Reviewing the Quality Control Basics
When working on home improvement projects, we are all familiar with the saying, “Measure twice, cut once.” Believe it or not, the same principles can be applied to your email marketing campaign. It comes down to simple quality control. It never hurts to occasionally review the basics.
Your messages should not only be tested for appearance before they are sent live, your email messages should also be checked for a wide array of issues that may arise.
Email Clients
Although Outlook is dominant in the business world, there are people who use other email clients. Check more than Outlook for rendering issues. Be sure to include Gmail, Mac Mail, and Thunderbird in your testing. If you know that a large portion of your subscribers are using Lotus Notes, be sure to test that as well.
Proofreading
Does your copy make sense? Review your message for spelling and grammar errors. Simply running the copy through a spell-checker is not the answer. A spell-check application can’t tell the difference between ‘from’ and ‘form’. They are both spelled correctly. The lessons we learned in Freshman Comp I can be of good use here. Your mind has the ability to fill in missing words and not catch minor errors. Consider having a fresh pair of eyes look things over to catch the mistakes you may miss.
Subject Line
Have you added anything to your subject line for testing purposes? Re-check your subject line before the final send. This is especially important if you are using your subject line as a notes field as a part of your testing process, or if your subject line has not yet been determined. Verify your subject line is accurate before pressing the send button.
Links
Check each link in your message. Make sure each link takes your subscribers to the intended destination. A link typed incorrectly has the potential to damage your brand or take your subscribers to an error page.
Spend a little extra time ensuring all of the elements in your message look and function correctly. By doing so, you can be confident your message is error-free to help you achieve the results.
Posted by MindComet on Jan. 25, 2007