When people ask me what I do, it is rare that the person knows what “email marketing” is. I explain it like this:
”You know how you get emails from the Gap telling you about their sale? It got there by a team of people working to design, write, develop and deliver it to your inbox. I am one of those people who figure out the best way to show you this message so you can get that sweater you have been eyeing for 20% off.”
That usually explains it enough for people to understand that I work on a team that gets those promotional emails into their inboxes every day. I get it, unless you work in advertising or have done some email marketing yourself why would you think about how those emails got into your inbox?
The truth is, so much work goes into a successful email campaign. For example, did you know that there are over 90 email clients and devices that emails are viewed on, and most of them will display the code that generates the email differently? The code that I develop has to show up the same for people using Gmail on their desktop as well as those opening the email on their iPhone. It is no easy task, but after doing it for so long I have developed templates and snippets of code that help me pull together an email pretty quickly, and my experience gives me a great eye for correcting any issues that may come up.
I also design email creative, laying out the text and images just right so the email looks great and is successful. Usually, success is measured by how many people click through to the website or specific promotion’s page, ultimately leading to a sale. Or, it could be how many people click through to register for an upcoming event or donate to a charity. Finding just the right way to present the offer to you is just as important as the offer itself - you probably wouldn’t click on an email that had broken images or text that was unreadable, right? This is where my background in graphic design comes in handy, and my skills in digital design are put to use to create emails that are eye catching, readable, and easy to click through.
The world of email marketing is an interesting niche part of digital advertising that I am glad to be a part of. I hope this post helped to shine some light on the world of email and what I “do”.