The Ultimate Email Marketing Checklist To Improve Your Email Campaign
An email marketing checklist can help you streamline your email marketing process and increase the results your email marketing campaigns generate. It’s definitely worth taking the time to put one together! But why, exactly?
Email is one of the most important tools in a marketer’s toolkit. It’s a great way to connect with customers and prospects, build relationships, and drive sales.
But email marketing is also complex, with a lot of moving parts. It’s easy to make mistakes that can hurt your email campaign performance and your bottom line.
That’s why having an email marketing checklist is so important.
A checklist helps you keep track of all the different elements of your email marketing campaigns, from planning and design to execution and measurement.
Here are some of the key reasons, ideas and tips on why an email marketing checklist is so important./p>
What Is An Email Marketing Checklist?
An email marketing checklist, is an email checklist that walks you through how to create and optimize a high converting email.
They are used by businesses both small and large – an often increase your email marketing metrics when the checklist is closely followed.
We recommend that you create an email list like we’ll describe below. Email work like this is critical for email success of your campaign.
Should You Create A Campaign Checklist For Every Email?
Yes! Creating email checklists to follow can help you improve all of your email marketing metrics. This will make your email more effective at generating customers and profit for your business or passion. A list of email tasks to accomplish will also make getting an email out more quick and easy.
Email checklists are often made so businesses can ensure that their internal email marketing team, or an outsource email marketing team – has a guided checklist on how to write and send the best emails possible.
Follow this guide and the checklist below so you can create the best email checklists possible.
The Best Email Campaign Checklist For Your Emails
An email marketing checklist that is designed with optimization and conversion in mind, can be a true asset for your business. As, there are a variety of specific email marketing elements that can be fine tuned, monitored, and managed. And they must be, in order for every email to convert and every campaign to be truly effective.
Pay close attention to this checklist, and make sure that you either follow this one we provide below, or make a similar one yourself.
Here is a checklist that you should aim to tick off before hitting the send button on any email campaign.
Subject Lines
Having well written subject lines is the most important aspect email marketing
Because the number or percentage of people who open your email, dictates the level of success for all of your other email marketing metrics.
The higher your email open rates are, the more likely your click through rates, longevity of your leads, and more – will all perform at optimal levels. You should take the majority of your time, writing the best possible subject line. Most of your time writing and email, will be spent on this one line of text.
That’s how important your subject lines are! Make sure to split test your subject lines as well, so you can identify which kinds of subject lines your audience will click on most. A campaign of an email that is going to be successfully, but focus on having subject line first and foremost.
Preheader Text
Preheader text is the secondary factor that determines whether or not your emails you send to your leads list, will open.
Below the subject line is a smaller line of text shown by email providers. This small amount of text is a way to preview what the inside of the email will contain.
It’s almost like a more detailed subject line that can either decrease or increase the chance of your email being well received. Spend a good amount of time determining what the best preheader text should be as well. Your preheader text should lead into what the main body copy of the email will discuss.
Footer
The footer of your email can perform a variety of functions. It can direct your leads to visit another link or offer, it can simply contain a sign off signature, or it can contain privacy policy information.
It’s a unique and small part of your email, however by utilizing it correctly you can increase your CTR’s and improve conversion rates.
You can include a P.S. in your email footer, a sense of urgency, or even a bonus.
Unsubscribe Link
The unsubscribe link located at the bottom of your emails, often in the footer, mostly isn’t interchangeable.
However, you can decrease the number of people unsubscribing from your list, by using some simple tactics.
Putting a sad face, or disappointed message near the unsubscribe link located at the bottom of an email, can deter people from opting out of your email list. For example, you can put a sad emoji next to the unsubscribe link.
Then when someone goes to unsubscribe, they identify negative feelings with unsubscribing. Other then this, there isn’t much else you can do.
Social Icons
Often businesses want to grow their social media presences along with their email efforts.
Because of this, they do sometimes include social icons in the bottom section of their emails.
This can result in some of your leads, deciding to click on the social icons and potentially follow the social media channels that you decide to link to. Businesses do this in order to increase the number of places their leads digest the content they produce. For emails this is important.
If you have lead reading your emails, blog posts, tweets, and LinkedIn articles, you improve your chances of retaining or acquiring them as a customer – .vs. if they were just reading your emails alone.
Body Text
The most persuasive part of your emails, is going to be your body copy in your email.
The body copy is the actual text that will determine whether or not your leads will take the desire action you want them to do. This could included – Making a purchase, watching a video, sending a testimonial, or reading a particular article.
This body text or body copy, should have time and effort dedicated to its craft. Body text often includes paragraphs, bulleted points, a CTA (Call To Action / Link), images, and sometimes other elements. The body text should tell a story, offer an incentive, educate, or entertain your leads that read them.
Images
Imagery is sometimes worth more then words alone! (Especially in an email) The picture and images you use in your emails can have a massive impact on your click through rates, long-term lead value, and so much more. So, use images in email as much as you can.
Here’s why images can either increase or decrease your leads perspective on whether or not:
- You are an authority.
- You are a trustworthy professional.
- You are entertaining enough to continue being subscribed to.
- So much more!
With this being said, make sure you use high quality and precise images that warm your leads’ hearts and imaginations!
Headlines & Subheadings
Within your body text or body copy, there can be bolded headlines and subheadings that stand out, and that pull your leads attention.
These headlines and subheadings should be copywritten with purpose. This means that they should exist and only be put in place – to retain lead attention and to share a critical concept with your lead.
Use them sparingly, and only when they are necessary for readability as well.
CTA Buttons
The CTA button or CTA link is one of the most critical pieces to your email marketing checklist. Why?
Because your Call To Action, directly can increase or decrease the number of people visiting the link, page, article, or sales page, you are trying to have your leads visit.
You should make sure that your CTA’s always lead with a benefit to the consumer, and they tell them exactly what action you want to take.
We do suggest split testing your CTA’s to identify what kinds of words resonate with your leads best, and that also increase the CTR (Click Through Rate) of the CTA itself.
Personalization
People care about what first? Most often, themselves. And that’s okay! We hold ourselves to be a priority, and we should.
This is why personalization needs to be a key concept to include in your email marketing checklist. What is personalization?
Personalization is using tags, segments, or other tools – in order to write copy that directly relates to each lead.
This means that you can include the leads first name, last name, location, or more – in your emails subject line or body copy; in order to relate with them.
By practicing this personalization, you will increase both your open rates and click through rates of the emails you send to your list.
Scheduling & When To Send
When you send your emails, is just as important as what you send. This means that you need to send your emails out to your list, when they are the most active.
By doing this, you will be able to increase your open and click through rates even more! Because of course, it is best to send people emails, when they’re actually interested in reading their emails in the first place.
You can split test when you schedule your emails to go out, which can help optimize your email sends.
Checks for Testing Campaigns Before Sending?
Nothing is worse, then sending am email out to your list that…. 1. Doesn’t look good. 2. Has broken links. 3. Has errors.
Since your emails you send to your leads list are the #1 direct communication you have with prospects, it’s important every email is well made and going to convert.
This is why testing your emails before you send them is key. So, how can you test and check your emails before you send them then?
Here is our 3 point checklist for testing your emails.
- Inbox Preview: In some autoresponders and CRM’s, you’re able to preview the email before you send it, before it would appear in someone’s inbox. If your CRM or AR has this function, use it! This is one of the best ways to check your emails accuracy and readability before they’re send out to the masses.
- Test Send To You, or Your Team: Some autoresponders and CRM’s give you the ability to send test emails to your inbox, or another emails inbox. You can use this tool to check your emails for errors in accurate and live format. Double check your email subject line and email body copy. And take a second look at your email content as well.
- Check on Desktop & Mobile: Make sure that you test your email both on a desktop and on a mobile device or phone! Why? Because emails, sales pages, and more – all appear different depending on the device used to view them.
- Review The Time You’ll Send The Campaign: Most of the time we schedule a campaign to go out immediately, even though we may want it to go out at a specific time. Make sure this is a priority to check over.
Top Email Marketing Software For Your Email Checklist
There are a variety of tools that you can use to create email checklists that are…
- Easy to read.
- Easy to implement
- Simple to use
Here are the 3 best email checklist tools and why they’re the best in the industry.
- Trello – Trello is a team board and note tool that you and your team can access and build out a comprehensive checklist for.
- Your Choice CRM – Usually CRM’s have templates or common practices that you can have used for every email sent out on default, that then can be customized and optimized.
- Note Taking Software – You can use any note taking software or document creating software, to have a team accessible record of your email list of checks to go through.
Each of these tools or software are great for creating notes and checklists that you can have publicly available for your team / outsource email team.
However, this article is comparable to an email checklists PDF that you can keep bookmarked and follow later, as well.
Should You Outsource Your Checklist?
After reading through this email checklists you may be thinking to yourself, “Wow, this is a lot of work!”
And you are right, fully managing your email marketing can be a difficult task – especially if you haven’t ran very many successful email marketing campaigns in the past. Hitting that “send button” on a campaign can be scary.
If this sounds like what you’re thinking to yourself, then you should consider outsourcing your email marketing to a professional.
Here’s the full list of benefits that email marketing outsourcing can provide!
- Accelerated rate of production, quality, and delivery
- Improved response rates.
- Improved email deliverability.
- Skills and specialization
- Time saving exercise
If you don’t want to have to follow an email checklists yourself, consider outsourcing your email marketing work.
Is Marketing With Emails Something Every Business Should Do?
Yes, every business whether it is an online or offline business, should have a complete email strategy in place.
For businesses that are wanting an easy plugin & start into the email world, they should they should at minimum create an email pre-launch checklist.
For businesses that already do some form of email work, they need to improve the quality and quantity of any email marketing campaign they’re sending.
Email is the name of the game for follow up and increasing profits.
Best Niches For Email Marketing
How Do You Write An Email Checklist?
To make your email marketing performance better, and improve your email campaign KPIS, let’s walk through the exact process to make an email checklist.
- Make a goal for each campaign you send: For each email to be effective, their should be a goal for the email. Such as, to build trust, or to generate sales.
- Create a list of objectives to complete for each campaign: What kind of open rates, click through rates, and sales do you hope to generate?
- Write out each part of each email in a ordered fashion: First you write your subject line, then you write your body copy, and then you write your salutation.
Each campaign should follow a list of actions to be completed.
Final Thoughts To Send
Creating email checklists will be simple when you follow this guide and see the result for yourself.
We suggest whenever you send a bulk email campaign, that you come back to this article and review the critical elements of your email marketing efforts and if they match up with the checklist here.
Do your best to follow and go through our top checklist bullet points carefully. The best email marketing strategy and email marketing campaigns come from great checklists!
Each item on the checklist when optimized, will improve the results generated by your email marketing efforts. By following a checklist you’ll follow email nurture campaign best practices and make more money from your email list!
We hope you enjoyed this article…
Please let us know in the comments below, what you enjoyed, and what else you’d like us to write an article on!
With our kindest regards,
Jon Weberg
Richard Weberg
