My firm has been doing high level HTML email marketing for several years and can bang out deployments pretty quickly. Even though our skill set is high, it pays to slowdown and double check everything to make sure your email executions are flawless.
Here's a brief, but important email campaign checklist we follow – hope it helps.
- Check "From" Label – Make sure your "From" label is correct for the email you’re sending.
- Check "To" Label – Make sure your "To" label is correct for the email you’re sending.
- Check "Time/Date" stamp – Make sure the time/date you're sending is correct.
- Check "Subject Line" – Pay particular close attention to email campaigns you've copied from prior campaigns to ensure you have the correct subject line and it captures the essence and/or key benefits of your campaign copy. Use the "inverted pyramid" style of writing and place the most important copy first.
- Check "Dates" – Make sure all dates relate and connect.
- Check "Image Text" – All images should have alternative text so when your images are turned off your readers have an idea what pictures they will see.
- Test and re-test all Copy and Image Links so your readers will be sent where you want them to go and see what you what them to see
- Turn on the Forward to a Friend feature to hopefully gain more subscribers
- Check to see if the right Postal Address for the sender is at the bottom of your campaign
- Check to see if the unsubscribe link is engaged
- Preview email campaign with images turned on and off
- Preview your email campaign in multiple readers (most are free) such as AOL, Gmail, Hotmail, Outlook, Yahoo!
- Final taste test – make sure your email is worth reading and needed! If not, rework it or kill it.