If you’re trying the traditional approach to building your marketing emails then you’ve got an uphill battle ahead. Catching errors during the multiple rounds of revisions (and the constant back and forth) can be a nightmare. So, it’s no surprise that you’d hesitate before pressing send on any marketing email.
Fortunately, we’ve got a handy checklist below to make things just a bit easier! Read on to discover the essential email elements that you’ll need to check before sending your next email.
1. Content objective
First things first, work out what you want to say in your email!
What are you trying to achieve with this email? Are you communicating about a new product, promotion, or project? Determine your content objective and messaging so your copywriters and designers have clear directives.
Once the email is built, check that the messaging and design reflect that initial content objective. Is your message effectively conveyed? If it’s not, then you might need to go back to the drawing board.
2. Spelling and grammar
Once the copy is finalized by your copywriters, it’s handed over to the designers and developers. However, after multiple rounds of revisions, it’s easy for errors to slip through.
It’s important to check for spelling and grammar errors at every stage of this process to ensure no small changes or errors were accidentally added.
Before sending, review the email one more time and get another set of editorially-savvy eyes to look it over as well!
3. Subject line
Your subject line could be the deciding factor that determines whether someone clicks on your email or not.
Give yourself the best odds by keeping it under 50 characters, subject lines that are too long don’t perform as well.
Additionally, don’t use dollar signs, special characters, or trigger words like free or click in the subject line as there’s a higher probability that the email will go to spam.
Prior to clicking send, make sure the subject line is short, succinct, and relevant.
4. From/reply to line
The from/reply to line allows people to see who the email is from and who they’re replying to.
To ensure your email is easily recognizable, use your name or brand name in the from/reply to line.
This will provide your subscribers with some clarity, give your email some authenticity in their inbox, and hopefully encourage lots of opens!
5. Call-to-action (otherwise known as CTA)
The call-to-action (CTA) is often determined by the content objective, as it’s the action that you want people to take after reading your email.
Does your CTA accurately reflect the core objective of your email? Why are you driving people to that page or promotion? You should have one primary CTA in the email, rather than a range of CTAs that’ll only confuse the reader. Examine the strategy behind your CTA before moving forward.
Also, it may seem obvious, but make sure that the CTA button is working correctly! Whether it links to a landing page, pops up a contact form, or downloads an asset, the CTA button needs to work seamlessly. Run a few tests and try clicking the CTA button on both PC and mobile.
6. Links
Broken links can be a deal breaker for both the CTA button and any part of an email. It looks unprofessional, tarnishes your brand, and frustrates your readers.
It’s a massive face-palm moment for any marketer, so avoid it by checking all links are working correctly before blasting that email.
Additionally, if you’re using UTM links make sure you track them effectively. Many brands use spreadsheets to create UTM parameters and tracking links, which leaves a lot of room for error.
If you’re using Stensul, UTM parameters and tracking links can be baked into the modules that you use in your emails (no copy/pasting required) to ensure standardization.
7. Brand compliance
While your designers, developers, and legal team have scoured every inch of your email, it doesn’t hurt to do a final sweep for brand compliance.
Sending out an email with an old logo, wrong color, or off-brand image will confuse consumers and deliver a disjointed brand experience.
With Stensul’s platform, you can set strict brand guardrails for each of your company’s teams, ensuring all the correct colors, fonts, images, designs, and legal requirements are used.
8. Email client compliance
Are your emails showing up differently in Gmail versus Outlook?
Constantly testing to ensure each new iteration of your email is appearing correctly across all email clients is a massive pain.
Even small design changes can throw an email off its game. Do a final check across all email clients to ensure your email shows up perfectly (or wink, wink, use Stensul and you won’t have to worry about that).
9. Mobile responsiveness
With 46% of emails opened on mobile devices, it’s critical that your emails display well on mobile.
When building your email, think about whether you want to take the mobile responsive or mobile optimized approach.
Once your email is ready to send, test it first across a range of devices, both PC and mobile, to ensure it appears correctly. You don’t want to deter mobile users from engaging with your brand just because your email’s text is too small on mobile!
10. Segmentation
Before sending that email to thousands of people, don’t forget to double check who you’re sending it to.
The message you send to customers could look a lot different than what you’d want to communicate to prospects. If you haven’t properly segmented your list, you might find yourself sending an apology email later.
Want to simplify this checklist? Find out how Stensul can help.
