How to Send a Mass Email in 2024 That Gets Opened and Clicked
A mass email is a message sent to a large list of subscribers simultaneously.
You have a great offer and would want to reach as many people as possible without wasting too much time or resources. What do you do?
Send mass emails!
Mass emails are powerful tools for capturing the attention of many people at once. However, one wrong move can land you straight in the spam folder or, worse, get you flagged.
That’s why learning how to plan and execute mass emails is critical. We’ll guide you through the entire process, from planning your content to avoiding spam filters and building trust with your recipients.
Ultimately, our aim is to help your mass emails get opened and clicked for higher conversions.
What is a Mass Email?
A mass email, also called bulk email or email blast, is sent to a large group of recipients at once. Imagine sending an important promotion or an event registration update to thousands of people — a mass email can handle it all.
The decision to send bulk emails ultimately depends on your purpose and need. You may have a limited-time deal that people must know of immediately. Or perhaps it’s an account update that needs to be sent to a large group of subscribers.
Mass emails help achieve a specific objective, such as:
- Making a big announcement,
- Sending brand updates,
- Promoting a time-sensitive product,
- Introducing the launch of a new product or service.
While email blasts may appear generic and dull, you can personalize your mass email to some extent, depending on your recipients.
Before that, it’s critical to use proper mass email techniques to maintain trust with your recipients.
The Importance of Proper Mass Email Techniques
The proper use of mass emails can help you reach a wider audience and attain measurable results. However, it may not be that simple; with overflowing recipient inboxes and spam filters, it can be challenging to get your messages seen.
However, using mass email techniques can help you:
- Reach a targeted audience: Segmenting your email list based on demographics, user behavior, and preferences will help you send relevant email messages to the recipients.
- Build relationships: Mass emails are more than just broadcasting information; they are an opportunity to nurture customer relationships.
- Protect your sender reputation: Following proper mass email techniques will save your emails from landing in spam folders and prevent recipients from unsubscribing.
- Enhance engagement: Good use of email subject lines, content, and images can lead to happy customers and higher engagement.
- Build trust and credibility: Mass email techniques allow you to deliver relevant and valuable information consistently.
Proper mass email techniques are fundamental to achieving high email deliverability and marketing objectives and maintaining the sender reputation.
To help you master the art of sending mass emails, let’s go over their do’s and don’ts.
The Do’s and Don’ts of Sending Mass Emails
Before we look at how to send a mass email, it’s essential to know the do’s and don’ts.
| Sending Mass Email – Do’s | Sending Mass Email – Don’ts |
|---|---|
| Obtain permission from recipients | Purchase email lists |
| Personalize content based on recipient data | Overload emails with unnecessary content |
| Write compelling subject lines | Use misleading subject lines |
| Provide valuable and relevant content | Neglect mobile optimization |
| Include clear CTAs | Use generic CTAs |
| Test emails across email clients and platforms | Violate anti-spam laws |
Planning your mass email campaign is more about escaping the spam filters and keeping your recipients happy. Without a safety net, you could end up in a digital prison and never be able to send emails again.
Tips to Avoid Spam Filters and Getting Unsubscribed
Mass emails are a double-edged sword. They offer incredible reach, but sending them the wrong way can tarnish years of goodwill.
While it takes practice to send relevant and safe mass emails, here are quick tips to help you avoid the pitfalls:
- Watch your language: Spam filters have a keen eye for words and phrases that sound or look like spam. Avoid ALL CAPS, exclamation marks, and words such as “Free”, “Urgent”, or “Guarantee.”
- Be transparent in the subject line: Irrelevant and promotional lines are a red flag for spam filters. Give recipients a gist of the email message and avoid hyping it up.
- Pay attention to the design: Spam filters also review email content and design — avoid too many images and links in the same email.
- Permission is key: Only send mass emails to those who have opted-in to receive them. Refrain from purchasing email lists for the sake of increasing subscriber count.
- Make unsubscribing easy: Keep the unsubscribe button readily available in case the recipients want to opt out. This is also a pre-requisite of the CAN-SPAM Act.
Campaign Refinery makes it super easy for your recipients to unsubscribe by providing a clear option at the email footer.
With these tips, you can strike a balance between reach and relevance. What’s more, plan your content well ahead of time and offer value with every mass email you send out.
How to Plan Your Mass Email Campaign
You have a special offer that you want the world to know. Before you decide to blast your messages, take time to plan out your emails.
Here’s a roadmap to help you craft successful mass email campaign.
Define Your Goals
Set clear goals as the first step toward outlining a successful mass email campaign. Goals provide purpose and direction, enabling you to focus on the most important parts of the campaign.
Identify the primary objective of your mass email campaign. Are you looking to drive sales, build awareness, or increase conversions? Answering these questions will help you narrow down options, prioritizing the most effective ones.
Defining your goals can look similar to the criteria below:
- Ensure your goals are specific and relevant to your overall marketing strategy. You can use the SMART goal method to determine the purpose of sending a mass email.
- Decide which email campaign metrics and KPIs you want to track. Determine which of these will indicate the success of your mass email campaign.
- Align your goals with audience needs by understanding their pain points and motivation.
- Regularly review and refine goals based on your business changes or changes in the recipient behavior or needs.
Understand Your Audience
Let’s assume you have different email lists for various categories, should you send a mass email to everybody on these lists? The answer is no.
Sending the same email to everyone is like mixing apples and oranges. You want to define the criteria for who your ideal audience is and what you would like them to do.
Now beware, just because these people have similar interests doesn’t mean your email will resonate the same way with everyone.
Divide customers based on demographics, preferences, and pain points. Analyze past data and check current trends to understand where your target group is in the buying process. For an in-depth study, try analyzing your competitors. Look at their messaging strategies and engagement tactics.
Based on your email service platform, you will be able to utilize segmentation tools to quickly and efficiently divide audiences.
Campaign Refinery allows you to segment audiences precisely based on their preferences and behavior. The advanced tag system lets clients easily categorize groups based on different criteria.
Build Your Email List
What if you’re starting from scratch and don’t have an email list yet? Worry not!
You can start building your email list with one of the 5 proven strategies below:
- Collect email addresses through opt-in forms. This is mandatory according to the email regulatory acts, and can damage your sender reputation if you don’t follow email marketing best practices.
- Offer compelling lead magnets such as whitepaper, e-books, and email courses. Require users to opt-in to access these resources.
- Host webinars or events and require attendees to register with their email addresses. This way, you’ll build a valid email address list and gather more people you can send emails to.
- Run contests or giveaways to encourage participants to submit their email addresses for entry. You can then use these addresses to send out winner list, promotions, or even email coupons.
- Partner with influencers or affiliates to spread the word about your offers and brand. Offer exclusive commissions for driving email sign-ups through their channels. While collaborating with influencers is normal practice, refrain from purchasing email lists for quicker access to people. This can cause irreversible damage to your brand reputation and alert the ISPs to flag your emails.
Remember to always obtain consent from people before adding them to your email list and follow email compliance and protection protocols such as GDPR or CAN-SPAM Act.
Campaign Refinery is against illicit email marketing practices and terminates user accounts indulging in such. The platform is a collective of responsible and serious senders, enhancing email marketing every step of the way.
Choose an Email Marketing Platform
This is the most critical step and forms the base for all other mass email marketing strategies. Selecting a platform depends on your needs, budget, and preferences.
To help you analyze popular ESPs on the market, we’ve consolidated their strengths and starting prices in the table below.
| S. No | ESP | PRICING | USERS | KEY BENEFITS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | MailChimp | $0 to $138/month | Marketing and advertising, non-profits. | Helps create effective multi-channel marketing campaigns with drag-and-drop templates. Email deliverability rate of 95.5% – Emailtooltester. |
| 2. | Constant Contact | Starts at $12/month | Small businesses | Helps build strong connections and powerful results through automation. |
| 3. | MailerLite | $0 to $18/month. Customized pricing for enterprises. | Small and medium-sized businesses, freelancers, solopreneurs. | Helps nurture relationships through advanced features like pop-ups, embedded surveys, Facebook custom audiences, and auto-resend campaigns. |
| 4. | Campaign Refinery | Starts at $99/month to $1k+/month for enterprises. | Mid Size Business, Small Business, Enterprise, Freelance, Nonprofit, and the government. | Ensures the highest email deliverability rate on the market. Beginner-friendly UI, unlimited storage of contacts, and the creation of different audience segments for higher deliverability. Scrubs list by removing complainers, spam traps, bots, and more. |
Go through each ESP’s features and pricing to determine the best fit.
Design Your Email
This is where you utilize the creative side of email marketing. People usually scan emails unless it contains critical information such as in a transactional email.
Structure your emails for better readability —- use proper typefaces, font, and image size. Define the layout and place elements such as the email header, body content, CTA, and email footer in prominent areas. Most importantly, don’t forget to incorporate your branding elements such as logos and brand colors.
Too much text can weigh down email engagement, so try to balance it with visuals and links, if necessary.
Craft Compelling Subject Lines and Preheaders
The subject line and preheader text decide if recipients will open your emails or send them straight to the trash. The powerful combo creates the first impression with recipients, especially when sending a mass email.
Writing effective subject lines can take time and effort, but it doesn’t always have to be a lengthy process. We have compiled subject line and preheader best practices to help you get started.
| Subject Line | Preheader Text |
|---|---|
| Keep it short — aim for 30 – 50 characters | Expand on the subject line while keeping it short and relevant |
| Be transparent about what’s inside the email | Create a sense of curiosity with a question or statement |
| Tell recipients what they will receive by opening the email | Maintain a consistent tone and style throughout all mass emails |
| Personalize the subject line with the recipient’s name | Highlight key information |
| Test different variations to find the most successful option | Steer clear of spammy words and phrases |
Choose the Right Day and Time
A mass email sent at the wrong time is like self-inviting trouble. Depending on the audience type, the time you send emails can differ. For example, a CEO would prefer to read out-of-work emails during the weekends while a working mom might prefer office hours.
This is where you draw the line and study your subscribers to analyze the perfect time to send a mass email. Generally, marketing emails perform well during the mid-week, typically between 10 am – 3 pm.
If you still need to figure out a perfect time, check the industry benchmarks and draw inspiration. Although you’ve got the data, selecting the right time depends on your needs. Feel free to A/B test your mass email and examine past data.
So you’ve got the basics right, now, how do you send a mass email? Should you use an email client or an email service provider. Let’s examine the right ways below.
How to Send Out Mass Emails With Gmail and Other Popular Email Providers
Popular email services such as Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo follow similar methods to send mass emails.
You can send a mass email on these platforms by following the basic steps outlined below:
- Compose an email,
- Start MailMerge,
- Select your recipients or import your CSV file,
- Personalize the greeting line field,
- Click on ”Finish” and Merge.
Although these platforms allow mass email personalization, you might face issues with the number of recipients you can add to the BCC field or managing large email lists and tracking their performance.
The best way is to work with a trusted email service provider that ensures your mass emails reach your intended recipients at the right time, also called email deliverability.
The Best Way to Send Mass Email
If you have a massive email list, the best way to send a mass email is through an ESP.
Campaign Refinery can help you drive results through the following features and tools:
- Higher email sending limits: Campaign Refinery can handle high volumes of emails without affecting the process and causing technical errors.
- Advanced features: You can segment lists with tags, build visually appealing emails with the Campaign Library, and automate emails, set up autoresponders, and manage unsubscribe requests efficiently.
- Highest email deliverability: From monitoring spam triggers to implementing good-sending practices, clients achieve the highest inbox placement on the market. Clients immediately notice a 600% increase in email deliverability after working with us.
- Robust analytics: Understand where you stand with your recipients through a single-view dashboard filled with analytics and performance reports.
- Other unique features: When running a promotion, you can utilize the Evergreen Flash Sale feature to urge customers to take advantage of the time-sensitive offers. On regular days, use the Engagement Rewards feature to giveaway points to recipients for every action they take on your email campaign.
Campaign Refinery has helped numerous marketers like yourself to make the most of their email marketing efforts. Our clients enjoy premium features and hand-picked resources and guides, personally formulated by our Founder, Travis Ketchum.
We’re excited to share with you a tried and tested workbook below.
The Only Guide You Need to Reach More People
The Inbox Formula is the secret to sending emails that get higher clicks, opens, and ultimately — higher sales.
The guide is packed with information that helps you send emails that convert. In this guide, you’ll learn to:
- Skip the spam traps and get your emails delivered to the recipients.
- Learn about the technical side of email marketing, including authentication protocols such as SPF, DKIM, and DMARC.
- Look at and learn from successful email marketers who have scaled their email volume and performance at all levels.
To streamline your mass emails with powerful tools and reach more people — sign up to join Campaign Refinery today!
