You’ve spent ages designing and building your perfect email campaign, but just as you’re about to press launch it you feel a sense of anxiety – did you test all your links thoroughly, are you sure there were no typos, has the right data been selected, did you change the preheader text?
Hitting that all important ‘launch’ button means the message is no longer in your hands and without this control, it’s normal to second guess things and feel a sense of uneasiness.
In this blog, we’re going to share our top tips on how you (and our platform!) can reduce this pre-launch apprehension and allow you to launch with confidence.
5 Minute Rule
Launching an email immediately can always feel daunting. To take the pressure off, we always recommend (if you have to launch right away) to schedule the launch for at least 5 minutes time.
This gives you some breathing room to triple check everything is set up all fine, without having to press a button and the email being sent right away. Plus, if any issues are found, you can quick un-schedule as opposed to sending an apology follow up email.
Broken Links
Having broken links in your email campaign is a completely rational fear. Not only can they make your email look unprofessional, but they can also reduce engagement, ROI and increase customer frustrations.
The wizards at Campaignmaster have developed a handy feature that allows you to change tracked links post-launch – yes you read that right! Change links post launch! So, whilst we always advise our clients to thoroughly test all links before a launch, rest assured if there are any issues you can amend them while the email is sitting in your recipients Inbox.
The above only applies to tracked links, however not to worry if you have forgotten to track links – at the time of launch, our platform also highlights which links in the campaign are tracked or not too.
Typos and Wording Changes
Typos can happen to anyone and although not as detrimental as a broken link, they can still deem your email unprofessional and convey to your recipients that you have not taken the time to proofread your communications.
The solution – the more eyes the better. Having written something, you can sometimes become numb to small typos or wording issues but having a second (or third!) pair of eyes can provide a fresh insight. Those fresh eyes are also more likely to spot mistakes that may have otherwise been overlooked.
With Campaignmaster, there any many ways you can send drafts to your colleagues to review, with the easiest being tests or online preview links. We recommend online preview links as any changes you make are reflected live for your colleagues to approve.
As an extra safety net, you’re unable to launch in our platform until a final test is performed. Perhaps include one or more colleagues in these tests to ensure that second pair of eyes see the final version before launch.
Wrong List
Now this is a biggy – launching an email campaign to the wrong audience can have weighty implications. Confusion from the recipients can result in them marking you as spam which can affect your brand and sender reputation.
The best way to avoid this is to maintain clean and up-to-date mailing lists, each clearly labelled. Following a stringent (and logical) naming convention practice can help ensure you know the correct list is selected each time.
With our platform, each list is given a description field which our clients use to provide more detail about what the list is for – an extra security blanket for ensuring the right list is selected.
Furthermore, on our launch checklist screen you’re able to click to view exactly which recipients the email will be sent out to so you can know at a glance if the right data has been selected.
Rendering Issues
It’s important to know that just because your email renders fine on your specific device (in your specific email client), it doesn’t guarantee it will do the same on all devices or email clients.
When images, colour or fonts don’t render correctly it can make your email less compelling which can result in disengagement from your recipients.
The solution – test, test and test again! The best way to combat rendering issues is to thoroughly test to yourself and colleagues on as many different devices and email clients as possible. With Campaignmaster, you’re never charged or capped for sending tests, as we believe it’s the most crucial stage of the campaign building process.
We also understand that it may not be feasible to test to multiple devices or email clients all of the time, which is why we offer an Advanced Rendering module which does this work for you.
Our clients also benefit from additional rendering test features including:
- Fallback Fonts
If your selected font is not supported across all email clients, you are able to select what the fallback font should be, keeping you in charge of as much of the email design as possible. - Personalisation Testing
If personalisation tokens are used in your campaign, you can run live previews and tests using the email addresses of your recipients, giving you an insight into what they will see. - Accessibility Testing
Making sure your email renders with accessibility in mind is crucial for those recipients who need extra visual assistance. All our clients have access to a free email content accessibility checker where any accessibility related issues are flagged. - Spam Analysis
To ensure your emails don’t land in the Junk folder, you’re able to run a spam analysis test before launch. - Seed Lists
While this is not an immediately preventative feature, adding seed lists to your campaigns allow you to see how an email is received. Using this you can amend and perfect future campaigns.
Checklists
Although terrifying, mistakes are completely normal and can happen at any time. However, by running through a carefully, curated checklist before hitting send, you can alleviate some of that pre-launch anxiety.
With Campaignmaster, we have you covered by providing our clients with their very own launch checklist.
This checklist confirms your campaign/sender details, who you are launching to, if any segmentation was applied, which links are not tracked, if a text version was created, if an unsubscribe link has been missed and so on.
PS – Just to be doubly sure, we also have a final launch window we show our clients after hitting send to confirm the most important sender and recipient details again!
Pre-launch anxiety is normal but we hope these tips help alleviate some of that stress.
If you need help or would just like to discuss any of the tips in this blog, please do get in touch at info@campaignmaster.co.uk.
