Once you’re set up on your email sending platform you’re going to want to plan your email communications.

Here’s the checklist we use to achieve open rates greater than 20% for our clients. The secret is consistency, using email marketing best practice, and then of course, to do something different every so often to shake things up a little.

Here’s our checklist to help you email market like a pro:

1. Plan your email communications 3 months at a time. This gives you enough of a pipeline but also ensures you can change tack and remain relevant with your content – plan your content too far in advance and it could be out of date by the time you publish it.
2. Website content and email content usually work together. A page or article on your website is featured in your newsletter. Share this same content to your social media platforms.
3. Once you have your content and promotions planned you are ready to brief your email marketing person, or brief us at Cantaloupe by completing the form on this page so we can get in contact. We’ll need the content, planned date of send, and any images you want to use.
4. Ensure the email is responsive (mobile friendly) to enhance the experience for the increasing number of people reading email on their mobile devices.
5. Consider your reader when you craft your subject line: what’s in it for them? Why should they open your email?
6. Keep the content short as it is easier for your reader to skim short snippets of content and click through to your website for the long content.
7. Keep the calls-to-action in the email to a minimum otherwise it becomes confusing. Less calls to action means it is easier for your reader to take action. Give them too many options and they won’t take any action.
8. Your sending platform should also enable you to insert pre-header text for your campaign. Pre-header text is the text that can be seen just below the subject line on some email clients.  It helps improve open rates. Image source: Rejoiner
9. Personalise your email: if you have the correct information about your contacts you can personalise the email. For example you can include their first name in your subject line, pre-header text, or body of your emailer.
10. Test your email before your final send: proof read your content and confirm all the links in your email navigate to the correct landing page. Some email sending platforms offer render testing. This is the ability to test how the email looks on different email clients before you send. It’s very beneficial if you can do this.
11. Check the email campaign reports after a send. How did your newsletter / promotion perform?  What lessons can be learnt and what can be improved next time.
12. Do list hygiene – check the reasons for hard and soft bounces in the email report and have someone in your team correct the email addresses or resend the mail (whichever action is appropriate)
13. Have a strategy to keep adding contacts to your mailing list. A landing page that is optimised for sign ups to your mailing list is essential. Think about where else it makes sense to offer opt-in opportunities an implement those. 

Follow this checklist to level up your email marketing.