Email Marketing Campaign

For one campaign, start to finish

13 tasks covering a single email campaign: list segmentation, copy, design, testing, send, and the analysis afterwards. Use it per campaign rather than as a standing process — the value is in not skipping the unglamorous steps when a send is rushed.

Segment before you write

The segmentation task comes first because it changes the copy. An email written for our list is written for nobody; the same offer to lapsed customers and to last week's signups needs different framing, and knowing which you're addressing makes the writing faster, not slower.

The testing tasks are the ones under time pressure

Every rushed campaign cuts the same corners: no test send, links unchecked, no look at how it renders on a phone. Those three account for most of the emails that go out broken, and they take fifteen minutes combined.

Send yourself a test and actually open it on your phone. More than half your list will read it there, and desktop-designed emails fail on mobile in ways the preview pane hides.

Measure something you decided in advance

Set the success metric before the send, in the task where it appears. Opens are increasingly unreliable as a signal thanks to privacy protections that pre-fetch images; clicks and downstream conversions are what actually tell you whether the campaign worked.

The analysis task at the end is what turns one campaign into a programme that improves. Write down what you'd change, where you'll find it next time.

Timing

Roughly a week for a considered campaign. Turn on due dates if approvals sit with someone else.