Have you ever spent time perfecting every detail of an email marketing campaign only to be paralysed with fear when it’s time to hit send? Email anxiety is something that all marketers feel at some point – and let’s face it, the danger is real. What if all the links suddenly break? What if your email is sent to the wrong person? What if you notice an error in the content right after you’ve hit send to thousands of people? It can happen to the best of us. A pre-send ritual, complete with a thorough email checklist is key to being able to hit send with confidence.
Feeling anxiety around your big email sends is normal. We’ve found planning ahead and having a routine are key to email success since most email mistakes happen when decisions are made under pressure.
To help relieve your email anxiety, we’ve put together this handy Q&A to answer our most commonly asked questions from marketers as well as our pre-send email checklist. With these resources and a powerful email marketing software platform, you can face the fear head-on and click send with confidence.
Download your Email Checklist
BONUS – Answers To Common Email Send Questions
How long does it take for an email to arrive?
After an email has been sent, it can take from five seconds to a day for it to reach your inbox. There’s a lot of factors that affect how your messages are delivered, and a lot of it is out of our control. Of course, you can always watch your real-time reports to see how your send is progressing.
Can I recall an email blast after it has been sent?
If you suddenly spot a mistake, you can stop a campaign mid-send to prevent any more people from receiving it. But unfortunately, you cannot recall the emails that have already been sent. Standard practice is to follow up quickly with an apology email. Admit your mistakes and move on. Sometimes it’s easier said than done but like a band-aid, the quicker you can pull off this maneuver, the better.
Why does my email look different in Outlook compared to within the editor?
Vision6 emails are designed to look great across all email clients. However, for such an evolved technology, email can be incredibly complicated. Both in terms of how we design it and how it is rendered in an inbox. Our campaigns get passed through many checks and between many different gatekeepers on the way to the inbox, so there’s always a chance things don’t end up displaying exactly as they looked in the editor. This is especially true if the email client is Outlook. We recommend using the email client test feature to run a Litmus check on your message to ensure it’s compatible across a range of inboxes before sending.
Why does my Text Font change between PC, tablet and phone?
When creating an email, we strongly recommend using web safe fonts. These are all available from the Vision6 Drag and Drop Editor. If you have used a custom font, there’s a chance that your recipient doesn’t have that font installed, or the email inbox doesn’t support displaying it. If that’s the case, a fallback ‘supported’ font will be used and it will cause your email to appear differently.
When I do a send to a test list, it fails – what’s happening?
A send can fail if it relies on a database being available. If you’re using personalisation tag in your to and from address, or if you’re linking through to update or survey forms, sending to a test list may cause issues you wouldn’t have sending to your actual database.
Why are all the links in my email broken?
If your email has already been sent, there is a way for our support team to dive in and fix broken links and images for those who have not yet opened the email. It’s an emergency feature we provide to Vision6 customers, and it’s only available by lodging a support ticket directly.
All good email marketing software platforms should have a customer support team ready to help if disaster strikes. However, to prepare early and avoid the above situations where possible, here is a simple checklist to keep on hand, add your own steps to.
Reduce email send anxiety with our email checklist
After hitting send, one of our favourite things to do is watch the magic happen in the reporting – yes, we’re die-hard marketing nerds. If your email marketing software platform integrates with Google Analytics, you have access to valuable information that will help you plan your next campaign.
Armed with a pre-send ritual, email checklist and a knowledgeable customer support team included in your email marketing service, you can get rid of email send anxiety once and for all.
