Why is it much harder to create emails in Marketo than MailChimp?

I have heard that a new versions of the email editor is on the way so this should be cleared up soon

This is definitely a draw back of Marketo, I actually based my Marketo Templates on the MailChimp Templates. Marketo doesn't really have the drag and drop facility on the Email side of thing, but how I go around that was I created my different layouts using Snippets and Tokens. My starting template has 3 key blank area's:

1. Header
2. Main Body
3. Footer

I then have my actual layout within the Snippet, i.e. if I want a Co Branded Header, I have a Snippet that has a pre designed Co Branded Header. One big thing to note about Snippets is that you can't edit the content within the Snippet when it's in the email, this can only be done via the tokens. My Co Branded Header Snippet would have the following tokens then for example:

{{my.Company Logo}}

{{my.Partner Logo}}

You may need to nest your <tables> a bit more doing it this way, but it all works in the end.

My Main Body would look something like this

{{my.Main Body}}

Now this is where the power of Snippets comes in, say your team wants to change the Main Body to a 2 column layout, all you have to do is delete the Main Body Snippet from within the Email then replace it with a 2 Column Snippet, which would look like this:

{{my.Left Column}}

{{my.Right Column}}

When you understand Snippets and use them correctly, it really opens up Marketo and makes it a super powerful tool.

More about Snipptes here - Add a Snippet to an Email - Marketo Docs - Product Docs.

Consider using knak.io or getting a freelance designer. You don't need them full time.

Hi Caroline,

Look at all the items listed here

Indeed, @Justin Cooperman​ commented in this post about a new email template system for H1 2016, but we do not know more at this stage

-Greg

Hi Caroline,

On Launchpoint website you can find the Marketo partners that provide solutions for creating email templates faster.