10 Things You Must Do Before Sending a Marketing Email

February 23, 2015 Michael Epstein

In the fast and furious world of email marketing, it’s surprisingly easy to overlook an important element or error in your message, creating embarrassment and lost revenue opportunities for your business.

Forgetting to include the date of an event, missing a call to action, or even the dreaded typo creates a negative impression and drastically reduce the effectiveness of your email.

Here are 10 things to check before hitting “send.”

  1. Is your subject line compelling and under 50 characters?
  2. Is the font big enough and the spacing adequate for easy reading?
  3. Is your email scheduled to be sent out at a time/day where you tend to get a lot of activity?
  4. Are you using words in the subject and/or body that raise red flags for spam checkers, such as Free, $$$ or CAPITAL LETTERS?
  5. Have you tested it to be sure that if you have any dynamic, personalized fields, they populating correctly?
  6. Is the most important information “above the fold” so readers can see it without scrolling?
  7. Do your images have the correct alt text and title text to ensure that content can be read if images aren’t being displayed?
  8. Do you have clear calls to action?
  9. Did you hand it to someone else to check for grammatical mistakes or typos?
  10. Have you tested the email on various web browsers to ensure proper formatting and compatibility?

And for bonus points do these 4 things:

  1. Has your subscriber list been cleaned of unsubscribe requests or hard bounces since your last send?
  2. Are you using trackable URLs on all of your links so you can track the performance of your email in your analytics?
  3. Are you using a From: name that is more recognizable and enticing than newsletter@yourbusiness.com?
  4. Does your email render properly on mobile devices?

After sending out your next email and following the checklist above, compare your deliverability rates, open rates and click-through rates with your previous emails and see if you can start tracking a difference. After a few times, these tasks will start to become automatic. However, it’s always a good idea to refer back to make sure you aren’t forgetting any.

This email marketing checklist will increase the likelihood of your emails being received, read and acted upon, which puts you in a better position than a lot of your competition and will help you continue to grow your business.

Originally published on Michael Epstein’s website.

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About the Author

Michael Epstein

Michael is an Independent Consultant with BTG. His expertise is online marketing and web development. Michael is a successful CEO turned consultant with a tenacious commitment to excellence in people, performance, products & processes. He is originally from the Washington, D.C. metro area and currently lives in South Florida with his wonderful wife and children.

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