If only sending an email to your audience was as easy as typing a few words and hitting send…

There are several steps to running a successful email marketing campaign. For a busy business owner, it can be easy to overlook the many steps that it takes to grab your customer’s attention and achieve your email’s goals.

The email marketing process can be broken down into 4 phases: 

1. Planning
2. Design & Development
3. Testing
4. Post-Send

Use this checklist to make the most of your next email campaign before you hit send.

Planning Phase

Before you start designing and opening up your email editor, ask yourself the following questions:

• What is the goal of the email? To make money? To inform? To entertain?
• How would you define success for this email?
• Who will it be sent to?
• Do you have all the assets needed to develop the email?
• What’s your main call-to-action for the email?

Design & Development Phase

While building out your email, ask yourself these questions to make sure you’re making the best-looking email possible.

• Are there any typos?
• Is your text large enough to read?
• Are all images compressed and optimized to load fast?
• Do all images have alt text with a description of what the image is?
• Is the email responsive across desktop and mobile devices?
• Are any images too small on mobile devices?
• How does the email look on different email clients? (Check Litmus or Email on Acid)
• How does the email look in dark mode?
• Do you have an unsubscribe link clearly displayed and not hidden?

Testing Phase

Once the email is built out, ask yourself these questions before hitting send:

• Do all links in the email work and point where they’re supposed to?
• Do you have tracking parameters set up for links? (i.e. Google Analytics)
• Will your subject line grab the reader’s attention?
• Does your preview text pair well with your subject line?
• Are there any stakeholders that need to sign off on the email?
• Are there any recipients to exclude from this email send?
• Does this email need to go out at a specific date and time?

Post-Send Phase

After you hit send, ask yourself these questions to see what worked well and how you can improve your future emails

• Was the open rate and clickthrough rate above or below average?
• How many people unsubscribed after receiving the email?
• How much attributable revenue did you make from the email?
• Were there an abnormal amount of bounces or undeliverable emails?
• Do you plan to send a follow-up email to non-openers?
• Did anyone reply to the email? If so, don’t forget to follow up.
• What devices did people open the email from?
• How did this email’s performance compare to similar campaigns?
• What improvements can you make to future emails based on this email?

Are your emails hitting the mark?

If your email marketing process needs improvement, or you need help building out your next email, get in touch today.

Talk soon!
-Jimmy