Speed ​​up the process: How to create and update lists in emails easily with Stripo’s widget

Think about the last marketing email you opened. Did you read every word, or did you just scan the headlines, numbers, and offers to see what caught your eye? Very likely, you did the latter.

Your subscribers probably do the same. A 2024 eye-tracking study mentioned earlier research indicating that people spend around 10 seconds reading promotional emails. With such a short window to communicate your message, it is important to make key information easy to find.

That’s where well-structured lists come in. They’re excellent for organizing information in your marketing emails.

Standard bullet points or numbered lists work well for straightforward messages, but what if you want more individualized designs? The main challenge is that creating custom-designed lists and keeping their formatting consistent as that content changes requires extra time and manual effort.

In this article, we’ll explore whether you can simplify this process and how Stripo’s List widget can help.

4 situations where marketers need lists in emails

Lists can take many forms and serve different purposes in emails. To demonstrate their versatility, let’s look at 4 examples of how lists can present information clearly and compellingly.

1. Monthly performance reports for marketing agency clients

When preparing a monthly performance report for a client, you usually need to share campaign results, key achievements, and recommendations.

Presenting all of this information in long paragraphs makes it difficult to identify important data. A well-structured list breaks the report into clear sections, each covering a specific metric, achievement, or recommendation.

For example, G&T Seguros’ marketing report presents advertising investments and campaign results in individual cards. Each card highlights a key figure, while icons, labels, and percentage changes help readers distinguish between metrics and quickly understand campaign performance.

(Source: Email from G&T Seguros)

2. Pricing and feature comparisons

Choosing between subscription plans, products, or service packages often involves evaluating multiple features and benefits.

When this information is scattered across paragraphs, readers have to work harder to understand the differences. A well-designed list brings key details together in a consistent format, making the options easier to compare.

(Source: Email from AppSumo)

Research by the Baymard Institute found that 67% of participants shopping for specification-heavy products used comparison features during testing. Although the study focused on eCommerce websites rather than emails, it highlights the value of making product differences easy to evaluate.

3. Monthly product update digests

Product teams often have several new features, improvements, integrations, and other changes to announce in a single email.

Including multiple updates in one email can make it difficult for readers to find the information they need.

A designed list gives each announcement its own heading, a short description, a supporting image, and a CTA. This allows subscribers to scan the updates and explore the ones that interest them.

(Source: Email from Betterment)

4. SaaS onboarding checklists

Successful registration alone is not enough to keep people engaged or encourage them to continue using a product in the long term.

New subscribers may still need to configure their accounts, connect integrations, invite teammates, or explore key features before they can get the most out of the platform.

That’s why a step-by-step checklist is an effective option. It breaks the onboarding process into smaller, actionable tasks. Each list item can include a number or icon, a short instruction, and a CTA that takes subscribers directly to the next step.

Apollo’s email demonstrates how a structured checklist can guide new subscribers through the onboarding process.

(Source: Email from Apollo.io)

How marketers usually create lists in emails

Creating a list in an email may seem simple, but the process depends on the type of list you want to create. A basic bulleted list takes just a few clicks. A more elaborate list with images, headings, descriptions, and buttons requires more content blocks and a little extra work.

Let’s look at how you can build these lists in Stripo and the challenges you might encounter when updating them.

Creating lists with Stripo’s standard editor tools

To create simple lists, you can use a Text block, enter your content, and format it as a list. This approach works well for short instructions, feature highlights, or any information that doesn’t require a complex visual layout.

For more complex designs, you can combine Stripo’s standard Text block with ready-to-use list elements from the general modules.

For instance, if you’re preparing a monthly product update email, you might build each item using an image, a feature title, a short description, and a CTA button. You can then duplicate the structure to maintain a consistent design across the email.

This approach gives you the flexibility to create lists that match your company’s brand and campaign goals.

Why maintaining designed lists becomes challenging

As lists become more complex or span multiple campaigns, it can be difficult to maintain a consistent look.

Here are some common issues marketers face at this stage:

1. Updating content: Editing titles, descriptions, images, and links across multiple blocks.
2. Adding or rearranging items: Duplicating, moving, or deleting blocks while maintaining the layout.
3. Changing the design: Adjusting fonts, colors, spacing, or switching between list layouts.
4. Optimizing for mobile devices: Checking and adjusting complex layouts for smaller screens.
5. Maintaining accessibility: Ensuring that custom layouts retain a sensible reading order and retain an accessible HTML structure.

These issues become especially apparent when content changes frequently, but the design remains static.

How Stripo’s List widget simplifies creating and maintaining lists

Stripo’s List widget, with the help of the AI Assistant, allows you to manage content and design separately. You can update information, rearrange items, or change the layout using AI chat commands without manually rebuilding individual elements.

Let’s look at how to do all of that.

Creating a custom-designed list using a chat prompt

If you need a monthly performance report, add the List widget to your template and ask the AI Assistant to create a list of campaign metrics, each with a title, description, and performance indicator. AI turns your description into a formatted list, automatically generating the necessary HTML.

Instead of building each list item from discrete content blocks, you can focus on the information you want to display and get a ready-made design without writing a single line of code.

Updating list content without rebuilding the design

Once you’ve created a list using a widget, you don’t have to start from scratch every time the information changes. With Stripo’s AI Assistant, you can add, remove, edit, and reorder list items using chat commands, while the list retains its existing layout and styling.

If you produce performance reports weekly or monthly, then you can reuse the same list design and just update the metrics, descriptions, and so on.

This saves you the trouble of manually editing each individual block or rebuilding the list for every campaign. It makes managing recurring emails much easier while helping you maintain a consistent design.

Changing the list layout while keeping the same content

Sometimes, you may want to change how information is presented without changing the content itself. With the List widget, you can switch layouts using commands in the AI Assistant, for example, from a simple vertical list to a more visual card-based design.

You can also have the AI Assistant copy an existing layout and add blank cards to it. That makes it very easy to expand your list or create alternative versions without having to start from scratch.

Additionally, you can customize individual design elements, such as font sizes, colors, images, icons, and spacing, to better match your email style.

Please note that the AI Assistant may also ask clarifying questions or request further instructions to better understand your requirements and ensure that the final output is exactly what you’re looking for.

Wrapping up

Creating and maintaining a well-designed email list doesn’t necessarily require you to spend time on tedious, repetitive manual editing or HTML coding.

With Stripo’s List widget, you can create custom lists, update their content, and experiment with different layouts using simple AI chat commands. By keeping content and design separate, Stripo’s List widget makes it much easier to maintain a consistent format, reuse designs, and adapt lists to different email campaigns.