Audit your Email Campaigns - 5 Things to Consider

If it’s been more than a year since you took a good, hard look at your email template, metrics, reports or design close the door, shut off the phone and schedule a check up.  Too often marketers spend time and resources setting up their e-mail marketing programs and forget that they need a little TLC (testing, list management, and cleansing) to function properly. 

Here are five things to include in your check up.  

1. Cleanse the code – review and clean-up the HTML code in your message template. This is especially important if more than one person uses the account. Small changes can flag spam filters and cause formatting issues that discourage recipients from opening it.  
2. Remove inactive contacts – keep distribution lists clean and manageable by analyzing and possibly removing inactive contacts. Try to find out why they’re not reading your message and brainstorm ways to grab their attention.
3. Test the opt-in process – do all the links work and take the intended reader to the right place? If it takes the reader too many clicks to sign up or they end up in the wrong place they’re likely to walk away completely.  
4. Test platforms and email clients – what does the message look like in AOL, Gmail and Yahoo? Does it make it through to mobile devices such as Treos and Blackberries? Don’t rely only on the computers in your office, move testing to off-site computers and servers also. 
5. Provide a little human touch – if you’re using your ESP correctly all process should be automated, but that doesn’t mean mistakes aren’t made. Assign a staff member to check all mailboxes to ensure that any messages or responses are handled in a timely fashion. 
6.  Above all…don’t forget the metrics. eLoop has extensive reporting capabilities that help you gauge the success of the campaign. Don’t forget to incorporate them into the email marketing process.