Do you know email marketing is still a powerful marketing tool in 2024?
Yes, you heard that right.
According to Litmus, 87% of brands claim that email marketing is pivotal to maximizing their business ROI.
Needless to say, email marketing can bridge the communication gap between the seller and the customers. In turn, it enables to drive more sales.
But wait!
Email marketing needs to SUCCESFUL so that you can reap its benefits. Otherwise, you will end up in email marketing embarrassment, and poor results will affect your marketing efforts.
You don’t want that!
That is why we will unravel the ultimate email marketing checklist you need before launching your next email marketing campaign.
Keep reading.
Most of the marketing evangelist questions the relevancy of email marketing every year. However, the statistics speak for it. According to HubSpot, 99% of people check their mailbox every day. On the other hand, 73% of millennials prefer to open emails from various brands apart from other companies.
In 2023, almost 347.3 billion emails were received and sent per day. Moving forward, it’s forecasted to increase by 4.3% in 2024. Another study shows that 77% of B2B buyers prefer to be contacted over mail apart from any other marketing channel.
These stats prove that email marketing is still relevant in 2024. However, sending the emails randomly won’t help you much. You need an ultimate mail marketing checklist that helps you to engage with a wider audience while building strong relationships with them.
Ultimate Email Marketing Checklist That Fetches Your Results
The initial step towards creating an email marketing checklist is to check your existing workflow. Assess what’s working and what’s can be improved. A checklist will help you plan your next campaigns accordingly. Here you go-
1. Set Your Goal
First and foremost, you should set your goals before you move forward with your next email marketing campaign. For instance, your goal may be increasing sales. On that note, your email marketing goal should be attracting more visitors to your company website. You can include enticing offers like free shipping, discounts, and cash-back guarantees to achieve the same.
On the contrary, if you want to prioritize lead generation, you should connect with potential clients by emailing them personalized content. Therefore, the first step is to identify your goal. Accordingly, you can hatch up your next steps to achieve your goals.
2. Incorporate Captivating Subject Lines
Your subject lines play a crucial role in the opening rate of your email. Therefore, you should devote more time and effort to creating alluring preheader copy and subject lines that describe your product/service in the subject line.
Few things you should check while curating email subject lines:
- Check whether your subject line and preheader text fit well, matching your email goal.
- Keep it sweet and simple.
- Check for typos and grammar mistakes.
- Create a sense of urgency.
- Put new ideas
- Don’t use spammy components such as ALL CAPS or the exclamation marks.
3. Choose a Friendly Sender Name
A right sender name can impact the email open rates. In other words, this is the most influential factor that makes a recipient decide whether to open an email. Even it’s much more important than the subject line, email content and offers. For example, you can write “Jacob from Amazon” instead of “Amazon”.
Don’t use no-reply email addresses and identities. Your audience may not recognize the email address and won’t open it. As a result, it will affect your open rate. Instead, you can use an approachable name that is easily recognizable.
4. Choose Eligible Mail Recipients
Choosing the eligible group of mail recipients is necessary. It directly affects your mail success rate. For instance, if you offer an exclusive coupon who are not interested in your products/services, you will receive negative responses, including unsubscribes and spam reports. Additionally, if your marketing team sends email campaigns every week, remove a few individuals to reduce the mailbox overload.
5. Segment Target Audience
Are you dividing your target audience into more focused groups? If you’re not doing that, you’re leaving the marketing strategies behind. Maximize the mail marketing efforts by segmenting the target audience. Doing the same will help you produce targeted communications that will resonate with recipients’ needs. Ultimately, it will lead to better engagement and improved ROI results.
You can segment the target audience based on the following things:
- Gender
- Age
- Previous purchase history
- Values and beliefs
- Location
6. Check the unsubscribe button
Your marketing email should include a working unsubscribe button. This button will allow the recipients to choose the mail types and frequency they want to receive. It may happen that the customer isn’t interested in the product announcements, but they may like the existing product/service. Therefore, you can give them options instead of “unsubscribe from everything.”
7. Polish the Mail
When curating the emails, your eyes may overlook the errors. A fresh pair of eyes is always practical to ensure your mail is error-free. You can ask your team members to check the mail, especially the mail body copy. Remember, incorporating great copywriting strategies in your mail body can make your mail more enticing.
Now, go for copy optimization that includes checking the header and every sentence of the mail body to ensure everything is said subtly. Here are a few things to keep in mind while curating an email:
- Use short and crisp headlines that explain your message clearly.
- Include pictures, videos, emoticons, and other elements that complement your content.
- Use fonts that match your brand tone.
- Include the company logo in the header section.
- Include personal contact information, including phone number, address, social media handles and an unsubscribe option in the footer section.
- Leave some white space.
- Use single-column layouts for more straightforward navigation.
- Use a compelling and unique CTA that encourages the users to take action.
8. Check URL
Imagine you sent an email with an embedded link about your product/service. Once the user opens the same, they find the link is not working. The willingness to open your mail suddenly turns into a bizarre situation. To avoid this untoward situation, check the links manually before sending emails. You can also do it with a URL checker. This tool will check every link, URL, and button in your mail. Also, it will check the metadata, redirection quantity and metadata.
9. Send the Mails at Right Time
Knowing the right time to send your next mail plays a crucial role in the success rate of email marketing. A consistent mail marketing plan can be effective. Follow these checklists to get more from your email marketing plan:
- Assess the best time to send emails.
- Do experiments at various times and days.
- Keep track of outcomes.
- Schedule an email to send the same at the preferred time.
- Check the conversion and click rates. Based on that, you can take your next actions.
10. Check how the Mails Look on Different Devices
A study states that 81% of people want to read the emails on their phone. Therefore, a responsive mobile design is essential. Check the best practices of responsive email design mentioned below:
- To achieve the best mobile view, use a single-column layout.
- Examine your mail design with various browsers.
- Set responsive line heights and font sizes. You can use a font size of 13 or 14 for body text and 20 for header text.
- Set a maximum width for the photos to prevent it from overflowing.
- Optimize images for small screen sizes.
- Use image alt text if the client fails to load the pictures.
- Allow plenty of white space within your email body to increase the readability.
- Don’t group numerous hyperlinks. Instead, incorporate large and tapable buttons.
11. Perform A/B Testing
Through A/B testing, you can experiment with different types of content while learning more about the client’s preferences. You can do this test on various email elements, including subject lines, graphics, color, preheader content, CTAs, copy length etc. Analyze the test results consistently and, based on that, optimize your next email campaigns.
Consider a few things before enabling A/B testing for your email campaign-
- Select the test elements.
- Determine your goals.
- Consider only one test element at a time.
- Split the number of tests.
- Create original mail copy.
- Create a second version of the email containing the modifications.
- Keep track of the metrics, including CTR, conversion and engagement rate.
- Analyze data thoroughly. Based on that, plan your next action.
12. Track Metrics
Your job hasn’t ended yet! Once the campaign is live, you should track the metrics. Check the open, bounce, clickthrough and conversion rates. Additionally, look at the spam reports and unsubscribe numbers. Evaluate the data because some users opened the email and others didn’t.
13. Monitor KPIs
Has your email marketing objective been met already? Of course not! It’s time to assess the key performance indicators or the KPIs. Here is the list of email marketing KPIs that you should follow:
- Click-through rate
- Email deliverability rate
- Conversion rate
- Unsubscribing rate
- Bounce rate
- Email sharing rate
- Profit per subscription
- Return on Investment
Before Ending Up
Effective mail marketing can serve your purpose right. This checklist mentioned above will help you gain the traction you want. Stay focused without being distracted and implement every point mentioned above. If you need expert help, PWA Media can take your email marketing vision by its horns. Before hitting the SEND button of your next mail, drop a message to us to get you covered!
