An email broadcast or blast sends an email message to many readers on your mailing list. Whether launching new merchandise, announcing a spring campaign, or promoting your e-book, you’re probably starting with an email blast service.
This is an incredibly effective way for companies to get more significant revenue; even bloggers use it to get more traffic to their new traffic.
In this blog, we’ll demonstrate how to do an email blast properly and share some email blast examples.
What is an Email Blast?
An email blast is an email message that is sent to a whole email list or many email lists all at once.
These email blasts target all contacts primarily in a mailing list, making these email blast campaigns have a broad reach.
Email blasts are also known as mass emails, broadcast emails, or bulk emails. Here are some reasons why marketers have a bad opinion of email blasts:
- Emails are sent to as many people as possible, no matter if the sender has the right permissions;
- Emails are usually not part of a broader strategy aimed at building a long-term relationship with the customers;
- It usually doesn’t matter who is on the receiving end; what matters is the number of clicks.
Some even feel that email blast is an obsolete strategy to grow your email list and engage existing customers or subscribers. There’s some truth in that, but there are ways to use email blasts to engage your potential customers effectively.
Are Email Blasts Old-Fashioned?
Email blasts are known for delivering messages to many people; some consider it an old-fashioned way to receive communication. You must also be confused about the difference between an email blast and an email marketing campaign. Both sound similar. But there are some striking differences between the two.
Email campaigns are part of your email marketing strategy and are personalized, customized, and sent at a strategic time. A lot of thought, planning, and insights go into creating and sending an email campaign.
On the other hand, email blasts are more like mass emails sent to the entire email list without personalization or customer segmentation. You can think of them as mass-market promotions that are for everyone to receive and make use of.
| Email Blasts | Email Campaigns |
| 1) Emails are sent to the entire email list, in batches or all at once 2) Emails are not segmented and personalized 3) Sent simultaneously to everyone without considering where the readers are located | 1) Sent to a targeted or segmented audience 2) Personalized to reflect the subscribers’ needs 3) Sent according to the recipient’s time zone and according to their past behavior |
For the same reasons, blast emails can sometimes be highly irrelevant for the recipient, giving them the tag of being ‘old fashioned’. Here are some reasons:
- Email Blasts are Unexpected: Blast emails are unexpected and can breed natural resistance from the recipients. People get hundreds of emails daily, so if they have something they don’t expect to see, they automatically delete it. Email blasts are different from personalized email campaigns, which people on your mailing list expect to receive in the first place.
- Email Blasts are Unsegmented: When sending email blasts, most companies use entire mailing lists without categorizing the recipients into behavioral or unique segments. They fail to target the recipients’ needs and interests and cater to their unique requirements.
- Email Blasts are Not Personalized: Since they’re crafted as mass marketing messages, email blasts lack any form of personalization. Such emails end up feeling like spam to the recipients. Therefore, they have low open and engagement rates.
Want to learn how to personalize your email campaigns?
Read on: 7+ Email Personalization Practices with Real Examples
Despite their shortcomings, email blasts are not dead. Your inbox can vouch for that. No matter how much we deny it, there’s a demand to send email blasts correctly.
Email Blast Examples
Here are two examples if you’re searching for email blast inspiration for future email marketing campaigns. Feel free to use the elements or design your email blast on similar lines.
Flash Sale Announcement Blast by Ipsy
Flash sales are a great reason to send an email blast to your subscriber list. Take a look at the flash sale email blast by Ipsy:
Subject Line: ⚠️Flash Sale closes soon… ⏱️to stock up
The simple emailer has a giant clock designed as a star as if telling users not to lose this shiny opportunity to grab their favorite products before the sale ends. The email copy, too, reminds them to hurry and grab their favorites at special prices in the flash sale. The CTA button in a contrasting color stands out from the rest of the email.
Key Takeaways
- Keep the email short and straightforward;
- Add interactive elements like countdown timers to flash sale email blasts;
- Add a CTA button in a contrasting color to the rest of the email.
New Product Launch Blast by Carbon38
Scheduling an email blast on a new product launch is a nice tactic to generate interest in your product. Many brands plan elaborate automation campaigns weeks before the actual launch. Here’s a product launch email blast by Carbon38:
Subject Line: JUST LAUNCHED 🐾 THE CANINE COLLECTION
The email looks attractive with all its bright colors. The subject line shares exactly what to expect inside. The email copy and header image are witty enough for people to keep scrolling, check out the offering, and click on the CTA.
Key Takeaways
- Keep your email blasts attractive and colorful;
- Use emojis in subject lines;
- Add a dash of humor or personality to your email copy.
How to Send an Email Blast?
Companies use email blasts along with email marketing campaigns to promote their product, discounts, etc., primarily because they’re cheap and do the job of passing the message across.
If you’re not a professional marketer, here is a step-by-step guide on how to send an email blast the right way to engage your subscribers:
1. Choose an Email Blast Service
The first and obvious step is choosing a reliable email blast service provider with all the necessary features. There are hundreds of service providers such as HubSpot, Mailchimp, Omnisend, Moosend, Sendinblue (and many more) that you can use to create and send email blasts.
Sender is one of the most affordable email marketing solutions with in-built marketing tools, making it a breeze to quickly and efficiently create engaging emails, SMS, and popups.
It’s an omnichannel automation feature that supports SMS and email, making it an excellent solution for businesses trying to boost conversion rates by creating compelling customer journeys.
2. Target Your Email List
Email targeting or segmentation is the most crucial aspect of an email blast campaign. Email targeting is dividing your email readers into smaller groups. You can target your email subscribers based on age, geographical location, gender, purchase history, etc.
For example, a spa may create different segments for couples, parents with kids, with different emails.
3. Create a Targeted Newsletter Blast
After segmenting audiences, it’s time for a message; the next task is to create a targeted email campaign. You can create an email differently depending on the discount offer, promotion, etc.
You can use Sender to start a new blast campaign quickly. Add the essentials — subject line, preview text, from, and email address to get started. In the next step, you can add your email content and design.
4. Create and Personalize Content
This is the most important step in creating your email blast campaign. Once you finalize the basics of the email blast, you will have to start working towards creating your email content. The first step is usually writing the email copy, but you can even start working from a pre-designed email template.
Sender has a drag-and-drop email design builder with a vast library of readymade design templates. All you need to do is pick a design template, start customizing it using your logo and brand guidelines, and easily create content for your email blast.
While you’re writing the actual content for the blast, keep the following things in mind:
- Keep your email short and sweet.
- Have a clear thought (and idea) in mind about what you want to promote to the audience;
- Use the knowledge of your audience’s interests, likes, and dislikes to personalize your email header, content, and even design;
- Add flavor and personality to your email copy by adding references you know your audience would understand;
- Keep the focus on adding value (or announcing a special offer) throughout the email;
- Spend extra time writing CTA button messages in your emails.
Want to learn more about email content and how to write the best one?
Read here: What is Email Content? Definition, Types & Examples
5. Create Catchy Email Blast Subject Lines
Your email should grab attention, not just go into a dark hole of unread emails in your subscriber’s inbox. So, the email blast needn’t be completely generic. Instead, you can send a personalized email blast by focusing on the subject lines.
A compelling subject line grabs attention and persuades users to open your email. Spend much time writing strong, clear, and convincing subject lines. Because if the user doesn’t open your email blast, all your efforts go to waste.
Your subject line should be catchy, attention-grabbing, and meaningful. Avoid cliché phrases and overly generic one-liners. Instead, write a subject line that makes the recipient curious or gives them a reason to respond.
You can also personalize your subject lines by adding custom field information (like the first name) to your subject line when you create an email blast using Sender.
Add their first name, last name, or anything else within the subject line to grab the attention and stand out in a crowded inbox.
How to craft a perfect email subject line? Learn more here:
Perfect Email Subject Line — Best Practices, Tips & Examples
6. Send Email Blast Campaign
After creating a targeted newsletter blast, your next task should be to conduct deliverability tests. With this practice, you can address spammy content before blasting users with the unnecessary hassle and prevent chances of unsubscribing.
Send a test email to yourself to carry out a delivery test and ensure the email is responsive and displays correctly in the receiver’s inbox.
Schedule email delivery to maximize the impact of the email blast, as it will be sent automatically at a given time. By testing the responsiveness beforehand and scheduling the email, you ensure no loose ends when sending the email.
7. Track & Measure Results
Sending an email does not mean that your work is complete. After sending your email campaign, you need to measure your results and see how the recipients reacted. The difficulty with an email blast is achieving great deliverability.
You can use the tracking dashboard in your email marketing tool, like Sender, to understand how many users opened, clicked, or ignored your email blast.
If many users ignore your blast and others unsubscribe, you must work on your email content, list, and deliverability again.
Here are some proven methods to improve email deliverability:
- Make your emails useful, relevant, and engaging;
- Create catchy subject lines;
- Update your email list periodically and remove invalid email addresses, etc.;
- Maintain a consistent frequency when sending your email blasts;
- Find the best time to send an email blast based on your audience’s engagement rates.
Improving Email Blasts Over Time
Email blasts can be an excellent opportunity to engage with your existing subscribers and create a solid brand recall. If you’re looking for tips and examples of how to get the most out of email blasts, here are some best practices:
1. Planning and Strategy
Creating a detailed strategy is essential for an effective email blast. The secret to creating a successful email blast lies in its ability to meet your goals.
The strategy and planning process should include two fundamental steps:
- Identifying and documenting your target audience;
- Defining goals and objectives;
You should ask the following questions before creating an email blast:
- What are you trying to achieve with an email blast?
- How will your target audience react to the email?
- What action do you want your audience to take from an email blast?
- How will you measure success — metrics to track after sending the email?
All these answers will help you plan your email content strategically and take a personalized approach to email blasts.
2. Design and Layout
Remember that your messages must be concise, clean, and interesting when designing an email blast. It’s important to have a good email design, layout, and structure. So, make sure you use a consistent design across your emails, and keep your emails short, concise, and on-point.
If you don’t have a design studio or a dedicated designer on your team, here are some great tips and best practices to help you create an eye-catchy email:
- Pick a responsive template. Email statistics show that most of your audience uses mobile devices to open emails, and people get more frustrated by unresponsive emails than ever. So, always send mobile-friendly email blasts that offer a great user experience, irrespective of the device.
- Add images to your email blast. Don’t be boring, and add lengthy paragraphs. Use an eye-catchy layout and add relevant images to make your email more engaging and fun to read.
- Add only one single CTA per email blast. You should be clear about what you want the subscribers to do. Don’t add multiple links within the emailer, and create a clear CTA based on the goals of your email blast campaign.
- Avoid using more than one font family. If you must use two fonts, opt for sans-serif over serif or bold over regular. It will help the reader easily identify and read your message.
- Don’t use a lot of exclamation marks. Instead, use a simple and clear email header to catch the attention of your readers.
- Break down your emails using headers, footers, and subheaders. These are simple ways to add context to your email. They make your message look more organized and help your recipients understand the content.
- Use a consistent color palette. The email blast should align with your brand identity or website. Don’t use bright colors, and don’t mix and match off-brand shades.
Here’s a great example of a beautiful email blast with the perfect design and layout:
3. List Building and Management
Managing a large and complex list can sometimes be overwhelming. List building, segmentation, and optimization are areas where email blasts can become a pain instead of a solution.
There are a lot of things that can affect your email blast performance — the quality of your email list, email marketing software, or the size of your mailing list.
These are all factors you must consider when managing your email blast campaign. So, here are some list-building and management best practices:
- Set your List Building Goals. Know what you’re shooting for. Create a specific list to address a specific goal.
- Optimize & Segment Your Email List Frequently. Email lists can get too large and complex quickly. Consider using a segmentation strategy to manage your list.
- Set a Smart Filtering Rule. Use filters to segment your audience based on their behavior or online activity.
- Define Opt-Out and Unsubscribe Rules. Be transparent with your customers and let them opt out if they don’t want to receive any more emails.
- Keep it Simple & Slow in the Beginning. Build your list from the ground up. Start with a small and targeted group of prospects first.
Sending and Testing
Testing is an integral part of creating a winning email blast or any campaign. In fact, testing is how you’ll know if your messages are effective and engaging. Test your campaign by running A/B tests to determine which elements work best.
For example, the best subject lines will get more opens and clicks than others. The best time to test your campaign is when you create a blast. You can test different variations and determine which message converts better using A/B testing.
Ideally, you should test your messaging, images, subject lines, and calls to action before sending it to a large list.
Here’s what you should keep in mind:
- Find the best day to send an email blast before scheduling. According to industry standards, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday work great. But you can A/B test your campaigns.
- Craft an Attention-grabbing Subject Line. Keep it short but impactful. You can even personalize the subject line with the recipient’s name for better impact.
- Spice Up The Preview Text. Preview text is visible along the subject line without opening the email. So, make it intriguing enough to make a person want to open your email.
- A/B Test your Subject Lines, Content, and Call-to-action. Create two versions of an email blast by changing these elements and then compare their performance for the success of future campaigns.
- Track Relevant Metrics to Measure Success. While A/B testing and otherwise, always track metrics such as open rate, clickthrough rate, and click-to-open rate to measure the success of your email blast.
Find Out the Best Time to Send an Email Blast
Email blast campaigns have great potential when executed right. But it’s not a good idea to spam people.
If you don’t send it on the correct day and time, your email blasts may be buried within a sea of other email blasts and messages and will never be seen. Emailing at the wrong time could also make you lose valuable leads and prospects.
So, always test your email blasts and optimize the send timing based on subscribers’ activity, engagement, or time zones. You can track email engagement throughout the day and schedule your email blasts when you receive high open rates, clickthrough rates, and click-to-open rates.
Also Read: Best Time to Send Emails in 2023: By Email Type
Maximize Results with Personalization
If you’re planning to get the most out of your email marketing efforts, you need to start personalizing your email blasts. Personalization helps you stand out in a crowded inbox. Also, it adds relevance and context to otherwise ‘boring’ and ‘irritating’ email blasts.
Personalization is an important element that can save your emails from landing in the spam folder. Here are a few ways to start personalizing your email blasts and turn them into relevant email campaigns:
- Use your prospect’s first name to personalize the subject line;
- Create email copy based on user behavior or online activity as per your segmentation strategy;
- Add dynamic fields within your email copy to address the pain points or appeal to the desires of your subscribers.
Key Takeaways
- Always add context and try to personalize your email blast by segmenting your audience;
- Test your subject lines, email copy, and offer with a small list before sending an email broadcast at scale;
- Use a marketing automation tool to schedule your email blast campaigns;
- Never send an unsolicited email blast to subscribers who never asked for it.
Frequently Asked Questions
How to do Email Blasts?
An email blast is a quick way to reach all subscribers with a single email. With an email blast campaign, you can send information, promotions, and even invitations to everyone. All modern email marketing solutions can broadcast an email to your entire list. All you have to do is pick an email template, design and write your message, personalize your subject line and email copy, and schedule the email blast from your email marketing dashboard.
How to Make an Email Blast?
You can plan, design, create, and send an email blast using a marketing automation solution like Sender. Choose the audience you want to send the email blast to, use the drag-and-drop email builder to add email blast design and copy and schedule it based on an event or pre-defined time to send automatically. You can even test different variations of the subject line and email design using the A/B design tool to optimize your campaign performance.
Are Email Blasts Spam?
Many marketers accept that if an email blast is sent to an unsolicited list of subscribers, it might be considered spam. However, if you personalize your email blast and send it to a segmented list of interested prospects, it can bypass the spam folder and will benefit your business as regular email campaigns.
What is the Email Blast Cost per Thousand?
The email blast cost per thousand varies from one provider to another and depends on the pricing model. For instance, for up to 50,000 emails monthly, you can expect to pay anything from $20 to $335, translating to $0.4 to $6.7 per thousand emails. Unlimited packages may cost you between $1.25 and $7.55 per thousand emails. With Sender, an email blast with up to 15 000 monthly emails does not cost a thing. Why not try and see?
How Can I Email Blast for Free?
Use Sender email marketing service to send email blasts to up to 2500 subscribers for free. Sender’s free-forever plan lets you design, schedule, and send attractive email blast campaigns without any feature restrictions or limits. You can send up to 15000 emails monthly when you’re on the free plan.
Are Email Blasts a Type of Spam?
No. Email blasts aren’t spam if done with caution and keeping email marketing best practices in mind. Always remember not to send unsolicited email blasts to email contacts you collected randomly. The recipients should have shown interest in your products/brand at some point. If you send email blasts to an interested audience (that has signed up using double opt-in), email blasts should not be seen as spam.
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Author Bio
Anmol Ratan Sachdeva is a content marketer and small business consultant who has a strong grip on topics like marketing automation, email marketing, and content marketing. He loves to write about building, improving, and growing a business.
