Use the power of science to guide you and make it your everyday habit to send awesome, consistent and beautiful email marketing campaigns. So how do you create habits that support successful email marketing? Find out with this short guide.

According to Merriam-Webster, a habit is “an acquired mode of behavior that has become nearly or completely involuntary” and Google states that a habit is “a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up.”

We have the power to build and break down habits every single day and it’s in our best interests to create ones that we consider positive because they become an ingrained part of our daily lives. There is a lot of comforts to be found in habits which is partly why they are hard to break. But why do habits exist in the first place?

Writer Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit: Why we do what we do in life and business has done the research for us: “Habits, scientists say, emerge because the brain is constantly looking for ways to save effort”.

Perfect! If you feel like you’re expending too much effort to get the results you want from your email marketing campaigns then that’s all the more reason to make some good habits regarding this part of your business. When it comes to sending email campaigns that provide results consistently, you definitely want to save effort.

Begin by recognizing the patterns associated with habits. This includes a predictable pattern of events. First, there is a reminder or trigger (possibly sitting down at your computer for example), followed by your routine – what you normally do at that time (send an email campaign?) and finally your reward (how you feel after). (James Clear Transform Your Habits)

Change what you can’t eliminate

Now that you know the building blocks that make up a habit you’ll need to start making some changes. It turns out that getting rid of habits is hard. It takes willpower, planning, perseverance, and foresight. In fact, it’s probably better to think of a habit as a moving target and to remember that “You can’t extinguish a bad habit, you can only change it.” (Duhigg) So the first step in creating good habits is actually identifying your bad ones simply so you can look at replacing them with good ones instead.

We’ll get into that more in a moment, for now, let’s do some push-ups.

Wait what?

As you may have guessed, it turns out that exercise might just be one way to trigger real habit change that can positively affect all areas of your life. So with this tidbit in mind (as you complete a few sit-ups) let’s see how we can apply habit change to your email campaigns.

Keeping your list clean

Email is repetitive yes, but that doesn’t mean it should get stale. This goes for all aspects of your campaign management including your all-important list of opt-in contacts. Every time you plan a campaign, the first habit you want to create is to make sure your list is up to date.

That means replacing your bad habit – sending it through your ESP to ‘clean’ it for you (a major no-no that can get your account placed under review) – with a good habit of removing unengaged recipients, misspelled and roles addresses and any other invalid contact consistently so your list is never out of date. Just get in the habit of constantly reviewing your contact list to keep it relevant and accurate.

Emailing on a schedule

If your recipients expect mail on Tuesday, send every Tuesday! Nothing disengages a person faster than expecting an email and not getting it. If your bad email habits include sending your campaigns whenever you get around to it then you’ll want to up your game by creating a consistent schedule that you stick to.

Get out your calendar, schedule your email campaigns for predictable dates, send emails on those dates. Repeat. Now you’re creating a new reminder (that initial trigger that encourages you to follow through with a habit)  which will help you replace your bad habit with a good one. Reminder: Tuesday. Routine: Send an email campaign. Reward: Feel awesome and get more opens and clicks!

What’s your bad email marketing habit?

Using repetitive content? Not segmenting your lists? Being inconsistent with your branding? Whatever your bad email habit might be, now is your chance to shape it, mold it and make it into a good habit instead.  All the little changes you make add up to the big moments of success and often increase happiness along the way.

So every time you approach your email marketing campaigns, do so with the intent to create good, powerful and productive habits so you can experience the lasting success that’s nearly automatic and easy to stick to.  And just for a little extra edge, remember to throw in a little exercise too.