DETAILED GUIDE: Creating and Customizing Emails in HubSpot

This guide is a detailed walk-through for building a league newsletter email in Hubspot, and includes incorporating branded graphics, adjusting text content, and conducting final test sends to ensure your messages are ready for your audience. It does NOT include segmentation/lists. Please reference our Scribe Library for more!

NICA Support Team
52 steps
16 minutes

HubSpot

Getting started

This guide is a detailed walk-through for building a league newsletter email in Hubspot, and includes incorporating branded graphics, adjusting text content, and conducting final test sends to ensure your messages are ready for your audience. Note that you'll need to be logged into HubSpot using your league's hub@ email address before you can proceed!

Once you're logged in, navigate to the "Marketing Email" section of HubSpot, either in your bookmarks or via the Marketing menu.

Selecting a template

**IMPORTANT! It is generally best practice to use a TEMPLATE to create new emails, instead of CLONING an old email.** Cloning old emails results in degradation of the template features and over time can create formatting issues that persist and cause friction as you build emails. If you're confident using advanced email formatting techniques, cloning may be helpful. If not, or if you notice that your cloned email formatting is getting wonky, start from a template.

At the top right side of the screen, click the **"Create email"** button:

Select "Regular" *Unless you are building a "journey" or a sequence, always choose "Regular" -- we recommend consulting with NICA National if you would like to build an automated email sequence. We're here to help!*

Now, you'll be able to see your league templates. Select the template you would like to use. In this case, we're building a multi-topic newsletter:

NOTE: You will be able to see all league templates. This is normal. It is one area where we cannot set permissions. **To quickly find your template, search for your league name.**

Email subject and inbox settings

Double-click the TITLE field, and give your email a new title.

Click the **"From - Subject line - Preview text"** section at the top of your email draft. This will open a dialog box on the left side of the screen where you can **edit** **inbox content**

**Complete a subject line and preview text for your email.** \ *We recommend selecting the "Hide body text from preview text" button.*

Scroll down in the same dialog box and complete the **From name** and **From address** sections. *Note: you can manually add to or edit these fields if your desired "From" name and email address doesn't populate automatically.* *For now, you can ignore the "Make sure you're using a HubSpot connected inbox" to track replies. It won't affect your email deliverability.*

**PRO-TIP!** Always use the same email address as your sender; this helps your deliverability: your recipient's inboxes become familiar with the "from" address (especially if they save it to their contacts or open your emails frequently).

Format your email header

Next, click in the header section of your email:

Each league has a custom section set up for use as their **Email header logo.** You can select from multiple logo types, including the NICA brandmark league lockup and your league oval lockup. To make your selection, choose your league from the dropdown menu. *\*NOTE: Your templates already have this section pre-populated.*

Start typing your league name and **select your league from the dropdown:**

Select the logo type you would like to use from the **Choose Logo** dropdown:

This is an example of a **CUSTOM SECTION,** which is a dynamic, NICA-specific email section that you can drag/drop into your email. These sections are pre-built with league-specific links, logos, colors, and more. See an overview of all of our custom sections (and how to use them) in our Resource Library.

The next section of your template is a menu section. **This is ALSO a custom section that is pre-populated with your league links**. There's no need to edit this section! You can opt to delete or remove this section if you wish.

Add a hero image

Now, working your way down your email, you can customize/format each section. Double click your placeholder image to start:

**Canva template available:** We've included a URL for a template Canva design that is pre-formatted for your email header! Copy and paste the link from the image (or [click here](https://www.canva.com/design/DAHDMyaMkQU/9fdbMa0FoP1zSb4A005yqw/view?utm_content=DAHDMyaMkQU&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link&utm_source)) to open it in a new tab and edit your own version.

To swap out your own image for the placeholder, hover over the thumbnail and click **"Replace"**

A file selection sidebar will open on the right side of your screen. Click the "Search" field.

Type your league name to find your email images folder.

**IMPORTANT**: Keeping your files organized and ONLY uploading your images to your league email images folder helps keep the entire NICA CDN organized. If you upload files outside of your league folder, they may be deleted or archived. For more information about file organization, best pratices, and Hubspot as a CDN (Content Delivery Network), view our [Hubspot Resource Library.](https://scribehow.com/page/Hubspot_Marketing_Resource_Library__WMh2TyNAToy-5U_hb58Hbw)

Find your league Email Images folder: In this case, "Illinois-Email-Images"

**Click "Upload" and add your desired image.** Note: You can organize your images in this folder in whatever way you like. You can add subfolders, create your own naming conventions, etc.

Once your image is uploaded, click the thumbnail to add it to your email:

Now, go back to the left-side image editing area and add Alt text to your image. For example, "NICA-athlete-volunteer-smiling-holding-stop-sign-at-race"

**What is alt text?** Alt text is a concise, written description added to images, icons, and graphics in digital content. Image alt text is important for three reasons: accessibility, user experience, and image traffic. [Learn more here.](https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/image-alt-text)

‼️ Be sure to **replace the Canva template link** with one that fits your email content - in this case, <https://illinoismtb.org>

Update announcement text

Now, move onto the next section. You can replace the placeholder text with your own text in the **main announcement box:**

**Great news!** HubSpot autosaves your work so you can keep cruising without manually saving your edits. In addition to frequent auto-saves, it also saves a "version" of the full email every 5 minutes. Just like revision history in Google, you can reference a previous version of your email (or revert to an old version) at any time.

Edit content sections & modules

Recall that HubSpot emails are built using **SECTIONS** and **MODULES**. - A **SECTION** describes a block of content that spans the width of the email, and may include several modules/columns. Sometimes this is called a "row" in other email editors - A **MODULE** within the email editor in Hubspot, a module is a feature that you can drag-and-drop into the body of your email. Modules include images, buttons, text, and more. - A **CUSTOM SECTION** is one that has been built by NICA to help leagues make email building even simpler. They are all custom-branded and include league-specific links, colors, and URLs. [Learn more about NICA custom sections in our Resource Library.](https://scribehow.com/page/Hubspot_Marketing_Resource_Library__WMh2TyNAToy-5U_hb58Hbw)

As you continue to build your email, double-click on each module to edit.

**Custom** **modules** like your text headings allow you to choose from dropdowns that are pre-filled with league-branded colors, etc. on the left side of your email builder:

The easiest way to add an image is to replace an existing placeholder image. To begin, double click the placeholder image:

On the left-side editing bar, hover over the image thumbnail and click "Replace"

Search for/upload your image, then select the thumbnail to add it to your email:

Next, edit your text: double-click the placeholder text and highlight it to replace it:

Paste text from another document or type your content here:

**PRO-TIP!** We *highly recommend* drafting your email text/copy in a separate document before building your email; it helps you organize, edit, and spell-check before you even begin formatting in HubSpot. Having your content ready to go makes it much faster to build your email. Use our pre-formatted Google Doc template in the Resource Library and make a copy for your league! [Click here to find it.](https://scribehow.com/page/Hubspot_Marketing_Resource_Library__WMh2TyNAToy-5U_hb58Hbw)

Make sure you adjust alignment and formatting; sometimes pasted text can overwrite existing formatting. Use the rich text toolbar to adjust.

If your text is too long, your formatting will look unbalanced (notice all the white space below the image). We recommend **limiting the amount of text you include**. Less is more! Concise text = more people read it. If you have a lot of text that's *essential* to include, consider eliminating the image and simply place it in a 1-column block that spans across the entire section.

Now, the text is balanced with the image:

You'll notice that the buttons included in your template are also **custom sections** and are specific to your league:

You can edit the button text:

Change the URL:

...and even switch the button to a different league brand color:

Continue to work your way down through each section and edit as you go. When you reach the final announcement bar, add your last call to action.

The final sections of your email should remain consistent across all templates...so there's not much to do once you reach the bottom of your template! All of these final sections are custom league sections. They include a league NICA info bar, your league sponsor footer, National partner footer, social media icons for your league, and our required NICA address/info/preferences footer. We will also be adding a donation block as well, which you can choose to use/remove depending on your email context.

Review your email

Once you've added all your content, double check to make sure your email size is 80 kb or less by viewing the **Estimated size** at the top of your email editor:

This is an important step. If your emails are too large, there are detrimental effects on deliverability, and not just for this one email campaign: these can impact long-term health of all of your email sends! **If your email is too large, you'll need to trim it. Remove images, compress images, or break up your content into several smaller marketing emails that you send over a period of time. Remember: less is more.**

Send an email preview (proof)

HubSpot has a lot of different ways to preview an email. We recommend sending yourself a test so you can see what your email looks like when it lands in an inbox. To get started, click the **"Preview and test"** button at the very top of your page:

Click **"Send test email"**

Fill in the fields so you can send a test email to your address. Note that you'll want to test this with your personal email address or league email address, not just the hub@ email for your league. You can also opt to preview the email as a contact by selecting one from the dropdown. This is helpful if you have any sort of personalization in your email.

Click "[em@nationalmtb.org](mailto:em@nationalmtb.org)"

Click "Send"

Adding a list/segment

To select an audience, click the **"Send to"** box at the top of your email draft:

Ensure that you've selected **"To a segment of contacts"** from the "How will you send this email" dropdown:

Choose your desired segment. To learn more about segments and lists, including pre-set segments provided to each league by NICA, view our [Resource Library.](https://scribehow.com/page/Hubspot_Marketing_Resource_Library__WMh2TyNAToy-5U_hb58Hbw)

BONUS: Navigate your email outline

**PRO TIP**! You can also navigate your email structure using the **outline tool.** This allows you to see all sections, nested modules, and to adjust settings across these modules/sections (for example, alignment within a section or column). This can be a great way to fine-tune your content or to be able to select a very specific element within your email.

To access the outline structure of your email, click the branched outline icon on the far left side of your screen:

You can then hover over a section or module, and it will become highlighted in the email editor.

You'll have a variety of editing options within your section, including vertical alignment (shown), stacking direction (for mobile content) and more: