Presend checks

Once you've sent your email it's “in the wild”; you can't suck it back out of recipients' inboxes. This means you need to live with any errors, typos, or broken bits. For this reason we recommend that you perform these standard checks before you send an email to your live list.

1. Make sure you've added a decent subject line. There is no great motivating factor to drive more opens (and sometimes clicks too).
2. If you're using a pre-header make sure that you've updated it from the default text from your Template. The pre-header is the very small text right at the top of your email that by default will say something similar to: “Type about 60 characters here to extend your subject line”.
3. Check that you've added a valid Reply address (Step 1: Content) and be prepared to answer enquiries that come back to that address – we no longer live in the age of “do not reply”.
4. Send a test to a colleague to proof read it. Have them check for typos, grammar, and test all links.
5. In order to gather more information about your recipients, you may wish to Tag some of your links for future use.
6. Be clear on the goals of the email. If the call-to-action isn't clear (or doesn't exist), your email campaign will fail.
7. Don't rush to send your email as mistakes will happen. Try to prepare it at least a day in advance and then review it again with a fresh set of eyes.