Email marketing is a lot of work, but the following hacks will make the job easier and faster.

The different tasks in email marketing are often challenging for marketers: writing texts, checking and correcting the design, creating and installing images, and integrating and testing links. That requires expertise and time. Fortunately, there are tools, tips and tricks that make daily work easier, save time and increase success.

Check deliverability – All email marketing work is wasted if emails don't get through to recipients. This happens when emails are classified as spam or are not delivered. Therefore, you need to know and check the most important settings for proper sending. But this is a technical matter that not everyone can master. It’s about SPF (Sender Policy Framework), DKIM (Domain Keys Identified Mails) and DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance). Luckily, there is a “Learn and Test DMARC” tool that will guide you step-by-step through a technology test: If you call it up, an individual test address appears where a test mail is sent to. Shortly thereafter, the page breaks down how the pre-sets (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) are doing. If everything goes well and works, there is a green pass, if not a red message appears stating what needs to be improvement.

Create countdown timer – Anyone who is looking forward to a certain event is literally counting down the seconds. A countdown timer is a great way to do this in email, as it is visually chic, technically sophisticated, and creates an oh-ha moment for recipients as the time is always updated when the email is opened. Such countdowns can be created and installed without much effort or programming knowledge. The service from https://mailtimer.io/ has a free offer: You have to register once at the beginning, then a simple interface directs you to set the date for the countdown (choose the right time zone and a design) and the system immediately generates a source code that you copy and paste into your own email. Done!

Generate calendar link – Anyone who organizes and advertises an event can do their recipients a favor by sending a ready-made calendar link or a calendar entry. Thanks to https://parcel.io/tools/calendar it's not rocket science: You enter the title, location, time zone, time and a description on the page, and the system immediately creates links for Google, Outlook, Yahoo, Office calendars 365 and an ICS file. Copy, save, paste – done!

Generate mailto link – The idea here is to ask a recipient to email a message to a specific address. If the recipient clicks on the mailto link, a mail program opens that generates an email. With a mailto link you have to enter a recipient address, but you can predefine a lot more. Further recipients go to CC or BCC, a subject line or a finished email text are also possible. You don't need any programming knowledge for this. The page https://mailtolink.me/ makes it easy: After calling it up, a preview of the message to be created appears in which you enter all the desired information. The program immediately generates a suitable programming code, which then only has to be copied and pasted in the own email – done!

Create "bulletproof" buttons – There's a truism in email marketing, saying you can't sell a product in an email, only a click. Clicks are important conversion goals and a measurement for success in email marketing. That is why the call-to-action buttons are of great importance. They contain the link that as many recipients as possible click on. But what if the button is not displayed correctly? Then this important, visual orientation anchor is missing. Readers don't see or know where to click and the conversion goals are missed. It is all the more important that you use "bulletproof" buttons. They should appear reliably and cleanly in the most important mail clients, whether on desktop, tablet or smartphone.

Buttons.com helps with their bulletproof button generator: the most important information is entered text, background and font color, size, frame color, radius of the frame, and the link. A preview and the source code then appear in real time which can be copied and built into your own newsletter.

By MediaBUZZ