Handing off your email templates and code to non-coders is—let’s face it—a little terrifying. But at the same time, it can feel like your skills (and time) are wasted when you’re called on to make every. single. tiny. update. to. an. email.
But, the solutions available to pass over email creation to non-coders haven’t been ideal.
“Never trust a WYSIWYG editor.”
It’s a mantra email developers all over the world repeat on a daily basis. Why? WYSIWYG editors have a reputation of bloating your beautiful email code. And you know, that’ll cause chaos in an email client. Something will break.
The only way you can trust that your email code is as it should be is if you are typing it yourself…right?
Email developers, I’m excited to share that there is a better way! Enter: Visual Editor in Litmus Builder. Hear me out…
Take a new approach with email template updates
When we began development on Visual Editor, I was excited—it’s a feature that would be so valuable. Imagine being able to scale email development across your team (even to non-coders)—without breaking anything?!
It sounded too good to be true. And, I was definitely wary.
My first experience with Visual Editor was months ago while we were internally testing it. It was for a quick turnaround project: A request came in on a Friday afternoon for an urgent email that had to go out on Monday (of course, right?).
All of our templates are stored in Design Library, so I selected the one I wanted to use and then held my breath as I opened it in Visual Editor.
With all my years of having to fix email code that had taken a ride through WYSIWYG editors, I was expecting my email code to be bloated beyond recognition. Instead, as I clicked through and edited links, call-to-action button text, paragraphs, images, and headlines the code was…. left alone.
Yes, that’s right—Visual Editor doesn’t mess with your carefully crafted code.
Control is in the email developer’s hands
What struck me most about using Visual Editor was that it didn’t give me any of the typical options to change the style of text or links. What you as the template developer bake into your template can’t be changed by anyone who simply wants to update the content of the email. Whoa.
You are still in control of all the styling elements of your email templates. You can even designate your brand’s colors in Design Library to allow flexibility while avoiding any surprise color combinations.
Plus, with advanced user permissions, I can grant the right level of access to everyone in the build process, protecting my carefully crafted code even more. Who should have access to use templates and code modules, but not edit them? Who can use the Visual Editor, but not touch the Code Editor?
Since my Friday afternoon spin through Visual Editor, I have had the confidence in handing over well-coded, robust email templates to non-coders, knowing that the email code won’t be broken. And now I have more time to spend doing the things I want to spend time on—developing emails, testing more, and driving results.
Visual Editor is not another WYSIWYG editor. It’s a time-saver. It’s a code-leaver-aloner. It’s an email developer’s best friend.
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Bonus: The rest of the team is on board, too! Read what marketing specialists and marketing managers can do with Visual Editor in their arsenal.
Jaina Mistry is the Director of Brand and Content Marketing at Litmus.
