The email marketing checklist

As a busy marketer you always have 101 things on your plate. So it is only natural that occasionally things get overlooked or you don’t get to spend the time that you want to perfect your content or create a killer subject line. But as such an important channel email deserves your finest efforts.

Sometimes, we simply forget the basics – the most important things of all. But don’t worry: this handy guide is designed to act as your email marketing checklist.

Stand out from the start

‘Friendly from’ name

The ‘from’ or sender name is the inbox field that tells your customer who’s sent the message. Without something recognizable, your subscriber may dismiss it as spam. We recommend using a person’s name, at it is more approachable than a ‘big brand’

Subject line

No matter what they say, people do judge emails by their subject lines. In fact, 47% of email recipients decide whether or not to open an email based on subject line alone. That's why it's so important to craft subject lines that are compelling enough to get people to click through. Read more here

Pre-header text

A pre-header is the short summary that follows the subject line when an email is viewed in the inbox. It’s a great way to give your contact the low down on what the email contains before they open it. See it as yet another opportunity to encourage your readers to open your email.

Make your message compelling

Headlines and subheaders
Your recipient’s are as busy as you are.  And it is likely that they will only be skimming your mail initially.  Use headlines and subheaders to make your message clear so your reader knows in an instant the message you want to convey.

Text or bullets

Keep your text short and to the point and if you can use bullets do so. Bullets are much quicker and easier to digest than large blocks of text.

Personalise, personalise, personalise

By using behaviour or demographic data, along with the usual personalisation you can deliver more compelling messages with relevant information for the recipient.

Craft your CTA

No matter how big, bright or beautiful your call-to-action button, you need to give the reader a reason to click through first. If you’ve got that right, these points will be the icing on the cake

•      Make sure your button stands out with copy that motivates the click

•      Keep the copy short and sweet, a couple of words is best but no more than five is key

•      Make the text action-orientated with words like “Register”or “Download”

•      Place your buttons in a logical place, and try to keep it above the fold.

•      Use contrasting colours for your buttons to make them stand out – be as adventurous as you can within your brand guidelines.

To be the best, you have to test

Testing lets you find out what works and what doesn’t. Running A/B tests are a quick and simple way of seeing which campaigns generate the best opens and clicks.

Test against a hypothesis too, then you can learn and build on your learnings, rather than simply having arbitrary tests.

Here are some of the things you can try out:

• Variations in subject lines, like emotional vs. offer-led

• Different lengths of copy – i.e. long vs. short

• Design can make a difference so test a suite of templates (but only two at a time)

• When’s the best time to send?

Plain-text emails still have a part to play

They don’t look pretty but they play an important role in a well-rounded email marketing strategy.  Why?

• Some email clients and apps can’t handle HTML (yeah, it’s true but not as common these days) – so your email will look like a garbled mess when it lands in your recipient’s inbox

• Some people turn off HTML for emails, which means either your message won’t be readable or it  may not even arrive

 
Use your reports to get better results

Every time you send an email you’re collecting data. But until you sit down and make sense of it, it’s just a mass of meaningless information. Data is your best friend when it comes to email marketing and can enable you to work smarter, not harder.

Create a simple, but meaningful report suite

A reporting template that’s easy to understand, with a useful amount of information, will help the entire company recognize how email marketing contributes to the business. A simple document containing the below details is a good start:

• Number of emails sent

• Deliverability rate – how many emails were sent

• How many emails were opened

• The number of recipients who clicked through

• How many people unsubscribed

• Conversion tracking and return on investment (ROI)

 
To take as much of the pressure off you need an email platform that is simple to use. And with your dedicated account management team to hold your hand every  step of the way you can rest assured that your email campaigns are in good hands with e-shot™. Find out more by calling 020 3320 8777