Your Email Campaign Launch Checklist

The following was recently posted and is a MUST for all of us that are launching email campaigns whether its thru our stand-alone app, the AppExchange version or any other version for that matter. 

There are right ways and wrongs ways to get the best results from your email marketing campaigns, but if you're not doing the below, you're not even giving yourself a chance for doing things the right way.  As always, if you have questions about the below please post them, but if you want to chat with one of our customer support specialists, we'll be waiting to help you out.

Good marketing!
-Alex

Your Email Campaign Launch Checklist

To avoid nasty email campaign mistakes we created an easy to use checklist internally here at VR that we're happy to share. Never make a mistake again (or at least come close to never, no one is perfect.)

Print this out and pin it up!

Newsletter Dates - If you copy a campaign and include a date in your content make sure the date has changed.

From Label - Make sure that the From label is correct for the email you're sending.

Postal Address - Ensure the correct postal address for the sender is at the bottom.

Preview for Images Turned Off - View what the email looks like with images on AND off (you can do that in VR) - I will send myself a test with my images turned off to see it as well.

Image Text - Make sure all images have alternative text so that when images are turn off your recipients have some context of what should be shown.

Links - Test that all links go where you want them to - click on each and every one.

Images Linked - Make sure all images are linked that need to be.

Subject Line Review -

• If you copy a previously sent campaign make sure you change your subject line.
• Make sure the subject line relates to the content of the email.
• Make sure your most important information is at the beginning so it won't get cut off in the email reader.

Preview in Email Readers - View in email clients Yahoo!, Gmail, Outlook, MacMail and AOL.

Forward to a Friend - Make sure this feature is turned on, it can't hurt to get a few more subscribers.

If you've got any you'd like to add, let's put them on the list!

Download this in PDF.

To avoid nasty email campaign mistakes we created an easy to use checklist internally here at VR that we're happy to share. Never make a mistake again (or at least come close to never, no one is perfect.)

Print this out and pin it up!

Newsletter Dates - If you copy a campaign and include a date in your content make sure the date has changed.

From Label - Make sure that the From label is correct for the email you're sending.

Postal Address - Ensure the correct postal address for the sender is at the bottom.

Preview for Images Turned Off - View what the email looks like with images on AND off (you can do that in VR) - I will send myself a test with my images turned off to see it as well.

Image Text - Make sure all images have alternative text so that when images are turn off your recipients have some context of what should be shown.

Links - Test that all links go where you want them to - click on each and every one.

Images Linked - Make sure all images are linked that need to be.

Subject Line Review -

• If you copy a previously sent campaign make sure you change your subject line.
• Make sure the subject line relates to the content of the email.
• Make sure your most important information is at the beginning so it won't get cut off in the email reader.

Preview in Email Readers - View in email clients Yahoo!, Gmail, Outlook, MacMail and AOL.

Forward to a Friend - Make sure this feature is turned on, it can't hurt to get a few more subscribers.

If you've got any you'd like to add, let's put them on the list!

Download this in PDF.

Comments

[Jess at VerticalResponse]

Hi Randi,

All email browsers support different levels of html, and .mac mail supports more than others, so it’s not entirely surprising that it looked fine there.

There may be something in the html that you are using, but it’s hard to say without taking a look at the file. Send us an email to training@verticalresponse.com and we’ll help you get it sorted out.

[Randi]

Hi,

I am having issues where I send an email thru Vertical Response and it looks great in my .mac mail program, but everything is all skewed with the placement of images and text in my gmail acct (which I'm viewing through a web browser, Mozilla Firefox).

How can I resolve this? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

thanks,
Randi