So, you’re planning to work with Podymos for an email campaign, or maybe you’re considering whether or not we’re the right team for you? Well, in this article, we’re going to let you in on what you can expect when working with us to create an email campaign.
Our goal is to maximise the success of your campaigns, and this article will explain our process and how you can help us to help you.
We’ll cover the full process, from setting you up on our systems to sending the finalised email, and we’ll also give you some tips on how to prepare.
Without any further ado, let’s get stuck in.
Getting you set up with Podymos
Before we can get to the fun stuff and start creating sensational emails, we’ll need to get you set up on our systems, which will require some input from you.
During this stage (and throughout all of your campaigns with us), your Account Manager will be your main point of contact. They’ll be the one to communicate your needs to the rest of the team, and if you have any questions, they’ll be more than happy to help you. 
1. Setting up your Campaign Monitor account
We will need to get you set up on our email platform. We use Campaign Monitor because of the personalisation and reporting it allows. Let us know if you would prefer for us to work on a different platform, as we have experience with most email platforms. However, as we work with Campaign Monitor regularly, this is where we are most efficient!
Your Account Manager will need a few details from you at this stage.
2. Authenticating your domain
To ensure that your emails are not blacklisted (sent to a spam or junk folder), we’ll need to authenticate your domain, meaning you’ll need to add a TXT file to your domain DNS, which your IT team will be able to handle. Again, your Account Manager will be able to guide you through this.
3. Creating or cleaning your mailing list
We can either import an existing mailing list into Campaign Monitor, or we can source a mailing list from a third party.
If we import an existing mailing list, we’ll need to clean the data. This means ensuring all data is present and correctly formatted, so we don’t run into personalisation issues. This is when we’ll be able to determine the level of segmentation we can introduce.
People may not be willing to hand over information such as their job title and location, which means you won’t be able to segment them by these categories. If you have managed to collect that data, then we can certainly work with it.
At this stage, it would also be beneficial to discuss how we can grow your mailing list. For example, we can help you implement a sign-up form on your website or run a social media campaign to encourage people to register. Webinars are also a great tool for growing your mailing list.
Creating your email campaigns
Once we have your brief following a discussion with your Account Manager, we can get into the fun stuff.
1. Copy
We start by creating the copy for your email. Our specialist writers are trained to optimise writing for different types of campaigns, allowing them to create content that will engage your audience. They will work with your Account Manager to ensure that their work reflects your brand and is accurate. As all our writers are in-house, any revisions can happen quickly, allowing us to rapidly move through this stage.
2. Design
Once your Account Manager is happy with the copy, it’s time to design your email.
The first time the graphics team creates an email for you, they will create a template using your existing branding. This will make it easier to create emails in the future and save you money.
Your Account Manager will send the design to you to check if you’re happy with it. At this stage, you can highlight anything you’re unhappy with. Only once you’re satisfied with the design will we move on to the next stage.
3. Build
Your email will be built, with tracking built into all of the external links, so we’ll be able to provide you with in-depth analysis of which buttons were clicked by whom. This will allow us to segment your audience once the first email has gone out.
4. Test
Before any email is sent, there will be several tests to ensure that there are no typos and that all images and links are working. We never want to send out an email with a mistake, so we will test, test, and test again, and we will have several sets of eyes check it.
Finally, you’ll be sent a test once everything in the email is approved by us, for the final sign-off.
5. Send
Yes! Your email will be sent to your subscribers, and you can sit back and relax whilst the email works its magic.
6. Resend
Remember when we said it’s possible that your email might be ignored? Well, to reduce the chances of this, we’ll send your email again to those who missed it the first time. And then we’ll send it again to the people who missed it the second time as well.
What do we mean by missed it? Well, this will include everyone who has not opened your email and those who haven’t completed the desired action (if there is one).
This normally increases our open rate to well over 50%, which is pretty good in email marketing.
7. Report
The final stage of an email campaign is to check the results. We can report on many different metrics for you, including how many people opened it, when they opened it, and what links were most popular.
It is also useful to look at email campaigns as part of your wider multichannel strategy. Was there an uptick in traffic to other channels such as your website? Were there more conversions when people visited your site via your email?
How to prepare?
We’re here to make your life easier, and we want to take as much stress off you as we can, but we’ll always need your input for certain things. Here are some things you can do to maximise the success of your campaign and streamline the process.
Know what you want
Of course, we’re very happy to advise you and recommend what we think would benefit your marketing strategy the most, but the choice is ultimately yours. If you’re able to tell us what type of emails you’re looking for, whether you want ad hoc emails or a recurring campaign like a newsletter, we’ll be able to get started much quicker.
Prepare your mailing list
As mentioned earlier, we’re happy to purchase a mailing list for you or clean your existing one, but if you’d prefer to do it yourself and save a bit of budget, that’s more than fine as well.
Prepare guidelines
Do you already have brand guidelines? This could save a lot of time during the copy and design phase. If not, we can work without them, but we’ll need information from you on details such as tone of voice and the sort of look you’d like for your emails.
Ready to get started?
If you feel like you would still like us to clarify some things, then please feel free to reach out to your Account Manager.
If you haven’t already contacted us about working together on email campaigns, get in touch with us below, and we would love to talk to you.