Beefree blog

How Star Wars emails became a force in our inboxes

Beefree team
Beefree team
Dec 17, 2015
How Star Wars emails became a force in our inboxes
How Star Wars emails became a force in our inboxes

There's a little movie coming out this weekend.... maybe you've heard of it?When tickets to the new Star Wars movie, "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," were first released in October, fans clamoring for early tickets crashed ticket sites like Fandango; during release week it dwarfs every other trending topic on Twitter--by the millions; and Star Wars-themed products, from cereal to makeup to laptopsare top of mind for every Jedi fan around the world.But perhaps no where is Star Wars fervor more apparent than in email inboxes. Brands, retailers, and even nonprofits, have jumped on the Star Wars bandwagon and figured out how to align their email marketing with the movie--even when what they're marketing seemingly has nothing to do with The Force.A quick scan of my personal email inbox reveals a slew of Star Wars-themed subject lines--and this is for someone who is NOT a typical Star Wars fan. Email lists I subscribe to have beentrying for weeks to entice me with subject lines like:

  • Star Wars Nightlights (Steals.com)
  • Turn Your Child Into a Reading Jedi (Scholastic)
  • Star Wars... the Force is strong with you (Zulily)
  • Star Wars Fans: May the deals be with you (Target)
  • Boba Fett, Yoda, and Chewbacca Jewelry (Bezar)
  • Must-see Fall Movies, 'Star Wars' Secrets (Moviefone)
  • Star Wars Costume Exhibit Invades Times Square! (Time Out New York)

So what's the best way to join the cultural zeitgeistand incorporateStar Wars themes and language into your own marketing emails? Here are our fivetop tips for forceful Star Wars emails, gleaned from the best Star Wars emails that have landed in our inboxes so far.You can use these tips for Star Wars--or any other blockbuster movie event in the future (we're sure the Force will reawaken in 2018 or so, right?).

Tip #1: Start Early to Maximize Impact

Star Wars premieres in the United States on December 18, but it openedin some other countries a few days earlier. AirFrance took advantage of the opportunity to entice customers with an early screening by sending an alert onNovember 2 to promote its "Flight and Cinema" package. The airline offered to take customers directly from the airport to a movie screening on December 16. By getting this email out more than six weeks before the premiere, AirFrance gave customers from overseas plenty of lead time, and stuck out in inboxes because they weren't yet flooded with Star Wars themed mailings.

Star Wars Email from Air France

Tip #2: Showcase Your Star Wars-Themed Products

Star Wars is one of the most visual brands out there, with dozens of well-known and unusual-lookingcharacters, props like light sabers (which Facebook is taking advantage of), and more. Make sure your Star Wars-themed emails show off these visuals. Check out how book publisher and retailerScholastic does it here.

Star Wars Email from Scholastic

Scholastic puts the characters front and center in this Star Wars email, creatively using book cover imagery to get parents to purchase Star Wars books for their kids.Another company that captures the visual elements of Star Wars, with their own unique spin, is the online design shop Bezar. In this email they're promoting a line of Star Wars jewelry.

Star Wars Email from Bezar

Showing the full line of products in email, when the theme of all the products is as visually compelling as Star Wars, can really make customers feel connected to your offerings. As I mentioned, I'm not a Star Wars devotee, but even I can't help wanting all of this cute jewelry!

Tip #3: Figure out your angle

You'd think Star Wars can't have much to do with a nonprofit media organization that publishes world news of Jewish interest, right? Wrong. Publisher JTA, alsoknown as the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, finds its own unique spin on Star Wars mania by publishing a Star Wars Hanukkah gift guide, perfectly timed to coincide with both the holiday and the movie release. The company puts the Star Wars article front and center in the email because it knows that, even if this story is not the typical breaking news that it usually covers, Star Wars is still top of mind for many of its readers.

Star Wars Email from JTA

Tip #4: Keep your offer in line with customer expectations

Target customers expect a few specific things fromthe emails they receive from the big boxretailer: good deals, easy to find products, and wide breadth of product offerings. With their Star Wars email, Target doesn't disappoint.

Star Wars email from Target

From the very top of the email, it's clear that at Target you can find Star Wars items at a discount, you can find lots of different types of products, and you can easily navigate to the category of product that you're looking for. Target is making it clear to its customers that they're the place to go for any Star Wars product needs you have.

Tip #5: Align your branding with the more recognizable brand

Star Wars has its own font, its own color scheme, its own characters, and its own brand identity, all recognizable by millions around the world. Unless you're a major global brand, your own branding can't compete. Don't run from the strength of the Star Warsbrand; instead adopt it. Embrace it.This is what the Australian shoe brand UGG did in its Star Wars email, to terrific effect. To promote the shoe line's "Darth Vader collection," they used an all-black background with white text, a haunting image of Darth Vader, and a huge collection of shoes to match, to encourage customers to browse and buy. It's a far stretch from their typical emails, featuring earthier tones (like this one), but that's why it works: UGG embraced the Star Wars brand and made it their own, featuring their darkest boots and shoes. You can just picture Darth Vader himself wearing those boots--and therefore you want to get a pair for yourself.

Star Wars email UGG

It's not too late to sneak in some Star Wars themes into your upcoming marketing emails. The movie opens in the US on December 18, but we're pretty sure it will be all anyone talks about for at least another month or two. Get started creating your Star Wars-themed email in the BEE editor today!

Related posts

5 Reasons Why HubSpot Users Love Beefree

HubSpot’s design tools can sometimes feel restrictive for marketers looking to create distinctive branding or highly customized designs. This is where Beefree comes in.
Beefree team
Dec 5, 2024

HubSpot is one of the world’s leading CRMs, seamlessly merging sales, marketing, and customer service into a single, powerful dashboard. With tools for email marketing, lead generation, and landing page creation, HubSpot enables you to connect with customers more effectively and drive meaningful results.

However, HubSpot’s design tools can sometimes feel restrictive for marketers looking to create distinctive branding or highly customized designs.

This is where Beefree comes in—the ideal solution for HubSpot users looking to flex their creative chops in designing emails and landing pages. With drag-and-drop editing, advanced customization options, and an extensive template library, Beefree makes it easy to capture your brand’s identity and stand out in today’s crowded market.

https://uevi.co/7371IQEF 

1. 1,700+ free customizable email and page templates

HubSpot’s templates work for simple designs, but users often describe them as “bland” or “limiting.” 

Beefree users are spoiled for choice with over 1,700 free customizable templates that go far beyond HubSpot’s basic designs. These templates serve as the perfect starting point for building impactful campaigns.

Beefree’s intuitive design tools let you tweak the template in real time, making it easy to produce professional-quality creations that perfectly reflect your brand’s identity—no design experience required. These pre-built layouts are major time-savers, too, with 82% of users reporting faster email creation using Beefree.

https://uevi.co/7371IQEF

2. Advanced design elements for true creative freedom

Customization can be a challenge for many HubSpot users; for instance, some report that it’s “impossible” to create a table without coding the design yourself. Unfortunately, not every user has the technical skills—not to mention the time—to perfect their emails with HubSpot alone. 

Beefree elevates your designs with an extensive collection of creative elements, all easily customizable using its powerful editor.

Some of these elements, like rounded corners and unlimited columns, aren’t available in HubSpot. Others, like creating a table to present data in a clean and organized way, are far easier to build in Beefree.

These creative elements make it that much easier to showcase your brand identity, communicate your message effectively, and design beautiful, original campaigns. They help you move beyond cookie-cutter designs and deliver something truly unique.

Remember: Eye-catching emails grab your audience’s attention instantly, helping your message stand out in crowded inboxes while staying true to your brand.

https://uevi.co/9986ULYW

3. Reusable content blocks for always-on-brand campaigns

Beefree’s reusable content blocks make it simple to maintain consistency across all your campaigns.

Simply save your branded elements—headers, footers, logos, and CTA buttons—once, then re-use them in future designs with a single click of a button.

This convenient feature helps HubSpot users streamline their workflow by eliminating repetitive design tasks — potentially saving you hours per campaign. 

https://uevi.co/1491YKUH 

4. Mobile-responsive designs out the box

Beefree’s editor includes built-in mobile responsiveness, which means your emails and landing pages automatically adjust to any screen size with no extra effort. This ensures your campaigns look great on every device, from desktops to smartphones.

For even greater control, Beefree supports mobile design mode, enabling HubSpot users to fine-tune your designs for smaller screens. Simply select the device size you’re optimizing for and make adjustments using the intuitive visual editor.

This allows you to deliver a tailored, on-brand experience, no matter how your audience views your content.

https://uevi.co/4690JNKE 

5. Easy integration

Whether you're crafting unique branded elements or designing dynamic content, Beefree gives you the tools to create campaigns that align perfectly with your brand vision. Best of all, integrating HubSpot with Beefree takes just seconds. 

Beefree and HubSpot: A match made in email heaven

Integrating Beefree with HubSpot offers a powerful solution for marketers looking to elevate their email campaigns. HubSpot provides the engine for powering your marketing, while Beefree boosts the creative aspect, letting you bring your brand vision to life with ease.

For example, one of Beefree’s customers, Folderly—an all-in-one email deliverability platform—experienced significant improvements by combining HubSpot and Beefree. 

By designing emails in Beefree and sending them using HubSpot, Folderly streamlined their workflow, reducing campaign creation time from days to hours. This efficiency freed the team to focus on other key tasks, while maintaining high-quality, on-brand designs.

This integration not only sped up their processes but also boosted open rates by 15%, demonstrating the effectiveness of combining Beefree's advanced design tools with HubSpot's marketing automation.

“With Beefree, we can create beautiful designs and quickly integrate them into our workflows. By connecting our HubSpot account to Beefree, we can easily transfer the email designs to HubSpot, making the entire process highly efficient and smooth.”

- Kate Lavrenchuk, Marketing Lead at Folderly

Read more about Folderly’s success story with Beefree here

How to Conduct a Robust Email Marketing Audit

An email audit is a health check of every aspect of your email marketing campaigns. It means analyzing your current efforts to identify areas for improvement. Here's how to conduct a robust email audit.
Beefree team
Nov 27, 2024

Email remains one of the most effective marketing channels around, but what do you do when your campaigns aren’t getting the desired results? If your click-through rates and conversions are languishing way below your targets, it may be time for an email marketing audit. 

Regular audits make sure every area of your email marketing is fine-tuned, whilst also keeping you compliant with data protection regulations. Keep reading for our tips on conducting a comprehensive audit that will get your email marketing in top-notch condition.

How to audit an email marketing program

There are many aspects that go into creating high-performing email marketing campaigns and an audit aims to address all of them. Here’s how to make yours as successful as possible. 

Preparing for the audit 

Before doing anything else, it’s best to decide what your goals are. Your priorities will likely be primarily performance-based but don’t forget about your data privacy responsibilities along the way. Adopting a risk management solution early on can help you monitor security and compliance, so you can efficiently find and address any vulnerabilities. 

This will give you peace of mind as you also work towards improving the results of your email campaigns. Whether it’s boosting engagement or improving conversion rates, having a clear idea of what you want to achieve will guide your efforts. 

For example, if your main goal is to improve customer retention, it’s a good idea to focus your email audit on metrics that reflect engagement over time. Another thing you want to organize before you get started is the right tools. Just as you need the right free proxy list for your IT department, you need to look at the tools that will best serve your email campaigns.

Start with your email service provider (ESP) dashboard to plan which metrics you want to look at. An email analytics platform is also an important tool to help you track your progress, ideally one that integrates with your SP, so you have everything in one place to assess progress and make informed decisions. 

Reviewing email content 

Take a good look at your email content. Does it reflect your brand voice? Is it consistent with your messaging across other platforms? If you think there is room for improvement, an AI email assistant can be a big help. 

Start with your subject lines and consider whether they are clear, inviting, and engaging. A subject line works best when it makes the recipient curious but also gives them a clue to what’s in the email. Look at the body of the emails next and assess whether there is continuity in style and tone across your communications. 

What’s more, is it in line with the goals of your campaign? You want the messaging to be engaging with relevant content. Plus, it’s advisable for every email to have a strong call to action (CTA) that will drive your email clicks, and make them enticing and actionable for the best results. 

Finally, take stock of the visual elements of your emails, are they adding value? Do they look good on all kinds of screen sizes? Getting the email design elements right will maintain a professional look and also help the engagement rates of your campaigns. 

Analyzing email metrics

Another important part of an email marketing audit is tracking the right metrics. They will give you the information you need to make changes and create a more effective email marketing strategy

  • Open rates: It’s good to get a clear idea of how many people are actually opening your emails. However, bear in mind that some privacy features, such as Apple’s Mail privacy Protection, can skew this data so it’s not always reliable on its own.
  • Click-Through Rates (CTR): If your recipients actually open your emails, how many then take action? Your CTR will show you how good your email engagement is and tell you how well your content is working.
  • Bounce rates and unsubscribe rates: A high bounce rate indicates deliverability problems, suggesting you may have a lot of invalid email addresses or potential email list management issues. Unsubscribe rates, on the other hand, will tell you whether your recipients are switching off from your content.  

A/B testing as an optimization tool

To really understand email performance metrics, A/B testing is required. It’s a valuable tool for achieving continuous improvement within lifecycle email marketing and will help you to understand what’s working (and what isn't) much quicker. 

For the best results, test one element at a time. That could be the subject line, the CTA, or even the time of day you send the email. Send two different versions to small segments of your email list and analyze the performance metrics to see which one does better. Going forward, you can keep the best elements of each test to optimize every email you send. 

Email list hygiene and segmentation 

Regular housekeeping of your subscriber list will keep it clean and make sure your emails are received by an engaged audience. A good starting point is to try re-engagement email campaigns to get inactive subscribers involved again. Still, it’s also wise to routinely identify and remove those who remain inactive after a reasonable attempt at re-engagement. 

You can also improve the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns through segmentation, which targets specific demographics or behaviors for a more personal approach. Use data from your CRM platform and CRM call center software to create more precise audience segments and tailor the content of your emails for the biggest impact.

It’s also vital to maintain compliance with regional data protection laws such as GDPR email marketing requirements by carefully managing consent and acting on unsubscribes efficiently, thereby safeguarding your brand reputation and the security of your data. 

Email deliverability and technical settings

Technical configurations are responsible for getting your emails into recipients’ inboxes. Email authentication protocols such as SPF, DKIM, and DMARC verify them and prevent them from ending up in a spam folder. 

Keep reviewing email frequency and send times too, as sending them at the wrong time can harm engagement and present issues with deliverability. Additionally, keep up to date with email practices to avoid spam traps and protect your reputation. 

If you’re handling sensitive customer data, getting your infrastructure in line with SOC 2 audit requirements will make sure that your email system is in full compliance with security and privacy standards. You can then be confident that your customer's data will be kept safe and their trust maintained.

Building a future-ready strategy 

A successful email marketing audit will give you the knowledge to develop a strategy to scale and continuously improve in the future. You might identify opportunities to automate repetitive tasks to improve the consistency of service and save time. 

Another way to improve your campaigns is a content calendar, which will keep you on track with your goals and important events. You might also consider integrating your email with other channels, such as SMS marketing, to create continuity in omnichannel communication

Remember, if you do incorporate SMS marketing, TCPA compliance is essential. It regulates how and when you can send marketing messages to customers. This is important from a legal standpoint, but will also make sure you don’t damage the trust your customers have shown in you by sharing their contact details. 

Your first steps towards a better email strategy 

An email audit is a health check of every aspect of your email marketing campaigns. It means taking the time to analyze what you’re doing currently so you can work out where you’re most in need of improvement. The result is a detailed picture that allows you to take action and optimize your email marketing efforts for better engagement, clicks, and conversion rates.

10+ Years of Evolution in The Email Industry

Justine Jordan, Head of Strategy and Community at Beefree shares how she has seen the email industry evolve over the last 10+ years and her hopes for the future.
Justine Jordan
Nov 19, 2024

Hi! In case we haven’t met before, I’m Justine Jordan, the Head of Strategy and Community here at Beefree. Over the past 16 years, I’ve worn many hats: designer, developer, marketer, community builder, and even the occasional cat GIF curator. I’ve been fortunate to build a career based on deep expertise in all things inbox, where I’ve seen firsthand the incredible potential of using email to connect people and businesses.

Way back in 2007, I fell into the email industry almost by accident. Fresh out of college, I started my career as a designer focused on creating print and brand assets. Frustrated by what felt like a lack of impact and respect in my design role, I wanted to be seen as someone who could help drive business success. Unlike brochures, email design offered instant feedback—opens, clicks, and conversions could tell a story.

I was hooked. And as the industry grew, so did my appreciation for email's ability to forge direct connections with people, right in their inboxes.

And yet, we all know that 16 years in any field (especially email!) is a long time. Email today is vastly different from the scrappy marketing channel I stumbled upon in 2007—even though its core mission remains the same: building meaningful, personal connections that drive business results. So, let’s dive into the fascinating, often underappreciated evolution of email and explore why it remains as relevant and impactful as ever.

A decade of opportunities and challenges

Personalization and the journey to hyper-relevance

When I started, email was largely one-size-fits-all. Campaigns were often “send and pray” or involved very simple or binary yes/no personalization. 

Today, personalization has evolved beyond first names in subject lines to sophisticated, data-driven approaches. Marketing teams can now leverage insights from browsing behavior, purchase history, and even real-time data, adapting dynamically to each recipient’s preferences and past interactions. This technology is still advancing rapidly—it’s hard to believe that it was barely possible two decades ago. 

Rendering issues

In the past, we’d spend hours making sure emails looked as good in Outlook as they did in Gmail—and, going further back, in Lotus Notes! The visual building tools in most ESPs were buggy and produced bloated HTML that was ready for the web, but didn’t meet the unique constraints of email.

Fast forward to today, and while rendering challenges haven’t disappeared entirely, they’re far less consuming. Gmail's support for embedded CSS was a game changer, signaling an era where our designs could focus more on creativity and less on workarounds.

Rendering tools made this process easier, and drag-and-drop editors like Beefree produce clean, email-friendly HTML. What once required hours of coding and testing now takes minutes, freeing email marketers to focus on crafting their messages instead of debugging their code​​. 

Mobile-first and responsive design

Mobile-optimized email design used to be a “nice to have,” but today, it's essential. 

Brands must deliver a seamless experience across a wide range of devices and subscriber preferences​. This shift required us to think beyond just fitting content on smaller screens; it required a rethinking of layout, typography, and hierarchy. Today, it's about more than just looking good on mobile—it's about providing immediate, relevant, and accessible information.

Interactive and accessible emails

Today’s email campaigns go beyond static images and blocks of text. Interactivity, whether through embedded videos, polls, or even checkout functionality within the email, is changing the game. We’re offering richer experiences that invite users to engage directly within their inboxes​. 

At the same time, accessibility has become a critical consideration. Making sure that everyone can receive and understand your message, regardless of any disabilities or assistive devices they may be using isn’t just good practice, it's an industry standard.

Privacy, authentication, and the role of trust

Over the past decade, privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA along with authentication requirements from major receivers like Gmail and Yahoo have reshaped how people view the inbox and their relationship with brands that send email. 

While the introduction of these new regulations initially posed considerable questions, confusion, and challenges, they also served as a valuable reminder that great marketing starts with trust, transparency, and consent. This shift encouraged brands to communicate with audiences in a more transparent, respectful way, reinforcing the idea that consumers own their data.

Email’s place in the C-Suite

Email marketing has always had champions, though convincing executives of its strategic value hasn’t always been easy. Over time, email advocates—often the Email Geeks among us—have successfully positioned email not as a tool for increased revenue but as a trusted channel for delivering essential information and building long-term relationships​. Today, email is often recognized as a valuable asset in C-suite conversations about customer experience, retention, and ROI.

The power of community

The email industry has grown from a niche group into a thriving community that shares, supports, and learns from one another. I’ve had the privilege of being part of a community that openly shares best practices and fosters innovation. 

Events like Unspam, Email Camp, and Litmus Live highlight just how much email professionals have pushed boundaries over the past decade​. This spirit of collaboration keeps the industry strong and forward-looking.

My #1 Lesson: Put People First

If there’s one lesson I’ve learned, it’s this: email should serve the audience, not just the business. 

Reaching people in their inbox is a privilege, not a right. Too many brands treat email like an ATM, pumping out sales and promotions without considering the impact on loyalty, retention, or the user experience. Yet the companies that treated their emails as conversations rather than megaphones? They’re the ones that thrived.

Email is unique because it arrives in a personal space (the inbox) where people are expecting personal messages and relevance. It’s an honor to land in someone’s inbox, so the content should meet that privilege with empathy and value. 

Some of my favorite brands—like Going—understand this: they craft emails that feel like they are speaking directly to me—thoughtful, helpful, and human​​. That’s the level of care that builds trust and loyalty. 

Advice for the future: Embrace empathy and experiment

Reflecting on the past decade in email marketing feels like watching an old friend evolve. I've seen firsthand how a channel that is frequently sidelined and declared “dead” has become a pivotal player helping businesses grow and connect with their audience. 

With each email renaissance comes new trends, innovations, preferences, and technology. 

Every few years, email redefines its role in our lives as marketers, business leaders, and as humans. Email's journey has been one of resilience, adapting to new trends, regulations, and consumer expectations while remaining at the heart of customer engagement. 

For anyone starting off in email, my biggest advice is always keep your audience at the heart of your campaigns. Email marketing is both art and science, and finding that balance is what makes this industry so rewarding. 

Don’t be afraid to test your ideas—measure, refine, and get creative with how you deliver value. But always remember, the inbox is personal territory. If you respect that space, you’ll have a powerful, lasting connection with your audience.

I’d also suggest building a solid understanding of the complexity behind email—learn the basics of deliverability, the role of email in multi-channel lifecycle and marketing campaigns, connecting data and APIs, multivariate testing, and stay current with the latest tools and platforms. 

With AI, privacy regulations, and rising consumer expectations, we’re bound to see even more shifts in how we approach email. Knowing how these elements work under the hood will only make you a more effective, innovative marketer. 

But one thing remains: the need to make email human-centric. This will mean staying adaptable and continuing to create value-driven content that aligns with the subscriber's needs. Far from dead, the real magic of email is the central role it plays in our lives—and it’s not going anywhere. Here’s to another decade of email evolution 🙌

5 Reasons Why HubSpot Users Love Beefree

HubSpot’s design tools can sometimes feel restrictive for marketers looking to create distinctive branding or highly customized designs. This is where Beefree comes in.
Beefree team
Beefree team
5 Dec
2024

HubSpot is one of the world’s leading CRMs, seamlessly merging sales, marketing, and customer service into a single, powerful dashboard. With tools for email marketing, lead generation, and landing page creation, HubSpot enables you to connect with customers more effectively and drive meaningful results.

However, HubSpot’s design tools can sometimes feel restrictive for marketers looking to create distinctive branding or highly customized designs.

This is where Beefree comes in—the ideal solution for HubSpot users looking to flex their creative chops in designing emails and landing pages. With drag-and-drop editing, advanced customization options, and an extensive template library, Beefree makes it easy to capture your brand’s identity and stand out in today’s crowded market.

https://uevi.co/7371IQEF 

1. 1,700+ free customizable email and page templates

HubSpot’s templates work for simple designs, but users often describe them as “bland” or “limiting.” 

Beefree users are spoiled for choice with over 1,700 free customizable templates that go far beyond HubSpot’s basic designs. These templates serve as the perfect starting point for building impactful campaigns.

Beefree’s intuitive design tools let you tweak the template in real time, making it easy to produce professional-quality creations that perfectly reflect your brand’s identity—no design experience required. These pre-built layouts are major time-savers, too, with 82% of users reporting faster email creation using Beefree.

https://uevi.co/7371IQEF

2. Advanced design elements for true creative freedom

Customization can be a challenge for many HubSpot users; for instance, some report that it’s “impossible” to create a table without coding the design yourself. Unfortunately, not every user has the technical skills—not to mention the time—to perfect their emails with HubSpot alone. 

Beefree elevates your designs with an extensive collection of creative elements, all easily customizable using its powerful editor.

Some of these elements, like rounded corners and unlimited columns, aren’t available in HubSpot. Others, like creating a table to present data in a clean and organized way, are far easier to build in Beefree.

These creative elements make it that much easier to showcase your brand identity, communicate your message effectively, and design beautiful, original campaigns. They help you move beyond cookie-cutter designs and deliver something truly unique.

Remember: Eye-catching emails grab your audience’s attention instantly, helping your message stand out in crowded inboxes while staying true to your brand.

https://uevi.co/9986ULYW

3. Reusable content blocks for always-on-brand campaigns

Beefree’s reusable content blocks make it simple to maintain consistency across all your campaigns.

Simply save your branded elements—headers, footers, logos, and CTA buttons—once, then re-use them in future designs with a single click of a button.

This convenient feature helps HubSpot users streamline their workflow by eliminating repetitive design tasks — potentially saving you hours per campaign. 

https://uevi.co/1491YKUH 

4. Mobile-responsive designs out the box

Beefree’s editor includes built-in mobile responsiveness, which means your emails and landing pages automatically adjust to any screen size with no extra effort. This ensures your campaigns look great on every device, from desktops to smartphones.

For even greater control, Beefree supports mobile design mode, enabling HubSpot users to fine-tune your designs for smaller screens. Simply select the device size you’re optimizing for and make adjustments using the intuitive visual editor.

This allows you to deliver a tailored, on-brand experience, no matter how your audience views your content.

https://uevi.co/4690JNKE 

5. Easy integration

Whether you're crafting unique branded elements or designing dynamic content, Beefree gives you the tools to create campaigns that align perfectly with your brand vision. Best of all, integrating HubSpot with Beefree takes just seconds. 

Beefree and HubSpot: A match made in email heaven

Integrating Beefree with HubSpot offers a powerful solution for marketers looking to elevate their email campaigns. HubSpot provides the engine for powering your marketing, while Beefree boosts the creative aspect, letting you bring your brand vision to life with ease.

For example, one of Beefree’s customers, Folderly—an all-in-one email deliverability platform—experienced significant improvements by combining HubSpot and Beefree. 

By designing emails in Beefree and sending them using HubSpot, Folderly streamlined their workflow, reducing campaign creation time from days to hours. This efficiency freed the team to focus on other key tasks, while maintaining high-quality, on-brand designs.

This integration not only sped up their processes but also boosted open rates by 15%, demonstrating the effectiveness of combining Beefree's advanced design tools with HubSpot's marketing automation.

“With Beefree, we can create beautiful designs and quickly integrate them into our workflows. By connecting our HubSpot account to Beefree, we can easily transfer the email designs to HubSpot, making the entire process highly efficient and smooth.”

- Kate Lavrenchuk, Marketing Lead at Folderly

Read more about Folderly’s success story with Beefree here

How to Conduct a Robust Email Marketing Audit

An email audit is a health check of every aspect of your email marketing campaigns. It means analyzing your current efforts to identify areas for improvement. Here's how to conduct a robust email audit.
Beefree team
Beefree team
27 Nov
2024

Email remains one of the most effective marketing channels around, but what do you do when your campaigns aren’t getting the desired results? If your click-through rates and conversions are languishing way below your targets, it may be time for an email marketing audit. 

Regular audits make sure every area of your email marketing is fine-tuned, whilst also keeping you compliant with data protection regulations. Keep reading for our tips on conducting a comprehensive audit that will get your email marketing in top-notch condition.

How to audit an email marketing program

There are many aspects that go into creating high-performing email marketing campaigns and an audit aims to address all of them. Here’s how to make yours as successful as possible. 

Preparing for the audit 

Before doing anything else, it’s best to decide what your goals are. Your priorities will likely be primarily performance-based but don’t forget about your data privacy responsibilities along the way. Adopting a risk management solution early on can help you monitor security and compliance, so you can efficiently find and address any vulnerabilities. 

This will give you peace of mind as you also work towards improving the results of your email campaigns. Whether it’s boosting engagement or improving conversion rates, having a clear idea of what you want to achieve will guide your efforts. 

For example, if your main goal is to improve customer retention, it’s a good idea to focus your email audit on metrics that reflect engagement over time. Another thing you want to organize before you get started is the right tools. Just as you need the right free proxy list for your IT department, you need to look at the tools that will best serve your email campaigns.

Start with your email service provider (ESP) dashboard to plan which metrics you want to look at. An email analytics platform is also an important tool to help you track your progress, ideally one that integrates with your SP, so you have everything in one place to assess progress and make informed decisions. 

Reviewing email content 

Take a good look at your email content. Does it reflect your brand voice? Is it consistent with your messaging across other platforms? If you think there is room for improvement, an AI email assistant can be a big help. 

Start with your subject lines and consider whether they are clear, inviting, and engaging. A subject line works best when it makes the recipient curious but also gives them a clue to what’s in the email. Look at the body of the emails next and assess whether there is continuity in style and tone across your communications. 

What’s more, is it in line with the goals of your campaign? You want the messaging to be engaging with relevant content. Plus, it’s advisable for every email to have a strong call to action (CTA) that will drive your email clicks, and make them enticing and actionable for the best results. 

Finally, take stock of the visual elements of your emails, are they adding value? Do they look good on all kinds of screen sizes? Getting the email design elements right will maintain a professional look and also help the engagement rates of your campaigns. 

Analyzing email metrics

Another important part of an email marketing audit is tracking the right metrics. They will give you the information you need to make changes and create a more effective email marketing strategy

  • Open rates: It’s good to get a clear idea of how many people are actually opening your emails. However, bear in mind that some privacy features, such as Apple’s Mail privacy Protection, can skew this data so it’s not always reliable on its own.
  • Click-Through Rates (CTR): If your recipients actually open your emails, how many then take action? Your CTR will show you how good your email engagement is and tell you how well your content is working.
  • Bounce rates and unsubscribe rates: A high bounce rate indicates deliverability problems, suggesting you may have a lot of invalid email addresses or potential email list management issues. Unsubscribe rates, on the other hand, will tell you whether your recipients are switching off from your content.  

A/B testing as an optimization tool

To really understand email performance metrics, A/B testing is required. It’s a valuable tool for achieving continuous improvement within lifecycle email marketing and will help you to understand what’s working (and what isn't) much quicker. 

For the best results, test one element at a time. That could be the subject line, the CTA, or even the time of day you send the email. Send two different versions to small segments of your email list and analyze the performance metrics to see which one does better. Going forward, you can keep the best elements of each test to optimize every email you send. 

Email list hygiene and segmentation 

Regular housekeeping of your subscriber list will keep it clean and make sure your emails are received by an engaged audience. A good starting point is to try re-engagement email campaigns to get inactive subscribers involved again. Still, it’s also wise to routinely identify and remove those who remain inactive after a reasonable attempt at re-engagement. 

You can also improve the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns through segmentation, which targets specific demographics or behaviors for a more personal approach. Use data from your CRM platform and CRM call center software to create more precise audience segments and tailor the content of your emails for the biggest impact.

It’s also vital to maintain compliance with regional data protection laws such as GDPR email marketing requirements by carefully managing consent and acting on unsubscribes efficiently, thereby safeguarding your brand reputation and the security of your data. 

Email deliverability and technical settings

Technical configurations are responsible for getting your emails into recipients’ inboxes. Email authentication protocols such as SPF, DKIM, and DMARC verify them and prevent them from ending up in a spam folder. 

Keep reviewing email frequency and send times too, as sending them at the wrong time can harm engagement and present issues with deliverability. Additionally, keep up to date with email practices to avoid spam traps and protect your reputation. 

If you’re handling sensitive customer data, getting your infrastructure in line with SOC 2 audit requirements will make sure that your email system is in full compliance with security and privacy standards. You can then be confident that your customer's data will be kept safe and their trust maintained.

Building a future-ready strategy 

A successful email marketing audit will give you the knowledge to develop a strategy to scale and continuously improve in the future. You might identify opportunities to automate repetitive tasks to improve the consistency of service and save time. 

Another way to improve your campaigns is a content calendar, which will keep you on track with your goals and important events. You might also consider integrating your email with other channels, such as SMS marketing, to create continuity in omnichannel communication

Remember, if you do incorporate SMS marketing, TCPA compliance is essential. It regulates how and when you can send marketing messages to customers. This is important from a legal standpoint, but will also make sure you don’t damage the trust your customers have shown in you by sharing their contact details. 

Your first steps towards a better email strategy 

An email audit is a health check of every aspect of your email marketing campaigns. It means taking the time to analyze what you’re doing currently so you can work out where you’re most in need of improvement. The result is a detailed picture that allows you to take action and optimize your email marketing efforts for better engagement, clicks, and conversion rates.

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