Check out this 3-step email marketing checklist! Email marketing is a great tool for your business, whether it is for general communications with customers, giving product updates and discounts, sending an invitation for an event… It can help you in many different ways across your entire funnel.
👀 In this article, we highlight 3 crucial steps in your email marketing checklist that can sometimes be overlooked, and we give resources to help you set up your campaign. Let’s dive in!
First things first, you will need to identify the topic of your newsletter and do some planning. You also need to be clear on your target audience. You may want to use the process of dividing your email list in smaller segments (called segmentation), based on things like demographics, interests and behaviors.
After you’ve gone through these preliminary steps, you can start with the checklist below!
📌 Email marketing checklist #1: Customize email content for each segment
What should be included in email marketing content?
The content of your emails is arguably the most important part of your email marketing strategy. It starts with having catchy subject lines, which are the main element that will influence your open rate. Best if your subject line is attention-grabbing, short and value-adding.
To keep readers engaged, the email copy itself should reflect best practices and branding. It must use simple language, be short and go straight to the point. Also, don’t underestimate the impact of your email’s design and layout on engagement: use your brand colors, images, infographics…
Finally, you want readers to perform a specific action with your call to action (i.e. signing up for a webinar, go to your website) which is usually a conspicuous button with action-oriented words.
Tailor your content to the different types of email campaigns
Email marketing best practices and key components vary depending on the types of email campaigns you wish to implement. Here are a few examples:
- Welcome campaigns, informative, sent at the beginning of the customer journey;
- Promotional campaigns typically include special discounts, limited-time offers;
- Newsletter campaigns give regular updates and insights such as industry news;
- Abandoned cart campaigns are designed to follow up with subscribers who added items to their cart without going through with the order;
- Invitation campaigns are necessary for inviting users to an online event (webinars) for example.
💡 Another important distinction to make when adapting your email content to your audience is B2B emails vs. B2C emails. Check out our guide on B2B email marketing tips and examples!
Use targeted email marketing
Along the lines of the previous paragraph, and probably the strongest piece of advice for email marketing… personalization!
Targeted email marketing is the practice of sending customized and relevant messages to a pre-defined group of individuals within your email list. Benefits include:
- Increased open, click-through and conversion rates;
- Increased customer loyalty;
- Cost-effectiveness.
💡 Segment your email list for defining specific groups. Customize your content to each group, and each individual. You can for example address each recipient by their first name. Provide value.
📌 Email marketing checklist #2: Test and track your email campaigns
There are a number of things you need to do before sending your emails! Don’t get too excited and forget to:
- Send a test email to see how it looks like 👉 make sure to optimize for different devices, i.e. mobile!
- Define your goals 👉 what do you want to achieve? Increase sales, brand awareness? This will help to measure how successful your campaigns were;
- Use A/B testing for comparing and picking the best version of an email 👉 test things like subject lines, CTAs. Some A/B testing tools can help you do all that;
- Monitor your metrics 👉 using an email marketing software like Mailchimp will be the key here. They allow you to track open, click-through, conversion and unsubscribe rates.
📌 Email marketing checklist #3: Comply with the law
Don’t risk getting into legal trouble and make sure your email marketing activities are compliant with the law. We get it, it’s not easy and probably not your area of expertise as a marketer.
We’ve complied some great resources for you to dive in!
✅ Get a better understanding of compliance for email newsletter 👉 How to Make your Emails and Newsletter Compliant (with Form Examples)
✅ Don’t forget your unsubscribe link 👉 Unsubscribe link: Why you need it for marketing & how to set one up
✅ Find out where you can legally send emails without obtaining prior consent 👉 Global Email Marketing Cheatsheet
✅ Request consent for subscribers in the EU, the case of e-commerce 👉 E-commerce: do you need consent for emails?
We’ve made a quick recap for you!
Some privacy laws like the GDPR or the ePrivacy most likely apply to you. Before sending emails to people, you need to:
- In most cases, obtain prior consent via an affirmative action (no pre-checked boxes);
- Inform the subscriber: email addresses are considered personal data. You need to mention what you do with this data, why, if it is shared (and more info!), in your privacy policy;
- Under the GDPR (applies when you’re based in the EU or have EU users), keep valid records of consent: they must include the person’s identity, the time, disclosures and methods of the consent.
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Looking for a simple and compliant way to manage consent for newsletter subscriptions?
Try our Newsletter Opt-in Booster 👉 it adds a customizable signup form to your site, allowing you to collect and manage consent through a double opt-in process for a more engaged and responsive audience.