to announce an addition that should be welcomed by bloggers who send a newsletter to build a stronger blog readership.

Something to Impress Your Blog Readers With…

New to AWeber?

We’re offering this template free of charge for you to use however you’d like:

AWeber Customers:

Log into your account, create a new message, and load this template to try it out:

What’s So Special About This Template?

The first, most important thing to mention is the fact that “Meadows”, like all the templates our designers make, has been tested across all of the major email applications email subscribers tend to use.

It just can’t be overstated how important testing is for all HTML email.

In addition, although it can be adjusted for general newsletter use, “Meadows” is geared specifically toward blog newsletter senders because it has:

A built-in “Subscribe via RSS” block so subscribers can gracefully switch to getting your content via RSS if they eventually prefer that option.
A “Related Blog Posts” block so you can link up other articles your subscribers can read.

Other Unique Features

If you’d like to use this template for a non-blog email newsletter, just remove the two blog specific blocks mentioned above. There will still be other sidebar content left-over:

This is the first time we’ve integrated a special “Share this email” box into a template. See if sharing your newsletter helps you to boost your subscriber numbers.
There’s an explicit “Unsubscribe” block. We hate to see subscribers go, but it’s better they leave easily when they want to rather then making them jump through hoops.

Enjoy the free template, and let us know what you think!

Want To Know Right Away When New Email Templates Are Released?

Fill out the form below to join our blog newsletter and we’ll let you know when we post useful tips, advice, and other free content (like these templates) for your email marketing campaigns.

The newsletter goes out 1-2 times per week.

Naturally, as a permission-based email marketing company, we respect your privacy.

Tags: blog newsletters, HTML email templates, New Features

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15 Responses

Bryan Ellis
August 27th, 2008 at 11:40 am

Congratulations! Seems like Aweber has been a major player forever. Well done.
David G. Johnson
August 27th, 2008 at 1:58 pm

This new design looks really great. The recent stuff that you guys have been creating is another notch up!

One question this new design brings to mind:

Does the RSS/Blog Broadcast feature now support sending the complete content of a particular post? Or is it still limited to just the "excerpt?" (or RSS ‘description’)

Thanks!
Flora Morris Brown, Ph.D.
August 27th, 2008 at 2:27 pm

I’m a little confused about how a blog newsletter fits into my current writing. I have a website, blog and newsletter in one niche. How does a blog newsletter fit into this mix? Are the articles in the blog newsletter the same content, just done in newsletter format, or something brand new?

Thanks.
Marc Kline
August 27th, 2008 at 3:00 pm

Flora,

The value of sending a blog newsletter is in getting one-time or occasional readers back to your blog more regularly.

Instead of relying on readers to take the initiative to check your blog for new content, they can simply subscribe to your blog newsletter and know whenever you send it.

Because of this, it should be a service both to you — because it helps you build a following of more regular readers — and your subscribers, who won’t have to waste time redundantly returning to your blog just to see if there’s something new.
Kevin Boyle
August 27th, 2008 at 4:22 pm

PERFECT.

You guys must have been reading my mind, this is exactly what I have been looking for.

What do I like most about Aweber?

Continually adding features and benefits that I need and want.

Keep up the great work guys!
Cassandra Rae
August 27th, 2008 at 5:33 pm

This is awesome! I am definitely going to give it a whirl…
Daniel McGonagle
September 1st, 2008 at 6:42 pm

I like these templates but never do HTML.

What would be really niche is some templates for Confirm Subscription pages and thank you for subscribing pages.

Those will help out a lot for deliverability
David G. Johnson
September 2nd, 2008 at 2:29 pm

I think my question from earlier might’ve been easy to miss:

Does the RSS/Blog Broadcast feature now support sending the complete content of a particular post? Or is it still limited to just the "excerpt?" (or RSS ‘description’)

Would love to hear an update on this…

Thanks!
Marc Kline
September 2nd, 2008 at 4:04 pm

David,

Sorry David. I did miss your question earlier. Let’s see if I can help:

Currently, the blog broadcast feature will pull whatever is between the ‘description’ tags in your RSS feed. Depending on what blog software you’re using, you may or may not be able to change what appears between these tags.

For WordPress and Blogger, we’ve assembled this quick how to in our Knowledge Base.

We are also exploring ways to pull in the full post automatically from these and other RSS feeds, something we’ll be sure to announce on our blog.
David G. Johnson
September 2nd, 2008 at 4:12 pm

Hi Marc,

No apology necessary. A good lesson in keeping each comment to one subject at a time!

The Knowledge Base article is actually quite helpful. I was not aware of the possibilities using the "Optional Excerpt" function in WordPress.

Now it seems to me someone needs to just make a plug-in to automate this…

Thanks for the excellent help, as always!
Paul
September 4th, 2008 at 8:04 am

Great templates. I will use this one starting today
Doran Roggio
September 4th, 2008 at 4:06 pm

Thank you for the chance to view and become familiar with the beautiful templates. At present I do not have a mailing list, however, it is something I am giving thought to. Your company will definitely be at the top of the list should I make that step.
Henry Dominik
September 14th, 2008 at 5:22 pm

This looks marvellous, I think we should definitely check it out fast
Susan Donley
September 17th, 2008 at 12:51 pm

OK, I’ve tried this template, customizing it with my own blog masthead and colors. When I test it, all the greeked text (Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, etc.) under "In this issue" and "Related Blog Posts" came along for the ride. Plus, the little sailboat pic illustrated my blog post instead of images from my blog.

I assumed the template was set up to pull the names of the blog articles in this broadcast into the "In This Issue" automatically. Wouldn’t that make sense? If the idea is to automate via the RSS feed, why would I want to fill those anchor links in by hand? Ditto filling in an image or links to "Related posts"?

I don’t think I messed it up customizing it, because the original Meadows template does the same thing. Am I missing something?

Thanks in advance.
Jimmy
September 28th, 2008 at 5:48 pm

The template is nicely done and easy to use - thanks!

Here’s the rookie question: Once I’ve customized the template with my content, how do I send it out to people on my email list? Do I just send a text email with a link to the newsletter, or is there a way to send the newsletter as the email’s content??

Thanks in advance.