After all the time and effort you put into crafting the best marketing emails, overlooking a single error can be devastating for any campaign.
Many moving parts go into ensuring a campaign’s content is both engaging and visually pleasing. But one of the most important steps in this process is previewing and proofreading the email before hitting send.
Send fear is a real concern for marketers. But it’s also a good thing to be anxious before releasing your latest email to the world, as it shows you understand the severity that comes with any kind of mistake not found during your proofing process—especially when readers may judge strangers harshly due to simple writing errors.
What are email previews?
Advanced preview tools help marketers test their email designs for different clients and devices. As every subscriber is important to you, using previews will help you find the optimal format and layout for different platforms.
Email previews will also highlight any errors in the code when you see the final rendering of the HTML. With Campaign Monitor, you can preview your emails for all the major clients (such as Gmail, Yahoo, or Hotmail). You can also check the display results for different handheld devices.
During the final previews, you should also do a thorough proofread of all the text (and our Preflight Checklist can serve as a perfect companion). In fact, a grammar or typo error will quickly change how recipients view your content in the future. A reader will judge the sender of an email to be less conscientious, trustworthy, and intelligent if the text contains a simple error.
How do you measure the success of email previews?
Users are likely to unsubscribe because of errors in formatting, display, personalization, or text. And, when the typo is in the subject line, it’s even worse.
If you start seeing the amount of unsubscribes increase, you may need to ensure you’re doing a complete quality check for each new email you send.
Readers’ habits change often and, today, most subscribers view emails on mobile devices. You should be adapting your campaign designs according to the analytics you’ve gathered. If you aren’t gearing toward mobile-friendly emails, you’re not only missing opportunities to gain new readers, but also damaging your brand’s reputation.
Using a preflight checklist will help ensure every email is error-free before you send.
Does it really matter?
The fact that someone signed up to your subscriber lists already means that they’ve placed trust in you and your brand. However, email clients change default settings and behaviors frequently. By keeping up with the latest capabilities, you’ll show readers that you value the experiences your content brings.
One error may be forgivable, but regular mistakes will chase away even the most loyal subscribers. To measure your campaign’s success, you need to benchmark your performance and monitor the different KPIs and rates closely.
Some steps you can take to reduce errors in email text include:
- Using a spelling and grammar checker on all content.
- Proofreading at the earliest opportunity.
- Enlisting more than one set of eyes during proofreading tasks.
- Using the right regional language in your libraries (for example, British versus American spelling and grammar).
- Making use of advanced preview features to verify rendering on different clients and devices.
What now?
Errors happen but, with the right tools, you can reduce the amount and frequency of mistakes in your campaigns. As marketing relies heavily on trust and reputation, taking the necessary care to prevent errors during every campaign will reduce the amount of unsubscribes and improve your brand identity.