“Still so many answers I don’t know,
Realise that to question is how we grow.
What have you done today to make you feel proud?”

Heather Small’s 2000 hit single ‘Proud’ was re-released and re-interpreted as an inspiring sports anthem for the London 2012 Olympics – but we all knew what the song was really about, didn’t we? Yep – it’s about email marketing.

Now, we know what you’re thinking: “Pure360, you’ll take literally anything and somehow twist it so that it relates to email marketing.” But let’s take a closer look at those lyrics.

“Still so many answers I don’t know” – it’s the way every marketer feels when they’re preparing a new email campaign. Will people like it? Will they respond to it?

“Realise that to question is how we grow” – only by questioning, testing and adjusting your campaigns can you begin to grow as a marketer and achieve better results.

“What have you done today to make you feel proud?” – just because you’re not planning on sending your email for another few days, it doesn’t mean there aren’t things you should be doing today in order to make you feel proud when you eventually hit send.

You cleaned up your contact list

Removing hard bounces from your contacts can be tedious – especially if your amount of contacts is in the five, six or even seven figure mark – but it’s nowhere near as tedious as sending out an email only for hundreds or thousands to be returned as undeliverable due to non-existent addresses.

Take pride in the fact that your email data is fresh, clean and up-to-date. It’ll save you money on send credits, and will improve your results too.

You segmented your list

Take the time now to go deep into your customer email data and look for ways that you could segment your lists and send better emails. Let’s say you have a nationwide offer but you think it would work better if it appeared as a local deal – you can segment your contacts by their location and design more targeted and personalised email templates.

You could even go further and segment your contacts by their age, profession or personal interests. Of course, if you don’t think if you know your customers well enough to segment your data in this way, see our blog on how to get to know them better.

You took the time to A/B test

You should always be performing A/B tests on elements of your email before sending it out to your entire list, and it’s a perfect activity to be conducting a few days prior to the send. It will give you an idea of the best time to send, the best subject line to use, the best call to action for conversions and so on. Not only will you feel proud that you’re doing the most you can to ensure the email’s success, but when the results come in you can feel proud that your work had a massive difference.

Check out our blog if you need some tips on how to get the best results from split content testing.

You integrated your email with other marketing channels

Integration is everything in marketing. The way your customers consume information these days is so widely-spread that focusing purely on one marketing channel is never going to be as effective as an integrated campaign.

Include social media links in your email, and encourage social sharing of your special offer. In a B2B campaign, you could even follow up opted-in contacts with a phone call, or send out a piece of direct mail to grab their attention in another way. For more info, read these seven benefits of an integrated marketing campaign.

You didn’t rush the offer/design

A rushed email is rarely an effective one, no matter how good a marketer you are or how good a designer you have on your team. Tying in with the A/B testing, make sure the promotional code you’re offering recipients is well-received, and likewise ensure that your call-to-action is inspiring people to click through to your landing page.

In terms of briefing your email’s designer, just provide enough time for them to do the job well. If the design is rushed and sent out with coding errors and dead links, it could make your brand appear unprofessional and untrustworthy in the eyes of recipient, resulting in the dreaded unsubscribe.

If you work in email marketing, just ask yourself: what have you done today to make you feel proud? Well, you’ve read this blog for one. Now it’s time to take our tips and apply them to your own campaign.