What Is an Email Blast and How to Send it Right (in 5 Easy Steps)

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, email blasts are still a thing.

Whether you’re launching a new product, promoting a brand new book, or announcing a big sales campaign, you’re most likely going to start by sending an email blast.

Not quite there? Worry not. In this article, I’ll teach you how to create targeted email blasts that engage and sell.

Keep reading to learn:

Listen to this post in audio format:

What is an email blast?

Email blast is the strategy of sending a single email to a large number of recipients at the same time.

Email blasts are also sometimes called mass emails, mass broadcasts, bulk emails, or e-blasts.

Many marketers (myself included), upon hearing the term email blast, still imagine unsolicited emails similar to the one below:

That’s because, at least in the past, email blasts:

• Were sent to as many people as possible, no matter if the sender had permission to contact their recipients,
• Were mostly used on an ad hoc basis. They were not part of a larger strategy aimed at building a long-term relationship with the audience,
• And it didn’t matter who was on the receiving end. What mattered was the number of clicks the campaign would generate.

Email blasts were very much like spam.

But as language evolves, so has the understanding of the term email blast. These days, many marketers use it interchangeably with the term email campaign, and so will we in this article.

How to send an email blast (in 5 easy steps)

So, how do you send an email blast that generates high engagement and a positive ROI? Just follow these five steps.

Step 1. Set the goal for your email blast

In email marketing, it pays off to keep your end goal in mind.

So first, you’ll want to figure out what is that you want your email blast to achieve:

• Click-throughs to your site?
• Resource downloads?
• Product orders?

If you’re unsure as to what’s possible to measure in your email blast campaigns, consider reading this guide to email marketing KPIs and metrics.

The answer to this question should guide you when designing your messages and choosing the right audience for your campaign. It should dictate what you’ll include in your subject line, the preheader, the copy, and most importantly – the call to action.

The following is an example of an email blast with a clear goal (generating sales), highlighted in its call to action.

Step 2. Choose your target audience

Next, you’ll need to choose the target audience for your email campaign.

There are two options you can choose from:

• Your whole email list
• A subgroup of recipients, a.k.a a segment

Unless your campaign’s relevant to all your subscribers, I suggest that you choose an individual segment.

By focusing on a smaller group of recipients, you’ll be able to tailor the message better and make it more relevant to your audience. This will result in a higher engagement rate and higher ROI from your email campaigns.

You can learn more about most common segmentation strategies in our guide to email segmentation.

And what if you don’t have an email list yet? Rather than buying an email list (or even renting it), you should build one instead.

Organically built email lists have many advantages over databases that you can scrape or buy online. They generate higher returns, help you maintain strong deliverability, and, well, are legal 🙂

Sending an email blast to people who aren’t familiar with your brand and don’t expect to hear from you can get you in trouble – your messages may end up in the spam folder or even be rejected altogether.

If you don’t have a list of contacts yet, follow this guide to learn how to build an email list from scratch.

Step. 3 Choose your email blast service

Whether you’ve already built an email list or are about to start one, you’ll need an email marketing tool to back you up.

Your email blast service or email marketing software plays an important role when it comes to:

• helping you turn website visitors into email subscribers via popups, landing pages, and other lead generation tools
• designing stunning email templates that look great across all devices
• helping you test and check your email templates for common errors before hitting send
• providing you with real-time data reports to see how your email campaign is performing
• making sure your emails reach your recipients, thanks to stellar deliverability

Behind the curtains, your email blast software also takes care of various processes like bounce and complaint handling, managing unsubscribe requests, delivering your messages, contacting the ISPs, authenticating your communication, and providing you with analytical reports.

If you aren’t currently using an email blast service or you’re considering switching, GetResponse can help you run your email campaigns effectively.

Alternatively, if you’d like to see what’s out there on the market, we’ve reviewed the most popular platforms in our email newsletter software guide.

Step 4. Create your email blast

It’s not enough to write up some copy and add images to create a successful email blast. Every element plays a part, and there are multiple tactics you can use to make them work effectively.

Let’s consider what goes into your email:

• Sender name and address
• Subject line
• Preheader or snippet text
• The message content itself

The first three elements affect how likely people will open your message. That is why you’ll want to pay special attention to how you identify in peoples’ inboxes and how convincing your pitch is.

The email subject line itself is one of the key elements you can continually A/B test and optimize. Most marketers test their subject lines by adjusting and adding elements such as emojis, personalization, number of characters, and names of products/brands people immediately recognize.

Our latest data suggests that using personalization in email subject lines doesn’t always bring positive results. Nevertheless, I’d still suggest that you test this tactic in your own email blasts. When doing so, consider going beyond using the simple “first name” personalization, as marketers often overuse it.

What’s also important is that the subject lines also play a big role in driving conversions. After all, if a contact sees an interesting offer in the subject line, they’re more likely to read it and click through to your website.

Now onto the email template itself. You’ll want to make sure that your email not only looks great across all devices (if you want to research this more, read our email design guide), but you’ll also want to make sure it drives sales.

Here’s what you should focus on to make your email blasts engaging:

One example of a company that maintains high subscriber engagement by running A/B tests and personalizing its email campaigns is a lead generation agency called Submission Technology.

To learn more, read the full case study where they share the tips and tactics they use to achieve click-through rates that are 121-149% higher than the average results in their industry.

For inspiration, check out this article where we’ve listed the best email marketing campaigns we’ve seen on the market.

Step 5. Track your email blast’s performance

As the old saying goes – you can’t improve what you don’t measure. So now, it’s time to track your email blasts and how they’re performing.

In your email marketing tool of choice, you should get access to an email analytics dashboard that’ll look similar to this:

Inside the dashboard, you should be able to see various KPIs such as open rates, click-through rates, bounces, unsubscribes, complaints, your list growth, and more.

In addition, if you’re adding Google Analytics UTMs to your links, you should also see the direct effect of your email blasts in your GA dashboard. There, you’ll see additional information like how long people have stayed on your pages, whether they’ve purchased any products, or triggered any events you’ve previously configured.

Equipped with this data, you can get into the minds of your subscribers. Evaluate what content makes them click. What offers turn casual contacts into paying customers. Or decide what the ideal email schedule is.

At the same time, seeing the negative metrics like bounces and complaints, you can identify potential problems that stop your emails from reaching the inbox and make your efforts futile.

As you can see, this step is critical if you want to make sure that your campaigns are performing well.

What is the best time to send an email blast?

According to our latest study, the best time to send an email blast is 4 am (in terms of opens) and 6 pm (in terms of clicks.)

That said, there’s no easy answer to this question, even though we’ve tackled it a couple of times in the past in the Email Marketing Benchmarks report or our best time to send an email by location study.

In my opinion, generalizing that your entire audience will open your email blast at a certain time or day of the week is not the right approach.

Consumers are all different, and they change their behavioral habits depending on the situation they’re in.

So here are the steps I propose, in this specific order:

1. Rather than picking the ideal time for everyone, use an algorithm that’s going to adjust the email sending time for each of your contacts individually. In GetResponse Email Marketing software, this feature is called Perfect Timing.
2. If you’d rather choose that your email blast reaches your audience at a specific time, go ahead and analyze this study to pick the most optimal hour.
   Once you’ve selected the appropriate time slot (10 AM and 2 PM seem to be the most promising), send your email blast using the Time Travel feature.
   Similarly to Perfect Timing, it’ll adjust the time of the sendout for you, but this time only to make sure that the message reaches your audience at a specific hour according to their time zone.

And if you want to step your game, consider implementing a strategy using marketing automation and sending messages triggered by your contacts’ behavior.

Inspiring email blast examples

If you need a little creative nudge, here are seven email blast examples we’ve found interesting.

As you’re about to see, there’s no blueprint you need to follow when designing your email messages. This is what we’ve been experiencing over the years and what we’ve seen while gathering submissions for this post on best email marketing campaigns.

Keep in mind that your email design should resonate with your audience. Not your family, friends, or other marketers – but people seeking to get value from the relationship with your brand.

Let’s take a look.

1. CAT

This is an email blast example from CAT.

Right away, you can see that this message wasn’t sent to an individual segment but an entire list instead.

This is a good strategy (from time to time), especially if you don’t know your audience too well and you’re unable to tailor the content to their needs.

What you can do from here is analyze which links your audience clicks on within the message (e.g., clothing category vs. individual shoes) and try to use this insight to craft your next email better.

Alternatively, you can send a discount code to those who haven’t made their first purchase yet.

A good incentive will likely be enough to convert them into first-time buyers. And, it will provide you with additional data you’ll be able to use to personalize your email campaigns.

2. Live2Lead

This is another animated one, this time from Live2Lead.

This email blast invited the email subscribers to join the brand’s upcoming event, a leadership training.

Right from the opening (“Friend”) you know it’s meant for everyone who have subscribed to receive updates from John Maxwell Company.

Is this a bad thing? Not necessarily.

Everyone who has subscribed to their newsletter is likely interested in the topic of leadership.

While this message isn’t personalized, there are a few things that are particularly good about it.

It clearly states the benefits of joining the event and who’ll be running the training. Also, its design is eye-catching. Everything in that message is leading you toward a single call to action button at the bottom.

3. GAP

Now, take a look at this email blast example from GAP.

This message announced their back to school offer to those who’ve opted in and chose the appropriate categories of interest.

Theoretically, it means it was targeted, but from the message itself you cannot say for sure that the content’s been tailored to the recipient’s needs.

Since the offer is appropriate for children of all ages, they’ve sent it to everyone in this specific segment.

Assuming that they don’t know too much about the recipient’s preferences, I’d suggest that they pay attention to the categories they click on or types of products they purchase.

Alternatively, they can simply ask their audience about their characteristics or preferences (e.g., how old their child is) via survey and recommend products based on those answers.

4. TRX

Now, onto our fourth email blast example, sent by TRX.

I’ve had to crop it out, because it was too long to put here, but the main part’s visible.

It’s a president’s day offer that’s most probably been sent to everyone in the brand’s database.

Since it’s a one-time offer related to a particular holiday, there’s no harm in sending that message to everyone.

If they were to send email blasts like this one every two days, the content would have quickly become boring to their audience.

Once again, I’d look at how the subscribers react to this campaign and segment based on their behavior, like what types of products they bought (for indoor or outdoor training) or based on their order value.

5. Casper

Take a look at this example from Casper.

This is a typical sales promo campaign you’d expect to receive from an ecommerce brand.

It was sent to a large number of recipients and it’s not personalized, which as we’ve discussed before, makes it an email blast.

Putting aside whether the offer is good or not – I’m not actively looking for a mattress or a new set of bed sheets – it’s worth noticing the clever tactic they’ve used in their email design.

As you can see, the header includes a GIF which shows you the different kinds of sheets they’ve got on offer.

Underneath of it are small icons that let you pick the bed sheets color you’re most interested in.

If you saw these icons on a website and clicked one of them, you’d expect to be presented a product variant that matches your choice.

Since this is more difficult to achieve with emails, they’ve linked each icon to a different version of the landing page so that clicking them will take you to the appropriate product on their page.

This is a clever tactic. One they can improve even further if they used interactive emails, but as a quick email blast this works out perfectly.

6. Magic Spoon

Here’s another inspiring example of an email blast campaign sent out by an ecommerce brand – Magic Spoon.

Here’s what I really like about it:

• It’s vivid and colorful but not overwhelming. The colors contrast each other nicely & everything that you should be seeing (like the call to action button) stands out.
• They’re using a subtle animation to provide social proof & show their audience’s excitement for their products. It also shows that they’re listening to their customers, hence the new product launch.
• Their copy is descriptive and playful, especially around their call to action buttons.

Last but not least, this is a nice single-column layout that’d look great on any device.

7. Puma

And here’s another way you can do an email blast.

So what’s different about this example from Puma? In my opinion, three things:

• The topic of the campaign is very creative. Rather than directly promoting its products, Puma wants you to learn how to customize your shoes so that they’ll match your personality.
• It looks very authentic. Although the photos and images are very sharp, they don’t look like they’ve been rendered in a studio. They show real people.
• The email has only one clear goal and a CTA. Because of that, it’s very clean and visually appealing.

Overall, although this email is made up of mostly images, it looks fresh and definitely like something I would want to click through and explore.

Email blasts, broadcasts, campaigns – it doesn’t matter

Sending an email blast in 2022 or beyond may not sound like the best tactic, but as you saw, many marketers still succeed with it.

As long as your campaigns are purely permission-based and you’re following the email marketing best practices, like segmentation and personalization, the naming is a secondary thing.

We’ve carefully gone through the theory and practice of sending email blasts. We’ve discussed the best practices, such as picking the right audience, KPIs, tools like your email blast service, tactics, and measuring.

Now you’re fully equipped and can start sending emails that not only make it to the inbox but also make the subscribers engaged.

All you need is to take the first step.

And if you’re in need of a tool that offers way more than your typical email blast service, GetResponse is just one click away.

You can try it today completely free without providing your credit card details.

So what do you say?