Creating Outlook Email Templates

Has this happened to you recently?  You're typing an email and you get the feeling that you've done this exact thing before.  When you look back at your sent items, you realize that you have typed this email message before.  Actually you've typed it about 10 times in the last week.  Outlook has a quick and easy way for users to create email templates that allow you to speed through those standard emails.

The first step is to write out your standard email.  It could be information that you send to potential new customers, the thank you message you send to colleagues after a meeting, or the appointment reminder that you send before meeting with a client.  If it is something that you send frequently with only minor changes for personalization, then it is a great candidate for an email template.  Open a message pane in Outlook and type out your email with a subject:

Next, instead of hitting the "Send" button, click on "File".  Choose "Save As", then "Outlook Template" from the "Save as type" drop down menu:

Now you're ready to start using your new Outlook email template.  Next time you need to send out this standard email, choose "New Items" from the ribbon at the top of Outlook.  From that drop down menu, you will opt for the "More items" and "Choose form".  Change the "Look in" field to "User templates in file system" and you will see the email template you created.  Double click the name of the template, and your email pops up ready for editing and sending.

If you don't want to spend your time setting all of your standard email templates up, you can outsource this task to a service such as Administrative Business Consulting.  Hiring a virtual administrative assistant can help get your Outlook organized and get you back to the core of your business.