The Events of Email (Everything You Need To Know)

Email marketing isn’t just about sending an email and hoping for the best. While you can certainly do this, it is more strategic, and measurable, and will ultimately bring you better results if you analyze the stages and events your email goes through.

If this sounds complicated, don’t worry - that’s where we come in. We’ve put together a comprehensive guide explaining everything you need to know about the events of an email campaign, as well as the different stages of email marketing and types of emails you could send, plus some tips on structuring an email if you’re unsure.

Events of an Email Campaign

When it comes to the events and stages of an email, this can be divided up into two categories:
1. The different processes/events that occur as an email is sent.

2. The steps that are taken to create a successful email campaign.

Let’s start with the processes and events. We’ve included these below with a more detailed explanation of each:

Scheduled

After you create your email, the first status that it will have is to be ‘Scheduled’. This essentially means that you’ve allocated a day and time that the email will be sent. The email provider will take care of the sending portion from here.

It’s important to think about warming up an email list when it comes to organizing a campaign. You can learn more about warming up via this guide on how to warm up your email domain. This will help you protect your domain, improve deliverability, and make your emails more effective.

Sent

Once the scheduled date and time have come, your email will be sent. This essentially means that your email has left your account and is in the process of being delivered to the recipients.

It’s important to distinguish the difference between ‘Sent’ and ‘Delivered’. If an email is ‘Sent’, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s been read or even that it’s landed in your subscriber’s inbox. It purely means that it has left the email provider - more on ‘Delivered’ in the next section.

Delivered

If your email is marked as ‘Delivered’, this means that it’s been safely received by your subscriber. This is great, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that your subscriber has opened it or that it’s landed in their inbox.

It may be that your email has landed in your subscriber’s spam folder. Check out these tips for maximizing email deliverability and avoiding the dreaded junk box.

Opened

Here’s the email event we all want to see when measuring our campaigns: ‘Opened’. This means that not only has your email been delivered, but it’s been opened by your subscriber and they may be enjoying its content as we speak.

To improve your “Opened” rate, you could make your subject line more compelling or try using audience segmentation. Take a look at this case study to see the daily newsletter targeting Gen-Zs in Boston -- B-Side, Gets 60% Open Rates Using the beehiiv Platform!

Bounced

Finally, here’s the email event that you really don’t want to see on your email campaign: ‘Bounced’. This essentially means that your email hasn’t been delivered and has ‘bounced’ from your recipient’s email server.

There are several reasons why this may have happened. It could be because your subscriber’s email is no longer in use or your newsletter may contain a lot of spam-related content which is leading to it being filtered from your recipient’s inbox. Check out these 200 Top Spam Trigger Words To Avoid in Email Marketing to prevent your emails from being bounced.

What Are the 5 Steps of Email Marketing?

Now that you know the events/statuses an email can have, let’s take a look at the steps of email marketing and what these involve:

1. Aim - The first and ultimately most important step in email marketing is establishing an aim for your campaign. If you don’t have a clear goal, it’s impossible to measure your campaign effectively, and you’re likely to receive a low conversion rate on your email newsletter. Think about what you want to achieve from an email to improve the chances of making this a reality.

2. Creation - Next up is the fun bit — email creation. This consists of the content that your email will include, but this isn’t just limited to copy. Make sure to include many forms of content such as high-quality graphics, videos, and interactive elements to keep your subscribers engaged.

3. Subscriber List - Speaking of subscribers, your subscriber list is the next step in email marketing. You’ll want to make sure your subscriber list is nicely warmed up prior to sending any transactional emails (more on this later), as this will help protect your domain from bounced emails on a repeated basis and help increase your conversion rate.

4. Schedule - Once you have your subscriber list ready to go, you can get to work scheduling your campaign. Think about the cadence and frequency of your email newsletters to make sure you’re sending them at appropriate times for your audience and that you’re striking a balance between too little/too often.

5. Measure - Good campaign measurement can significantly improve the results of future email campaigns. By learning from what worked (and what did not), you can improve your current newsletter results. Measure typical metrics such as bounce rate, open rate, and Click Through Rate (CTR) and use measurement tools such as the beehiiv 3D Analytics system to delve deeper into campaign results!

   

Why listen to me? I have been working in the digital marketing space for nearly 8 years, predominantly helping brands with their email marketing and online presence. I now specialize in creating great content surrounding email newsletters to help people nail their email strategies.

What Are the Stages of Email Marketing / Subscribers?

Now that we’ve covered events and steps of email marketing, let’s move on to the stages of email marketing and subscriber building. This essentially means the different stages that you go through when creating a subscriber list and how this affects your email campaigns.

Onboarding

The first main stage of email marketing when it comes to subscribers is onboarding. This ultimately means building an email list and trying to get as many subscribers signed up as possible.

At this stage, it’s unlikely that you’ll know very much about these subscribers and what they’re expecting from being a member of your mailing list, so some welcome emails that are geared towards learning more about your subscribers are key at this stage.

Warming Up

Next up is the warming-up stage. This refers to sending some tentative emails to your subscribers to see what they’re interested in receiving from you and segmenting your audience based on this information. You could include polls within these emails to collect insights on your subscribers to improve future campaigns.

Promotional Email

The last stage is to send your subscribers a promotional email. This should be done after you’ve warmed up your audience and will increase your chances of getting good results from sales-related communications.

This may include a specific discount code for a sale your brand has launched, or you may have chosen a particular product you believe your subscribers will be interested in based on your analysis/segmentation of your list.

What Are the 4 Types of Email Marketing?

When it comes to email marketing, there are 4 different types that you can experiment with. We’ve included these below to give you a head start on what types of emails you should be sending.

• Teaser - To build anticipation surrounding a new product/event, you may decide to send an email teaser. This is essentially a sneak peek at something new that you’re offering and is a great way of determining which of your subscribers may be interested in your new offering and can help generate interest.

• Informative - The next type of email marketing is informative emails. These emails tend to be less promotional and provide insight into company updates or new developments that your subscribers may be interested in. Informative emails help build trust with subscribers, demonstrating that you’re not only emailing them when you want to send them a promotion.

• Promotional - There’s nothing wrong with sending a good promotional email to help increase sales for your brand. These emails could be linked to your website and have the aim of having a great conversion rate. Avoid sending promotional emails too often to prevent putting off subscribers and don’t forget to warm up subscriber lists before sending a promotional email.

• Transactional - Transactional emails are sent to a subscriber once they’ve made a purchase. These emails are lovely to send, as the recipient is clearly engaged since they’ve already made a purchase. Some transactional emails will be automated, but sending a personal thank you to a new customer can go a long way. Keep them brief and avoid including any marketing or promotional material.

How Do You Structure an Email Campaign?

Lastly, we’ve got some top tips on how to structure an email campaign to ensure your newsletter is as effective as possible. Let’s get straight into it.

Header

The top of your email should contain a well-designed header that creates a positive first impression and shows your subscriber who the email is from.

Effective email headers usually include your brand logo, contact details, and some quick links to introduce your email and encourage users to click through to your website.

Main Body

The section below the header is the main body of your email newsletter. This section is where you can create different sections with containers to provide your audience with the content you want them to see.

This content could be in the form of copy, images, videos, or interactive elements such as polls or subscription options to keep your audience engaged. You should also include at least one Call to Action (CTA) within the main body of your email to direct them to other areas such as your website or blog.

Footer

The final section of your email should be the footer. This section is often overlooked but is critical in creating a good endpoint for your email and directing users to where they can go next.

A successful footer will usually contain links to your social media channels, a final CTA, and the option to unsubscribe.

Get Started With Your Email Campaign With beehiiv

Now that you have everything you need when it comes to the different events, stages, and types of email campaigns, you can start creating your own!

With beehiiv, you can create beautiful email newsletters that your subscribers will love, along with a platform that helps you easily measure your campaigns and make strategic changes to improve results.

beehiiv provides other benefits such as monetization for your emails and advanced 3D analytics. Plus, it’s compatible with a range of other popular tools such as WordPress, Stripe, and Shopify.

So what are you waiting for? Sign up for a free trial with beehiiv today and start creating your own campaigns!