Keep email templates out of the B2B realm, please..
I pretty much disagree with almost every point in Brand-Aid for Everyday Email, by Barry Stamos, especially for B2B communications.
I deal with about 100 clients on a weekly basis, and get probably 1,000 emails on average each week. Only one of them sends me email in a branded HTML form. You know which client I hate to receive email from? Yep, you guess it, that one.
[snip]
Also, I personally use two or three email clients, and some support HTML and others don't. Why risk the chance of having your message displayed horribly to me, if you don't know what kind of email client I'm using? Isn't the real message more important than your damn logo? I mean really? If you're emailing me for a reason, then it's probably important to you that I get the message quickly and easily, right?