Email Advice from A Friend - Chris Behrens

Check yourself before you wreck yourself 😮‍💨

Hey there!

Today marks Volume 10 of Email Advice from A Friend, our expert community feature and one of our favourite emails to curate.

This week's learning comes from one of the nicest, most dedicated, and most humble folks we’ve met in the email space over the last year or two.

Chris Behrens not only solves email and SMS problems for retailers, e-commerce brands, and sports brands, but he’s also a champion for our community and the email space in general.

His newsletter (and his retention marketing agency) are aptly named BearMail, and it’s been a favourite read of ours for a while now too.

Despite an extremely manic schedule, he’s been gracious enough to share his insights on a topic that every email sender has faced at least once in their journey:

Errors in our emails.

Get ready to join Chris on his journey to help us slay those pesky email faux pas. We know you’re going to enjoy this one.

(PS: If you’d like to catch our prior Volumes from expert guests, hit this link.)

3 ways to dramatically reduce email errors

We’ve all been there before…

You've just sent out an email with an error.

And the panic sets in.
​
❌You can't "unsend" the email.
❌You can't stop broken links from being clicked.
❌You can't fix email targeting issues (sorry, disengaged folks).
❌You can't prevent subscribers from taking action on faulty info.
❌You can't change personalisation errors (the dreaded “hi [firstname]”).

You're stuck. And it's the worst feeling in the world.

However, it can happen to any email sender or brand at any time.

Take this example by Adidas as a lesson in drastic errors:

Why is this an error of massive proportions?

Well, yes, conquering a marathon is a huge accomplishment, and having your brand be a small part of this moment can be game-changing.

But, unfortunately, this email was sent in 2017… Four years after the tragic Boston Marathon bombing occurred.

Talk about an email error of huge proportions…

For context, two brothers made homemade explosives to detonate near the finish line, leading to the deaths of 3 people & injuring many more back in 2013.

In an all too real sense, runners (literally) survived the event.

You see the problem with our subject line now?

Adidas picked up on the issue relatively quickly and issued a statement, but unfortunately for them, the damage was already done, with the email going viral in social circles.

Despite Adidas’ good intentions for the email, the lack of forethought was evident.

Mistakes will happen in email

It's inevitable. That's just the reality.

But nobody is perfect.

And, sometimes, even the best intentions (like congratulating someone for completing a marathon) can go wrong if the context is not considered.

The sad reality? A LOT can go wrong with sending emails.
​
❌Sending email at the wrong time (everyone gets promos early).
❌Personalization errors (“Hi FNAME” is the copy for everyone).
❌Sending the email with placeholder content.
❌Sending the email to the wrong list.
❌Including typos/grammar issues.
❌Including broken images.
❌Including broken links.

So, yes, "Send Anxiety" is absolutely real for email senders.

Heck - I'm sweating bullets thinking about sharing this content with you all 😅

There's no doubt about it - being an email marketer can be one tough job.

But there is hope

You're not alone in the fight to send error-free content to the right person at the right time.

There are plenty of tools and processes you can access to ensure your emails have the best chance of going out with no mistakes.

Yes, mistakes will likely always crop up (nobody is perfect, after all), but errors can be reduced dramatically with the right tools and processes.

Let's dive into some of those together.

#1 - Invest in Quality Assurance Processes

Email senders typically work through the following steps before deploying a new email campaign:

1. Request, receive or plan a new email campaign.

2. Build an email campaign based on the strategy.

3. Send the email and move on with your day.

Of course, there's a crucial step missing from this process…

Check to ensure your email matches your strategy or brief.

Ensuring that the email you’ve built EXACTLY matches what's included in the original request or your strategy is essential before hitting send.

A quality assurance checklist is the best way to do this and remain organised.

And there’s a lot to remember: 

• The email sender name is correct.

• The email subject line is correct and error-free.

• Email preheader text suits the chosen strategy.

• Creative elements match the email strategy or request.

• Image links click to the correct destination.

• Button links resolve to the correct destination.

• Alt text and title tags are included for accessibility.

• Footer links work and click to the right channels.

• Disclaimer / legal copy is included and correct.

• Dynamic content/personalisation tags are mapped correctly.

It can be a lot. And a lot can go wrong if you skip these steps.

The good news? To save you some time in your next email, I've created a Quality Assurance Checklist to help you do this quickly and easily.

Use this for every email campaign that is sent, and watch your errors go down, and down, and down.

Click the button below and I’ll fire a copy your way!

#2 - Invest in Email Testing Tools

Ensuring your email looks great across EVERY email inbox provider (Gmail, Yahoo, etc.) and device (iPhone, Samsung Galaxy, etc.) can be tough…

(and don't get me started on making emails look great in Outlook 😠)

You could, of course, try to do the impossible and:

• Buy every device as it comes out

• Sign up for email at every inbox provider out there

• Send test emails to burner emails so you can look at your emails across all devices and email inbox providers

I've seen clients try to do this (seriously), and it's basically impossible to pull off.

Surely, there's got to be a better way?

(Of course there is).

Software is available to test your emails across email inbox providers and devices so you can see exactly what your content looks like across the most popular devices and inboxes.

Here's a quick breakdown of two approaches you can take:

• ​Push the limits of your email platform: Most email platforms have built-in features to help you test across various devices, inboxes and interfaces. What email senders often neglect, too, is their device reports and using those reports to analyse which inboxes and devices an audience is using to consume their emails.

• ​Email On Acid: A renowned tool in the email space built precisely for this purpose. This allows you to preview your emails on 100+ devices & email clients (including dark mode) so you can be certain your messages display as intended. Plus, test against the latest accessibility guidelines, verify links and images, reduce the risk of hitting spam traps, blocklists, and more.

Use the approach that works for you, but don’t skip this step. Ever.

#3 - Invest in Email Automation tools

Automation is one of your biggest allies in preventing issues with your emails.

If you do everything manually in email marketing or newsletter operations, you're doing it wrong. You need to be investing in email automation tools.

Here are a few ways you can (and should be) automating your email sending:

• Templatise your emails: Use email templates (or a series of templates) with built-in branding, fonts, and layouts to ensure consistency across devices/email clients and reduce design errors. Don’t start from scratch every time.

• Automate link tracking: Use automated link tracking parameters (UTM tags are best) to ensure accurate performance tracking across campaigns without needing to manually update links for every campaign. This is a game-changer for your email stats.

• Trigger automated emails: Base automated triggers on subscriber actions and schedule emails ahead of time to avoid errors. The caution here is setting up triggered or scheduled emails for everything you send. You may forget to adjust your strategy based on external variables or changing audience needs.

• Automated bounce management: Use pre-defined rules within your email service provider to manage soft bounces (temporary issues, like a subscriber's inbox being full) or hard bounces (permanent issues, like a bad email address) on your list. This helps you maintain a clean email list and keep a great sender reputation with inbox providers.

Email errors don’t have to trip you up! Make sure you have solid processes, a sound strategy and prioritise your email checks.

Chris 🐻

Keep learning from Chris

Grab the gift of even more knowledge (and a few neat free tools) when signing up for his newsletter.

Make sure you join if you haven’t already, and make your inbox a better place.

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