Email Marketing Basics: What Is an Email Marketing Manager?

It takes a village to make a successful marketing campaign, so the existence of an “email marketing manager” should be no surprise!

Nonetheless, the specifics of this position are often questioned. What is an email marketing manager? What do they do, and why are they needed?

Today’s blog post will highlight the necessity of this seemingly mundane position.

There’s a lot to learn, so I’ll jump right into the thick of things!

The Role of an Email Marketing Manager

An email marketing manager is at the top of the email development food chain. They handle the “big picture” tasks of your email marketing efforts, providing guidance and support to the specialists below them.

An experienced email marketing manager supports efficient email campaigns.

They provide cohesion across the many departments of email development. Think of them as chief marketing officers for emails. They monitor performance, boost user conversion rates, and oversee campaign effectiveness. They have a lengthy job description, but their duties can be broken into four overarching categories:

• Pre-development checks
• Development support and guidance
• Results and research
• Maintenance and ongoing support

1. The Pre-Development Role of Email Marketing Managers

So, I’ll work my way down the list!

All digital marketing starts with a blank canvas. You must have a plan, a vision, and a desired outcome. Otherwise, your email marketing strategies amount to little more than blindfolded potshots at a constantly moving dart board.

Your email marketing manager is responsible for all of the requisite pre-campaign effectiveness planning. That’s a lot of work and so much more than simply dreaming up a marketing strategy.

Pre-Campaigning Research

Project management begins with research.

Less developed marketing strategies require more work, while fully formed marketing campaign plans need little more than double-checking and touch-ups.

As experienced digital marketing professionals, email marketing managers understand the intricacies of campaign performance. Their knowledge and insights can be categorized into distinct pre-planning groups:

• Audience Insights: Marketing managers will comb through performance data for past campaigns. They’ll see what works and what doesn’t. More importantly, they’ll perform audience research and form targeted segments to boost engagement rates.
• Content Design: Even the most established advertising needs occasional updates! Thanks to their extensive hands-on experience, email marketing managers can quickly assess the effectiveness of existing campaigns. They’ll compare results over time and tweak email content to match customer expectations.
• Customer Journey Development: Smooth interactions beget positive customer relationships. One part of an email marketing manager’s job is overseeing streamlined flow development. Usually, this goal is achieved with strategic flow management.
• Market Research: Marketing managers must also use their extensive industry knowledge. They’ll research how comparable companies have succeeded and apply those lessons to your marketing strategy.

Software and Technical Support

Once the basic structure is outlined, an email marketing manager must choose and establish an appropriate marketing software solution. Sometimes, companies have pre-established routines with existing services. However, many budding enterprises have yet to find the perfect email automation tools.

A stellar email marketing manager considers the client’s most important requirements before choosing a software solution. Budgetary restrictions are the most obvious concern, but email marketers also consider the practicality of their choices. No two companies are the same, and some project management suites may lack appropriate automation features. Alternatively, email campaign software can have too many features!

Compatibility is another concern. Many software suites have diverse integrations, but some options may lack critical plug-ins. For many brands, the most essential integration is between their e-commerce storefront and marketing software. Brands may also need support for non-standard email databases and additional privacy measures.

2. Email Development and Strategy Support

Next, the marketing manager must consider the specifics of a company’s email marketing strategy.

What is the brand’s vision? How can its email marketing campaigns better reflect the audience’s desires? Are there any additional digital marketing campaigns to consider? Are there preexisting content management systems?

Those are just some of the questions an email marketing manager asks during the second phase of their job description.

Content Conceptualization

Your marketing manager will be the de facto chief marketing officer for your emails, using their knowledge to outline basic email campaigns. The process will inherently abide by existing restrictions, including email templates and content management systems. More importantly, the content will align with the values discovered during the R&D phase of campaign planning.

Many factors influence the specifics of your eventual content calendar. Even two brands in the same industry can have wildly different content plans. Some of the most influential elements of email campaign conceptualization include:

• Audience: A brand with an existing audience will have different digital marketing strategies than a newcomer. Fresh brands require growth strategies to expand empty email lists. Conversely, established brands can capitalize on existing email subscriptions by calling for user-generated content (UGC) and feedback.
• Business Goals: A brand seeking better conversion rates will need more commercial messaging than its engagement-focused rival. Likewise, an email marketing specialist will plan more informational email campaigns for brands with lower brand awareness.
• Existing Content: Most modern content management systems store copies of previous campaigns. Your email marketing manager will consider these campaigns and match your new content to the existing brand standard. Alternatively, you may fare better with a complete facelift!
• Technical Constraints: A brand with little more than a basic email template and a bare-bones marketing platform will have less elaborate campaigns than well-established businesses. As an experienced digital marketer, an email marketing manager will optimize content to work within the client’s technical limitations.

Visual Design and Implementation

Moreover, an email marketing manager collaborates with your design team to produce visually stunning results. They’ll run an email templates test and measure spatial customer engagement across your email campaigns.

Most emails will use a simple, mobile-friendly template. However, you’ll need support for complex marketing efforts. Fortunately, your marketing manager will handle testing and final implementation checks.

These technical rundowns do more than ensure effective communication! They also help you maintain potential customers by delivering high-quality content. Think of it this way: Would you trust a buggy, broken email? The visual appeal and accuracy of your email content matter, and shoddy work makes for dissatisfied customers.

3. Campaign Performance Monitoring

The job isn’t over after the email is sent, though!

The email marketing manager’s job description also covers campaign performance monitoring. This portion of their job is deeply analytical, and it’s where their frequently-held bachelor’s degree really shines.

Your fully populated email channels must be closely monitored for statistical changes. Of course, there are many positive results. Everyone wants more customer engagement, better customer relationships, and higher conversion rates. No company will snub a report showing increased revenue.

However, your marketing manager will also track negative results. These unfortunate changes often reflect cracks in your marketing strategy. Fortunately, you have a manager’s marketing savvy to patch the damage. In doing so, they reduce spam complaints and improve your marketing performance.

A/B Testing

An experienced marketing manager can also handle campaign testing to further improve your results.

These tests are like digital marketing science experiments. Your teams produce one (or more) variations of an outgoing campaign. The audience is then randomly divided, with equal portions receiving each variant. Eventually, the success of each variant is compared to find the “optimal” marketing strategies.

You don’t need a degree in marketing to run your own A/B test, but it certainly helps! Your marketing manager’s expertise is an invaluable resource, giving them unprecedented and intuitive insights that laypeople lack.

4. Ongoing Support and Campaign Maintenance

Finally, an experienced marketing manager will stick with you and maintain your campaigns.

Like any tool, email marketing can dull with age. Campaigns grow stale, and communications wear thin. Even the best marketing automation requires regular maintenance, and your campaign manager is responsible for those repairs.

Email Automation and Content Support

Obviously, your email marketing manager will maintain your email marketing campaigns.

Marketing automation requires regular maintenance, even if it’s little more than technical check-ups. An email marketing manager is responsible for these (generally) annual tests. At the same time, they’ll double-check the technical compliance of your email content.

Excitingly, your email marketing manager will also have extensive legal expertise under their belt. They use that knowledge to improve your campaign performance and ensure a positive ongoing relationship with email service providers. Should any sudden changes to digital marketing laws arise, your email marketing manager will be the first to know!

List Maintenance and Technical Upkeep

Your email marketing manager will also maintain your email lists and campaign hygiene.

More precisely, they’ll clean out your subscriber list and ensure your credentials are up-to-date. These duties will also be handled by your general marketing team, although they’ll usually do so under the direction of the email marketing manager.

These routine maintenance tasks are essential for maintaining constant contact with your subscribers. Without them, your strategies collapse. Your list bloats, your budget balloons, and your campaign performance suffers.

Find the Perfect Email Marketing Manager

You can hire your own marketing manager, but I have a simpler solution.

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