Agile Email Marketing: Send More Valuable Emails On Time

[This post was originally published on 17th March 2021. It has been updated on 8th Sep 2023.]

Just like many other marketers, I did value agile marketing but did not take it too seriously. However, that was until I recently got in touch with different email geeks to know their views on email marketing trends for 2021, and most of them rooted for this trend in 2021 and beyond!

That’s because email operations unnecessarily take too much time and there may be several inefficiencies in the process. Agile methodology can help you overcome these challenges and streamline the execution of your email marketing strategy. It is all about enhancing the subscriber’s experience and providing them useful information rather than simply focusing on increasing the open rate or click-through rate of the emails. 

For instance: If you are a real estate company, avoid sending bulk emails to your subscribers with salesy pitches. Rather than that, take help of dynamic content blocks that will populate the properties in the email, based on their geographical location and other preferences. 

Agile email marketing focuses on three ‘I’s, namely inclusivity, information, and innovation. While it is ‘agile’, it is equally effective and reduces the effort required from the email marketing team. Email automation with behavioral email marketing, implementation of Artificial Intelligence, more advanced segmentation and personalization, and application of dynamic content blocks has made it all the more convenient to embrace agile email marketing and make the most of it.   

With all that trumpet-blowing, let’s understand the concept of agile email marketing. 

What Is Agile Email Marketing?

Agile marketing allows you to send emails on time by using a modular process. It takes into consideration your data and subscribers’ needs. In simple words, it is a project management process that was conceived in the field of software development. This process provides the teams the flexibility to evolve and work on the changes without any delay. Consequently, the teams will be able to get creative and beat the competition by standing true to the expectations of their subscribers.

Agility in email marketing is all about working on micro-efficiencies. The agile email management principle states that if you are looking for a transformation, you have to start slow.   

1. Formulate the outline of your email campaign strategy

Define the basics of your email marketing strategy – that’s how you lay an effective foundation. This will help you to align the copy, design, and development tasks. In case of a lack of coordination between these tasks, it will lead to delay in the execution and more inefficiencies. 

Just like you cannot scale Mount Everest (or any other mountainside for that matter) in one go, you cannot expect to deploy a well-designed email without focusing on the small steps. 

The steps of an effective email marketing workflow go like:

1. First of all, determine the purpose of the email, its objective, and the segment of subscribers it will be deployed to. 

2. The next step is to set the content strategy in such a way that it will help you get the desired open rate and click-through rate. 

3. Lastly, you establish how to work out the copy and visual elements of the email. 

2. Follow an Email Design System

Modular email templates or email design system have become buzzwords in the world of email designing. Templated emails help to reduce the time taken to create HTML emails from scratch. If you do not want to make the entire emails templated, you can use reusable HTML blocks or snippets. For instance: You can use such snippets for the email headers and footers. 

Besides being time-saving, this method also allows you to design consistent emails that will help your subscribers relate to the brand. It will reduce the scope of any mistakes since the same code is recreated for every email. 

3. Multitask…

We have started following this at Email Uplers too and I believe it will take the productivity of your email team too to the next level. Previously, we used to follow a step-by-step process. This means that the email design task was not assigned until and unless the copy was finalized. However, with time, we revised our email marketing workflow and introduced the multitasking strategy. 

Once you have defined the purpose of your email, its target audience, and a wireframe of the copy and visuals, it becomes easier for the design and development team to proceed with their tasks. 

To streamline this process, you must keep in mind the following tips:

1. Brief the design team with a tentative headline and CTA button for which you would need a visual in the email. While the copywriter works on the email copy, the designer will be able to go ahead with the email design. 

2. According to the strategy you have devised, you can ask the development team to start the coding job. You can use placeholder text like “Lorem Ipsum” and images to start with. Later, when the copy and visuals are ready, you only have to replace them in the email. 

By following these simple steps, you will be able to reduce the time to produce emails by up to 75%. Can you imagine?

4. Use a tool to optimize the email review process

At Email Uplers, we used to face a challenge. We had to take the approval for an email from several people from different departments. It used to be the most exhausting part… until we came across InVision. 

With the help of InVision, we can get feedback for the email copy and design all at once. You do not need to switch to different tabs and look for feedback at multiple places. So, it creates a pleasant experience for the review team, stakeholders, as well as the professionals who are doing the tasks. InVision App for design is like Google Docs for content. They both make it so much simpler to make revisions and expedite the entire process. 

5. Do not miss out on the “QA” 

After the final approval, there is one more step of testing the email before you deploy it. It is the most crucial aspect of any email marketing strategy. No matter how hard you have worked for the email copy and design, it will not matter if the email does not render well. 

Here are some elements you must check before you hit that “send” button. 

1. Is your subject line, preheader text, sender name, and email address in place?

2. Have you run the email through spell-check and proofread it for any grammatical errors?

3. Do all the visual elements have suitable Alt-text?

4. Does your email follow all the accessibility principles like title tag, language attribute, and semantic tags? Does the email design flow in a logical order, abiding by the concept of visual hierarchy?

5. Are all the links working and getting redirected to the right landing page? Do all the links have the respective UTM codes to identify the source of the click?

6. Will your email make sense if the images are blocked in the subscriber’s email client? Will it serve the purpose even if the subscriber does not view the images?

7. Is your email taking too much time to load?

8. Have you checked your email for any spam triggers and deliverability issues?

6. Monitor your email marketing metrics carefully

Most marketers overlook the importance of analyzing the performance of an email campaign. Even if they do, they just go through the open rate, click-through rate, bounce rate, and unsubscribe rate. However, these KPIs give you an idea about the email deliverability rate only. 

If you want to get a deeper insight into your email performance, you must consider metrics like conversion rate, list growth rate, email forwarding rate, and the overall health of the email strategy. HubSpot is one of the finest email analytics tools that will give you a clear picture of how your email campaigns are performing. 

You can also compare the performance of different campaigns, carry out A/B testing, and see what’s working the best for your target audience.  

Based on this data, you can then optimize your emails for optimum performance. 

Wrapping Up

Agile email marketing was introduced, taking into account the fact that simple processes are easy to execute. 

If you have not yet adopted this methodology, you must try to evolve as a marketing professional and follow the suit according to most of the big brands. After you are able to convince yourself about the effectiveness of agility in executing emails, you will be able to see beyond the traditional methods and understand how powerful this new approach can be. 

In case you need any help with this, you can get in touch with the campaign management experts at Email Uplers. We would love to hear from you and assist you in every way we can.