Ten things to check before you press send

Before you send an email campaign or newsletter out, there are certain things you should always double-check – here are the 10 most important campaign elements you should test:

1. Images – should be in .gif or .jpeg format and have a total size under 50Kb (recommended).
2. Text – is there a good balance of text and images. Many email clients block images by default so your message should be readily understandable even if users don’t load any images.
3. Spelling – checked your spelling and grammar? Spell-check is your friend but don’t rely on it!
4. Links – checked that all of your links work and go through to the pages you expect?
5. Subject Line – is your subject line clear and enticing? A good subject line is vital for getting a good open rate.
6. From Name – clear and consistent with your other mailings? Recipients often use this to decide whether they trust the sender or not.
7. Reply Address – have you set a valid reply email address for your campaign?
8. Personalisation – make sure you send a test mail and check that each element works as you expect – you don’t want “Dear <>” appearing!!
9. Plain-text version – set a plain text version of your campaign for those recipients who can’t read html mails.
10. Spam Score – don’t let your efforts to go to waste by having your campaign mistaken as spam. You need to check the content of your campaign – use one of the spam checkers to see how the common spam filters will rate your message, and send test emails to as many different email accounts as you can.