→ How I come up with my content for emails, creation and testing
→ Why I HATE Linkedin's most recent email campaign
→ Learn how to innovate email marketing
→ Understand what control groups are in email
HIYA
I hope life and work are treating you okay - if you see this, a reminder to breathe, drop your shoulders, take a walk, have a break 😊
My 6-step email process
(two versions, depending on my time)
When I’ve got time:
1. Listen to conversations → I use real marketer calls, LinkedIn polls, Reddit threads, answer the public, even my own inbox to capture what people need, talk about, want and have challenges with.
2. Brain-dump ideas→ all goes into ChatGPT to cluster into topics & spider-diagram style lists.
3. Draft the long, messy version of an email → then cut 80% of the stuff no one cares about or will read.
4. Do the “eye test”→ open the email, 5 seconds max. Where do your eyes land? Is it obvious what’s valuable? Is there any friction?
5. Accessibility & testing → alt text, dark mode, mobile blocks, Litmus/email on acid checks.
6. Deliverability & data→ check bounces, run through validator, clean list, enrich names, run deliverability test on that email.
When I don’t have time (like today):
Still do the “eye test”
Still check alt text & mobile
Clean list once a month, not every send
Quick deliverability check weekly (not every single email)
You don’t need hours every week to do email right. But you do need a repeatable process.
A control group (or segment)is a group of subscribers or people you hold back or treat differently when testing campaigns.
It gives you a “baseline” to measure against, so you can see if your shiny new idea actually works, or if you should bin it.
Think of it as the guinea pigs of email marketing (yes, that’s you 🐹).
Most marketers know A/B testing
You split one campaign in half, change a variable and then send both versions at once to see what wins.
A control group works differently.
Instead of a single campaign, it runs across multiple sends.
A/B test = “Does this subject line beat that subject line today?” (don't do this it's so pointless)
Control group = “Over the next few months, does this new approach (tone, design, cadence, segmentation) actually shift performance against a consistent baseline?”
you, you’re literally in a control group right now.
If you can guess what I’m testing, REPLY to this email and I’ll send you a voucher or a treat if you get it right.
Plug of the Week
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