A Checklist for Incredible Email Marketing

A Checklist for Incredible Email Marketing

August 26, 2013 by Holly Rollins

emailmktgjpgEmail marketing can be huge for lead generation, but with all the fuss and focus about social media, it’s easy to forget about it. Here, I’m going to breakdown effective email marketing into a checklist, simply beginning with the title of your email.

Subject

The subject should be clear, concise and attention grabbing. If your email doesn’t stand out, it’s quickly going to be deleted along with several other newsletters and promotional emails your target audience probably get daily.

The From Line

It should be a person. If you get an email that says that it’s from Metal Products Inc., your first thought will be, “oh great, someone trying to sell me something.” But if it’s from Debbie Jordan, on the other hand, people are going to be more likely to open it. It’s also good to play around with different things—send several emails with different names in the from field and see what gets more opens.

Branding

Your email’s branding should mesh with your website, social media, and company in general. Your email template should have all the elements of your brand (voice, colors, logo, etc.), otherwise you risk looking like an imposter.

Personalization

Research shows that personalizing your email marketing campaign makes a huge difference. So why aren’t more marketers doing it? Personalizing an email can make your break your marketing campaign.

Content

This should go without saying, but it doesn’t. Your content should be brief, catchy, and contain links to outside sources on your website (where people can click if they want more info). Your content should be grammatically correct and should work with the branding of your company. For example, Mailchimp uses a very informal, fun voice, and their newsletters do, too. It would be odd if they suddenly had a formal voice.

Pictures

Images are important. No one wants to read a giant block of text. Be sure to use at least one professional, high resolution image that goes along with the message of your email (no cute puppy pics for an email about marketing services).

Why Do I Want That?

The consumer needs to have some sort of context and incentive to want to read your email. Why is what you’re offering valuable? As always, keep it concise and short, and if you can, use some statistics.

Call to Action

Always include a call to action with a sense of urgency that is tied to some other action (sign up for our webinar, visit our site for 20 percent off your first order, etc.).

Social Links

As I said early, social is huge and it’s only growing. Be sure to include buttons that link to your facebook, twitter, pinterest, instagram, whatever social media your company is using. If the person receiving your email is curious or wants to know more, they’ll likely go and connect with you on social sites.

Link to Privacy Policy

With the Internet, social media, and marketing growing the way it is, a lot of people are concerned about their privacy. Be sure to link to your privacy policy so that they know you are forthright and honest about your company’s policies. It will also help to give them peace of mind.

Unsubscribe Button

Always include an unsubscribe button. The last thing that you want is angry people writing on your Facebook wall that they’re tired of your newsletter but there’s no where to unsubscribe.