Email marketing checklist. 18 steps to email campaign success
Whether you’re about to launch your first email marketing campaign, or are looking to improve your processes, our email marketing checklist will help eliminate mistakes and remove the stress of forgetting something.
From broken or missing links, to display issues across devices, or spelling and grammar mistakes, email send fear is real. Enter the email marketing checklist. Your ticket to email marketing success and peace of mind.
With B2B marketing experience spanning over a decade, this list has grown out of many lessons learned along the way.
Provided the list is complete, our marketing team can be confident that everything is formatted professionally and error-free before hitting the send button.
The email marketing checklist:
It’s important to know that the following list is not intended as a “how to” guide. Instead, it is a series of prompts for the marketing team who will draw on their expertise to decide whether each step has been completed to the required standard.
With that said, let’s dive in.
01. Is your brand recognisable in the from name/ address?
Choose a from name and address that represents your brand and clearly identifies the sender.
For example:
Good: From: Rixxo
Bad: From: Paul
02. Does the subject line support the content in your email?
Make sure the copy, headings, rich content and links all relate back to the subject line for you campaign. Don’t mislead your recipients and risk them unsubscribing due to lack of trust.
03. Is a headline included at the top of the email?
Capture your recipients’ attention before they download any images in your email with a headline.
Alt tags display when your images won’t. This is useful when email clients don’t download images by default. Choose representative words and phrases to tag your images with.
Some email clients won’t render your email campaign as you intended. Providing a web version link ensures your recipients can view the entire email without limitations.
06. Is there a mobile version link?
Some smartphones don’t render HTML so providing a text-only alternative is an essential element for your email campaign.
07. Is there functioning personalisation?
Check your data to make sure every record has sufficient information for the personalisation you want to feature. Using a default value for those contacts who have incomplete data.
08. Have you given clear pricing/discount information?
Ensure that pricing, discounts and offers are clearly described and displayed within your email.
09. Have you included your company logo?
Make sure your brand is visually recognisable.
10. Is there a clear call to action?
Give people the opportunity to engage with your brand and offer links to your website or related online material.
11. Is your spelling and grammar correct?
Poor grammar and incorrect spelling could disengage your audience and lower their perceptions of your brand.
12. Do images render correctly?
Images are your shop window; make sure that they are visible when downloaded.
13. Are the links all functioning?
Don’t miss an opportunity for your audience to click through.
14. Are your company name, registered number and address included?
This is a legal requirement and it’s important to identify yourself in your message.
15. Is there an unsubscribe option?
In the UK this is a legal requirement and is an important trust-building element for your brand.
16. Have you done an email client test send?
Check that:
- The email arrives in the inbox.
- The email renders correctly in the preview pane (images, fonts and alignment is all correct).
- The email view above the fold displays clear information about the campaign.
- The email’s content is identifiable without images downloaded.
17. Have you done a mobile device test send?
Mobile design matters – here’s why.
Check that:
- All images and text render correctly.
- The email’s subject line is visible.
- All links are clickable.
18. Has your email been checked by another person?
Ask a colleague to check your email to make sure copy, links and content are all correct.
Ready for liftoff
Once you’ve covered everything on this email marketing checklist, the campaign is ready for lift-off! We hope this helps you hit the send button with confidence.
All that’s left is to sit back and watch your results roll in.
