@becskr
Email phobia and preventing
THE FEARBecs Rivett
@becskr
@becskr
@becskr
@becskr
Who am I?
• Worked with emails for 6 years
• Freelance email marketer
• Email campaign manager for Yorkshire
Building Society
@becskr
@becskr
@becskr
I’m going to cover
• Why we need a signoff process
• Preparing for success
• Testing and signoff
• What happens post-send
@becskr
Why do we need a
signoff process?
• Getting buy in from your key stakeholders
• Setting expectations for deadlines and
signoff
• Ensuring someone else can do the job
• Preventing the fear
@becskr
What is email phobia?
The crippling fear.
@becskr
What is email phobia?
The crippling fear that can only come from
sending hundreds of thousands of people an
email with a broken link or a typo in the subject
line and not being able to fix it no matter how
much you Google “change email after sent”.
@becskr
Like this…
@becskr
I remember once
sending an email to
myself 25,000 times.@danbarker
@becskr
I sent the wrong
email to about 3500
on my second week
in a job... Doh.@maxray
@becskr
I've had a few where I've
immediately paused a
send after hitting the
button, just to triple check
things.@iamacyborg
@becskr
Rushing = mistakes
@becskr
Be prepared…
with a schedule
• Plan around seasons, sale,
peaks and troughs
• It’s not set in stone, be
prepared to update it
• Bank content ideas
@becskr
Work out who’s
involved…
• Talk to your team!
• Do they know their role?
• Set some dates and deadlines
@becskr
That designer/developer
relationship
• Will it blend build?
• Don’t promise what you can’t deliver…
• If in doubt, test it out!
@becskr
Don’t wait until just
before the send
@becskr
Test that email!
• Try some live results, especially for mobile
• Run your code through a validator
• Check some live customer versions too -
especially with variations!
• Two pairs of eyes are better than one!
@becskr
Test that email!
• Chek yor splling
• Check the links
• Look at your subject line
@becskr
Get the email signed off
@becskr
Get the email signed off
@becskr
Oh. And save the signoffs
(You never know
when you’ll
need them)
@becskr
Can you just change
that…?
@becskr
Ch-ch-ch-changes
• Try to reduce last minute changes - your
campaign checklist will help!
• If changes are made
• Run through your tests again
• Think about how you can prevent this in
future
@becskr
Regular reporting
• Create a consistent reporting schedule
• I use 24 hour and 7 day results
• If you work with a team, show them your
findings
• Remember, one swallow doesn’t make a
summer
@becskr
Post-send actions
• Review your results, but not just the stats
• Feed them back into the process
• Tidy up your files, store them together
• Have a sensible naming system!
@becskr
Rinse and repeat
• Don’t re-code what you don’t need to
• Build yourself an asset library
• Email templates
• Code snippets
• Basic images like spacers and logos
@becskr
Versioning
• Saves time and helps locate issues and old
copy
• Old school: newsletter-v1.html, newsletter-
v2.html
• New school: Using GIT
@becskr
Incremental
improvements
• Sign up to lots of different emails
• Save copies of your favourites
• Take tips from the experts
• Anna Yeaman (Style Campaign) often
shares testing results
@becskr
To summarise• Create a campaign schedule
• Make an asset library
• Create a signoff checklist
• Test your emails and get someone else to do
it too
• Create a consistent reporting schedule
• Remember...
@becskr
Tak for listening!
Top Related