So, you’ve managed to break into the email marketing industry.

After finding an email marketing career that puts you well into a position in which you can flex your email marketing knowledge, it’s time to up your game and become a certified email marketing expert.

We’ve compiled five steps you can take to becoming an email marketing professional.

5 steps to becoming an email marketing expert

The steps outlined below take you through the most essential elements of becoming a expert at email marketing. If you’re able to command these five key elements of being an email marketer, you’re guaranteed to be an important contributor to any email marketing campaign.

Know how to write an attention-grabbing subject line

An email marketing expert will always know that the key to beginning any effective email is with an appealing subject line that will convince your readers to click into your content. To have one of the best email subject lines, try standing out from the other subject lines in your readers’ inboxes via length, punctuation, or tone.

An attractive and interesting subject line gives your email an immediate lead over the others in your readers’ inboxes as well as initially establishing your brand as attention-grabbing and warranting attention. Think of the inboxes of your readers as arenas for competition between your subject line and those of other emails.

Email marketing pros understand the importance of an effective subject line and use it to their advantage to immediately appeal to the interests of their readers as soon as the email arrives in their inboxes.

Perfect your copywriting

Once your readers have clicked into your email, next comes the key step of making sure they are enticed to keep reading. Developing effective email copywriting technique and skills will boost the effectiveness of your emails by simply making them more interesting to read and worth the reader’s time.

To think like an email marketing expert when writing your email, establish an end goal for what you want the reader to do once they read your copywriting. Then, consider every sentence a challenge to move the reader closer to this end goal. If you can make each sentence count and convince the reader to keep moving through your email (eventually down to your call-to-action), you win their attention and in turn boost the credibility of your brand in the mind of your reader.

Clear, concise language is important for your copywriting, and this strategy of thinking like a professional copywriter is an easy way to remember the importance of setting a singular goal in your emails. This line of thinking also centers your copywriting on making a simple, singular ask your ask of the reader, which is easier to understand and in turn more memorable for the reader.

Gain an eye for design

To be a well-rounded email marketing professional, you must balance your ability to write catchy subject lines and good copywriting with an understanding of what types of design in your emails will be effective in attracting your subscribers’ attention spans and brand awareness.

Try to utilize a design that also highlights the main campaign being expressed in your newsletter. For inspiration, check out these email newsletter templates.

In terms of design, you may not be the best coming from a strict marketing or copywriting background. Feel free to enlist the help of design software if you are not an experienced designer.

Master how to build an email list

An email marketing expert will know that quality content alone will not get the job done. You need your emails to be accessible by the largest number of readers possible, and to be a true expert in email marketing you’ll need to get a solid grasp on how to build an email list.

Building an email list that can maximize the reach of your brand is an essential part of being a professional email marketer. The roar of a well-composed newsletter is nothing without a large reach, and building an email list through tactics such as sign up boxes on your website, special offers, and social media promotion will help launch your newsletter to a wider range of readers.

To build your list, think about the types of subscribers that you want reading your emails. Are you going after a specific type of reader that is in a particular point in your sales funnel to close the deal? Do you want your emails to be accessible to all types of readers and serve as a gateway to greater brand awareness? The answers to these questions can help inform your strategy for building your email list like an email marketing professional.

Understand email marketing analytics

Regardless of your email list’s size and the quality of your design and copywriting, you’ll still need to evaluate the success of your campaigns from a more quantitative standpoint in order to get a firm grasp on how your emails are performing. For this reason, understanding key email marketing metrics is necessary to being an email professional.

Metrics such as conversion rate and email open rate are key to determining how your emails are performing. Your email campaign will only work as well as your recipients allow it to, and being able to understand these metrics and adjust your campaign based on how you are performing in terms of these figures can help provide insight into how you can improve your emails.

Understanding email marketing analytics is also an essential aspect of being an email marketing expert because it goes beyond simply putting out emails or planning content, but understanding their performance and the bigger picture of a campaign. An email marketing pro understands not only what makes good content, but what constitutes successful email marketing performance. Email marketing analytics are necessary tools for comprehending the larger picture of an email marketing campaign.

Next steps to developing your expertise

These five steps to becoming an email marketing expert put you well on your way to understanding what it takes to master the field of email marketing. In a dynamic industry like email marketing, the response of your readers will be the true determinant of how much of an expert you are.

An important aspect of being an email marketing expert to remember as your progress through your career is that your strategies and methods should adjust to what is working and not working with your readers. Ultimately, what works and what doesn’t is dependent upon how your readers receive your messages. It’s important to remember to not be locked into one or two particular methods of email marketing.

Keep a pulse on the wants and needs of your readers, and you’ll find it easier to get positive feedback and feel like an email marketing expert.

Want some more tips? Check out our guide on writing a more professional email.