Email marketing is one of the main driving forces behind the development of many businesses. According to surveys, 85% of marketers use email as the primary channel for generating leads. As a result, the requirements for email campaigns are extremely high and take a long time to develop. However, creating an email isn't all you need to do before hitting the send button. We've put together an email marketing campaign checklist that will tell you what to do and test before you send out your emails to your precious audience.
#1. Is your subject line powerful enough?
Subject lines are the first thing a user sees in their mailbox, and they are associated with important statistics that you should know about:
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69% of users rate an email based on the subject line and decide whether to send the email to the spam folder or not;
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64% of users decide whether or not to open an email based on the subject line they see;
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47% of marketers test subject lines before finalizing their emails and sending them out;
As a result, each of your subject lines must be clearly defined and worked out. It should be relevant, arouse interest, and at the same time not be too long.
We have created a whole guide to writing powerful subject lines that will help you increase your CTR and reduce the number of your emails getting into the spam folder.
#2. Check your sending schedule
The second thing on our email marketing checklist template is when you send your emails. The timing of when you send emails is also extremely important. If you send it at the wrong time, your email will remain unnoticed. Sendinblue has researched and found a good time to send emails. You must fall between 10 a.m. and 4:00 p.m., which is pretty logical. At 10 a.m., people are already at work and are starting to delve into the day's tasks and emails at this time. Meanwhile, at 4:00 p.m., they are already more relaxed as the end of the workday approaches, and they check emails since they have free time.
Sendinblue also found an interesting pattern in that the CTR of emails sent between 6:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. is significantly higher than at other times of the day. This is due to the fact that most people get home at this time and start checking mailboxes out of boredom.
It is also worth considering the day of the week since the most favorable time for sending is Monday - Thursday.
#3. Work out your email text
The next thing you should adopt to send error-free emails is checking your copies. Powerful subject lines and a good sending time alone are not enough for your email to bring you a conversion. The body of the email also requires a thoughtful approach and careful checking before sending.
Review the text part of the email from three perspectives:
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Clarity. The clearer and more down-to-earth your email, the better. Get rid of complex turns of speech, long sentences and touch only the essence of the email.
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Persuasiveness. All your text should serve only one goal that you yourself set before the created email (sell a service, bring a new client, and so on). That is why you should check your text for persuasiveness and whether it motivates the recipient to action.
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Helpfulness. If your email is useless to the recipient, this is a direct path to the spam folder. The body of your email should show that whatever the email offers is beneficial to the recipient.
In addition, do not forget about grammar and typos. Your email is unlikely to be convincing if the recipient notices mistakes in the text. Subtract your email several times, preferably one day apart. Weaknesses of the text and mistakes will be more noticeable with a fresh mind. You can also use various services that check grammar and other aspects of copywriting, for example:
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Grammarly
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ProWritingAid;
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Sapling;
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white smoke;
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Ginger;
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Paper Rater;
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Reverso;
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SentenceCheckup;
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Hemingway App.
If you want to be as calm as possible about texts in emails, you should think about hiring a professional proofreader and copywriter in a team who will create high-quality texts for you right away.
#4. Validate your AMP HTML emails precisely
AMP for Email is a technology that takes email interactivity to a whole new level. With it, you can add various interactive elements (carousels, accordions, and so on) as well as embed simple full-fledged games directly into the email.
We’ve made a full-fledged guide on how you can use AMP in emails to your advantage.
AMP is additional code that needs to work correctly and as a result, needs to be carefully reviewed before sending an email. You don’t want your game, which you thought up for a long time, just didn’t work for the recipient in the letter? In order to test all aspects of AMP HTML emails and insure yourself against unforeseen circumstances, you should do the following:
Validate email code
Any mistake in the code, unclosed brackets, or a typo will result in your client simply not receiving the email. Stripo makes it easy to validate email code right in the editor thanks to the implemented AMP validator directly from Google. You will see all the errors right in the email preview without the need to check them in third-party websites.
However, if you create an email using other tools, it can be validated using amp.dev AMP validator, which provides everything you need to test the AMP email code.
Have a fallback version of the email
Not all email services support AMP emails (to be precise, only Google and Yahoo can correctly render AMP elements). That's why you'll need a fallback version of the email, which is a normal HTML email that all email services support.
Check both email versions
Stripo has a preview feature that allows you to switch between the AMP and HTML version of the email for easier testing of the final result.
Test sends
The final stage of checking emails is a test newsletter. It can be your own mailbox where you can see what your email will look like in real conditions. After you make sure that everything is done perfectly and the received email has no errors, testing can be completed.
#5. Double-check your links
This is one of the most important things on our checklist email template. Your email will have zero effect if the links leading from it don't work. So it's worth making sure that all links and CTAs lead to the correct pages of your website and they are not broken. It is also worth mentioning the mandatory unsubscribe link, which is spelled out in the GDPR rules.
#6. Mobile and desktop testing
We live in a mobile world and the prevalence of mobile devices directly affects email marketing. According to research, 85% of users use smartphones to access email. This metric means you have to make sure your email looks flawless on both desktop and mobile screens.
Stripo allows you to simultaneously preview how the email looks in desktop and mobile format, which greatly speeds up the process of validating emails for your newsletter.
#7. Adopt autoresponders
Email campaigns can consist of the whole series of emails that you have to send out in a certain sequence. At the same time, it is important to do it in such a way that it does not look like a bombing of the client's mailbox.
To create the right pace and to remember to respond to customers, you should get one of the popular email autoresponders and email services with email automation before sending. Popular solutions in this area are:
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SendX;
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Mailchimp;
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Moosend;
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MailerLite;
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Constant contact;
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Campaign Monitor;
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AWeber.
Combine these tools with the right newsletter schedule for maximum impact.
#8. Overview visual part
The next thing on our marketing campaign checklist is what your emails look like. The design has played an important role in the success of the company. Visual content helps convey your idea to the recipient, encourages action, and arouses interest. Everything, starting from pictures and ending with the design of CTA buttons, must be verified. Before sending an email, you should check the following aspects of the design:
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Readability. This applies to both selected fonts and color combinations. Fonts should be well readable from all devices, spacing between elements should not turn the whole email into a mess, color contrast should not interfere with reading the content of the email.
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Purpose. No matter how much you want to make email a work of art, you should always prioritize content and then beautiful design. Analyze whether certain design elements serve the main purpose of the email and whether they are relevant to the subject of the email.
#9. Add some personalization
We just couldn't help but add this item to our checklist email marketing. Personalization is the direct path to your customer's heart. Studies have shown that more than 75% of consumers are highly likely to purchase a product or service from a company that refers to them by name. This list also includes interest-based exclusive offers, purchase history remembering, and more. So start simple and refer to the client by name in your email, and it will definitely bear fruit.
(Source: Really Good Emails)
#10. Set KPIs to track further performance
All your efforts will be in vain if you don't know how well (or poorly) your email newsletter has worked. That is why you should have a list of goals and KPIs to achieve them. Choose what is most important for your business at this stage. For example, the list might look like this:
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reach x% of email subscribers (which is the email deliverability);
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persuade the subscribers to open your emails (which is the email open rate);
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persuade the subscribers to make a purchase (which is the email conversion rate).
Final words
The quality of your emails directly affects their success, and you need to spend quite a bit of time polishing them in order to achieve the highest quality of your newsletter. We have created this email checklist to help you validate and polish your emails to get you new customers and increase sales. We hope this article will help you with email validation. Meanwhile, Stripo will help you create emails.
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