Sales email templates can make your life a whole lot easier. They can create greater efficiency and save time when having to create, format, and sign emails to clients. However, used incorrectly, they could be your worst enemy. They could be the reason why you lost a potential client.

To make sure you use email templates appropriately, take note of this list of do’s and don’ts.

DO Know When to Use Them

Email templates can be used in many situations. When you find yourself writing the same message over and over again to multiple clients, then templates can be very beneficial. You can create your own templates for many email scenarios, such as for follow-ups emails, for typical prospecting of new business, for setting up or confirming a meeting, and for holiday and out-of-office messages. In these instances, sales email templates make sense because they save you time from re-writing the same thing multiple times.

DON’T Send Them in These Situations

In some situations, though, sales email templates shouldn’t be used. Sometimes, it’s best to type out an original message. If you’re only going to use the message once, then of course there’s no point in creating a template. If you’re in a rush, you might forget to change placeholder text, like someone’s name or company name. If you’re sending these messages to many people in the same office, then multiple copies of the same message will only look lazy and inconsiderate. And if you’ve been using a template for a while and it isn’t generating the responses that you hoped for, then you shouldn’t be using it at all.

DO Make Them Your Own

Using a template as your inspiration for words and phrases is a great starting point. But you do have to make sure to change the message to your own voice. Make it your own and make it original or you’ll just end up sounding like an unauthentic robot, one that clients will ignore.

DON’T Click Send without Testing

Templates can often go wrong, so you should never send one out without testing it first. Make sure you preview your message before hitting the send button to ensure that it looks the way you want it to.

DO Triple Check Spelling and Grammar

It’s embarrassing enough to send one email that includes a typo, but sending out dozens of emails with the same typo can really damage your credibility with your clients. Before you send out your first sales email template, triple check it for spelling and grammar mistakes. If this isn’t your strong suit, then have someone else look it over for you. It’ll potentially save you from a lot of embarrassment.

DON’T Send the Same Email to All of Your Clients

You likely have several different buyer personas, all with unique characteristics, pain points, and needs. So it makes sense to create multiple versions of the same sales email to match the different audience types that you’re trying to reach.

DO Measure Your Results

If your email template isn’t getting you the amount of responses that you’re looking for, you need to know about it so you can adjust it and make it better for optimal results. That’s why it’s so important to measure your results. There’s no shortage of tools that can help you track email responses, like HubSpot’s Sidekick, for example.

As a sales rep, you email constantly. Instead of wasting your time typing out all of your messages, you should be using email templates to your advantage. They’ll help you save time, be consistent, and be more efficient. But make sure you’re using these templates correctly so that they don’t backfire on you. Follow these do’s and dont’s of sales email templates.