This document provides an overview of email marketing best practices including email formats, testing, drip campaigns, and metrics. It discusses understanding basic email formats like lead generation, promotional, newsletters and transactional emails. It outlines testing best practices like A/B testing subject lines, copy, images and senders. It also covers how to set up and measure the success of drip email campaigns including onboarding new users. The document aims to teach email implementation and management strategies.

1. EMAIL MARKETING

2. Email Implementation Manager @ General Assembly
Founder / Editor-in-Chief @ Hook & Blade
(@hookandblademag )
Interested in food, skiing, traveling, exploring NYC
Quick Introduction
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3. 1. Understand basic email formats and their best uses
2. Testing best practices
3. Drip Campaigns
4. How to manage an email program
Learning Objectives
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4. EMAIL 101
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5. Why You Should Love Email Marketing
Email 101
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HYBRID OF MARKETING &
TECH
ONE OF THE HIGHEST
REVENUE CHANNELS
CAN BE ANY PART IN THE
FUNNEL - OR LOOP
GREAT PLACE TO
SHOWCASE YOUR BRAND

6. Email 101
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A B
Email Service Providers
(ESPs)
Used to store subscriber info,
send mass emails, and report
on email performance.
Can-Spam overview:
-Users must opt-in
-There must be a place to opt-out
-Must have an address present in email

7. Email 101
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Email Types
LEAD GEN
PROMOTIONAL
CAN BE PERSONALIZED
GREAT FOR E-COMMERCE OR SALES-DRIVEN
COMPANY
NEWSLETTERS
BRANDED
LESS PERSONALIZED
PREDICTABLE CADENCE
GREAT FOR CONTENT-FOCUSED BUSINESSES
CONTENT
SIMILAR TO NEWSLETTERS, GREAT FOR
SHOWCASING CONTENT. NOT MEANT FOR
SELLING, GREAT FOR TOP-OF-FUNNEL
TRANSACTIONAL
TRIGGERED BY ACTION/INACTION
USED FOR WELCOME, THANK YOU,
CONFIRMATION

8. EMAIL MARKETING8
A
NOTE
ON
BRANDING
Email 101

9. EMAIL MARKETING9
NEWS
LETTERS
Email 101

10. Email 101
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LEAD GEN

11. EMAIL MARKETING11
CONT-ENT
Email 101

12. Email 101
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TRANS-
ACTIONAL

13. Email 101
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HTML Paste: Code the entire email in an external program (like Dreamweaver or
Sublime Text) and paste or upload the code into the ESP.
WYSIWYG (What You See is What You Get): Use an ESP’s content editor/ email
builder tool; usually does not require HTML skills but may have limited flexibility.
Templates: Usually a combination of HTML/WYSIWYG.
Pro Tips:
Use Litmus to see how emails look across different clients & devices
Have a text version of your email: vision impaired & Apple Watch users

14. Email 101
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Lists & Segmentation
HAVE A PREFERENCE CENTER
EVEN SOMETHING BASIC.
SEGMENT YOUR USERS!
WHAT DO AND DON’T THEY TELL YOU?

15. Email 101
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‣ Offer value in return – discounts, VIP access!
‣ Make signing up easy – and on every page
‣ Consider (test) popup lightboxes
‣ Capture email signup after key user actions like a purchase or a blog post
‣ Events, contests – if it’s your event
‣ Partnerships (when done well)
Be cautious of:
‣ Buying lists – never a good idea!
How to grow your list

16. Email 101
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17. Email 101
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18. Email 101 - Activity
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Build a transactional email using MailChimp’s
template builder.
mailchimp.com to sign up. It’s free!
Time: Up to 15 Minutes
Things to think about:
‣ Brand voice
‣ Goals + KPIs
‣ Audience
‣ Copy/Image
‣ What action did they take to trigger this email?

19. METRICS & TESTING
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20. Metrics & Testing
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RSVP V RSVP & RMI
WINNER: RSVP & RMI
RSVP V RMI ONLY
WINNER: RMI ONLY
OLD BRAND ART V NEW
PHOTOS
WINNER: DRAW
COPY: NORMAL COPY V
INCLUSION OF RELEVANT BLOG
WINNER: BLOG
SUBJECT LINES: TITLE CASE V
SENTENCE CASE
WINNER: SENTENCE CASING
OLD IMMERSIVES COPY V NEW
OUTCOMES COPY
WINNER: DRAW
IMAGE V NO IMAGE
WINNER: IMAGE/DRAW
SENDER NAME: FROM GA V
FROM PERSON NAME
WINNER: NEW SENDER

21. Metrics & Testing
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Core Metrics
SENT
THE NUMBER OF ACTIVE
SUBSCRIBERS AT TIME OF
SEND
DELIVERED
THE NUMBER OF EMAIL
ADDRESSES THAT ACTUALLY
RECEIVED THE EMAIL
OPEN RATE
THE NUMBER OF OPENS /
TOTAL DELIVERED
CLICK-TO-OPEN
NUMBER OF CLICKS / NUMBER
OF OPENS

22. Metrics & Testing
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A B
Time: Open Rate
From Name Open Rate
Subject Line: Open Rate
Call-to-Action: Click-to-Open
Image Click-to-Open
Template Click-to-Open
Pro tips:
‣ One variable
‣ statistical significance
‣ Test concepts, not content
‣ Data should determine results, not preference.
‣ Use tracking to determine winner (Google Analytics!)

23. Metrics & Testing - Activity
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Map out a testing roadmap for your
company. Include 4 tests.
Time: Up to 7 Minutes

24. DRIP CAMPAIGNS
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25. Types of drip campaigns:
‣ On-boarding - used to welcomes someone to a brand
‣ Alumni off-boarding
‣ Reengagement - used to engage cold emails
‣ Life cycle - used to keep current/past customers engaged
‣ Activation - used to activate a custom group of users
Drip Campaigns
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What is a Drip Campaign?
A triggered series of emails that are sent to users on a pre-determined schedule.
Pro tips:
‣Don’t wait to onboard
‣Don’t want too long
between emails
‣Exclude reengagement
group from regular emails
‣Check on other companies

26. Drip Campaigns - Case Study
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27. Drip Campaigns - Case Study
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‣ We ran an acquisition campaign to bring in new users
‣ Great Success! 9,700 new users! And ~14,000 applicants total.
‣ Now….how can we engage them and convert them into leads?
The Setup & Game Plan

28. Drip Campaigns - Case Study
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29. Drip Campaigns - Case Study
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• Coding Courses
• Business Courses
• Design Courses

30. Drip Campaigns - Case Study
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31. Drip Campaigns - Case Study
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The Results
‣ Average Open Rate: 23.5%
‣ Average CTOR: 9.8%
‣ Generated ~300 leads
‣ Saw 10 enrollments
‣ Even greater success!

32. Metrics & Testing - Activity
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A user joins your email list.
Develop an onboarding
drip campaign for your
company. How many
emails? How much time in
between each?
Now, write the first email
Time: Up to 10 Minutes

33. EMAIL MANAGEMENT
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34. Workflow management tools
‣ Jira
‣ Trello
Content Creation & Management
‣ Google docs forever!
Email Management
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35. THANK YOU
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