Hi @SteveP805!
Thanks for sharing these templates and providing additional insight, that's really helpful.
I'll start with the DataMatters template and might have to circle back on the "News and Announcements" later on, though I encourage others to hop in and provide feedback, as well.
If you have access to the heat map feature, I recommend taking a look at where people are clicking in the email. My immediate thought is the email is very long and there are links peppered throughout. I'd be curious how many readers are clicking on the links further down. If the copy is housed anywhere else (like on a blog or your website), I'd recommend using a Read More block to highlight the content, but point people to go to the page where it lives. This could help save space so that the most important content or call-to-action is more apparent.
Given the length, it probably could use more images (if it were to stay on the longer side). Also, the text on the images was hard for me to read. When you upload an image to Constant Contact, it gets its own URL you can use for hyperlinks (this article covers pdfs, but its in the same location for image files, too). If the actual image is larger and more readable, you could add the URL as a hyperlink on the image itself so if people click on it, they'll get the expanded version. Or even better, if these are being pulled from your website or even a downloadable PDF you can hyperlink the images to lead the reader right there.
Design-wise, in terms of colors, it's good! But I would maybe alternate them between the different sections. Towards the top the top two sections have different background colors and then it's the same the rest of the way down. I'd either stick with one color for the background, if it's a long email, because depending on the variable length of each section, it could be distracting having it alternate several times in the same template.
I could definitely spend more time on this, so I'll try to circle back and give more feedback. Overall, though, I'd say your email looks nice and clean and the text appears well-formatted and organized.
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