Handy Email Marketing Checklist

When you are sending email campaigns yourself (either using our partner Vision 6 or third party software), here is a handy check list we've developed at TMD Online to make sure your campaigns are sent error free.

Mobile Devices

Over the last five years we have seen average mobile "opens" increase from a mere 10% to just under 50%.   Whenever you send an email campaign - you should consider (and test) how the campaign will look / feel on a smaller screen.

Calls to action

If your campaign is a bit longer, consider placing multiple calls to action throughout the campaign, as your user might not scroll all the way to end to engage (e.g click on a link).  If your campaign is really long - you may also want to consider a table of contents, or an introduction that contains links to "critical" areas.

Check content for Spam

You should run your content / campaign thru a "spam checker" to make sure you've got a good balance of text to image ratio.  Also you should try and minimise any "spammy" keywords.

3 things often over looked:

When creating a campaign, a lot of people get very focussed on the “content” – but they often over look “first impressions” (i.e what someone see’s when your message first appears in their inbox”).

Have you checked:

• the “from” name
• the “reply-to” address
• the “email” subject.

Pay special attention to the “subject”.  Does it just say “May eNewsletter”…. OR could it say “Hi John, here is our May eNews – containing your special 50% offer”.

Other things to check:

• Check any merge fields are present i.e Dear %%first_name%%.
• Read through the text to make sure there’s no typographic errors or references to things from the last email campaign (you should always double check your header / footer – as usually this is where this info needs to be updated).
• Check that your are sending your campaign to the right people (are you using the right database / segement?).
• Consider “scheduling your campaign” i.e when is your target audience going to be receptive to receiving your content.  Sending a campaign to a “business community” at 6pm on a Friday is probably not a great idea – maybe 10am on Monday morning would be better?
• Do you need to announce / schedule in any "social media" or website posts to coincide with this campaign?

"Its just a little change, just send it out once done"

 Its so tempting to just make that "last final change", and then hit send to your entire database.  If you make any changes to your campaign, you should always send yourself a final test before sending it to your entire database.  

You would be surprised how text might "wrap" unexpectedly with an extra comma, or your last "image" change, has thrown your campaign out of whack.