What alternatives to Mosaico do you use or do you have any tips on how to improve design?

Question

So I really like Mosaico, but design wise, imho, it has a bunch of flaws - like how it handles whitespace, image processing, fonts, flexibility (titles can't be hyperlinked), etc. I understand some people use mailchimp and sync contacts back and forth, but I am not sure that is the best approach, data wise for us.

Have you made your mosaico emails beautiful? Do you have tips? What did you do?

Do you use an external email system? If so, what is it?

Answer 1

I'm with you, Mailchip is just fantastic but the interchange of contacts is clunky. I've also tried exporting the HTML and that works very well but is time consuming and requires a level of technical understanding. And of course it costs....

Mosaico is so close but all the issues you've identified are there and I haven't been able to find a way around them

So flip flopping between them has been my answer.......

Answer 2

We utilize Mosaico for very simple email communications and use Mailchimp for ones requiring a more advanced design, utilizing the sync extension. Both have some problems of course but overall it has worked out. Also, we use classic civimail for some of the templates we've built in there as well.

There is some information here about adding custom templates: https://civicrm.org/blog/totten/mosaico-extension-v20-beta3-etal

As well as how to do it from Mosaico's perspective: https://github.com/voidlabs/mosaico/blob/master/templates/tutorial/mosaico-tutorial.md

Here's a list of free, responsive email templates: https://www.practicalecommerce.com/free-responsive-email-templates

I'd probably start there and build up a skillset around converting them into Mosaico. But as you said, some foundational assumptions from Mosaico can't easily be changed.

Lastly, I've found that just keeping simple 1 column and short emails with links to things we want people to do (sign up, read our website, etc.) has been more effective than focusing on making email design perfect (for what it's worth).

Answer 3

There's a project to implement MJML (mailjet engine) in CiviCRM in order to add or replace Mosaico. We only use Mosaico and for our clients needs it does the job