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Best Practices in Email Marketing Checklist
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Doing it now |
Will do it soon |
Won’t or N/A |
| Permission |
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Got recipient’s consent in advance? (Opt-in, not opt-out) |
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Numerous opt-in opportunities provided with low barriers to entry? |
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Collecting more than just the email address? |
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Amount of work required to sign up is minimal? |
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Email list sign-up on all forms on your site, including inquiry, order, and feedback forms? |
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Privacy policy published and abided by? |
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Monitoring the number/variety of contacts to avoid burnout? |
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| Your Email Messages |
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Easy way to unsubscribe? |
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Reply works? |
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Signed by a real person? |
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Relevant? |
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Timely? |
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Beneficial? |
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If a promotional message, contains a compelling offer and a call-to-action? |
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If a newsletter, contains a header, a table of contents, a welcome, and multiple ‘departments’? |
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Includes a privacy statement? |
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Includes a disclaimer? |
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Includes unsubscribe instructions? |
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Short and sweet? |
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Using links? |
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Avoiding spam filter triggers? (“Freeâ€, “opt-inâ€, “!!!â€, “forward to a friendâ€, 'Bcc', etc.)? |
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No attachments? |
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| Plain-text Emails |
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Preceding URLs with “http://†and emails with “mailto:� |
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Limiting the line width to 65 characters? |
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Headlines in ALL CAPS? |
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| HTML Emails |
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Using tables to control placement & avoid long lines? |
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Embedding a form to make it easy for the recipient to respond to the offer? |
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Auto filling in as many form fields as possible? |
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No scripts? |
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No Flash? |
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No Streaming Video? |
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Sending HTML and plaintext together in multi-part MIME format? |
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| Personalizing |
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Greeting the recipient by first name? |
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Personalizing the 'Subject' line? |
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Personalizing the offer? |
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Personalizing the message copy? |
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'To' line contains the recipient’s email address? |
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Recipient can control the contact frequency? |
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Sending the email between 10 and 2 Tuesday through Thursday? |
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| Segmenting |
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Segmenting your list by demographics, psychographics, clickographics (visiting behavior and transaction history)? |
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| List Brokers |
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Avoiding the use of purchased lists? |
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If renting a list, is it double opt-in, fastidiously clean of unsubscribes, and finely segmented? |
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| Testing |
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Got a control group? |
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Varying only one thing at a time? |
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Testing the offer? |
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Testing the 'Subject' line? |
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Testing the 'From' line? |
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Testing the message copy? |
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Testing the layout? |
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Testing the message length? |
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Testing the timing? |
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