Summary
"Marketing emails" are a type of email you can send in Planhat. They automatically include links for the recipients to unsubscribe or configure more detailed subscription preferences
Marketing emails are sent manually (as opposed to via Workflows) and to multiple End Users at once (each recipient receiving a copy) - they are typically used for announcements, updates and promotions
For each marketing email you send in Planhat, its details are recorded via the Sendout model
Via Sendouts, it's easy for you to get an overview of the performance of a specific marketing email (e.g. the August product newsletter), and multiple marketing emails as a whole (e.g. all your product newsletters) - which email had the best open rate or click rate, etc. This helps you to optimize future marketing emails
Who is this article for?
Anyone who would like an overview of Planhat's marketing emails functionality, including the Sendout model
Series
We have a series of articles on marketing emails and the Sendout model:
An overview of Planhat marketing emails and the Sendout model ⬅️ You are here
Article contents
Introduction
Emails are a key way in which you can communicate with your customers, prospects and other contacts. Within Planhat, there are a range of email types, to suit different use cases:
For example, you may be having a manual conversation with a single customer you manage, about your kick-off call with them and some technical questions you're investigating for them - it's easy to send and receive such ad-hoc emails within Planhat
Sequence Workflows can be used to automatically send End Users a series of emails to encourage them to carry out a pathway of actions in your product (e.g. log in, and then complete a training course, and so on), with their actions feeding back into the Sequence to determine which emails are sent and when
Another type of email is "marketing emails" - one-off emails you send to a large number of End Users at once, to inform them about a new product launch, an upcoming event, a promotion, or other feature/company updates. These marketing emails are what we'll focus on in this article
Planhat includes specialist features for marketing emails, to:
Help you stay compliant with email marketing regulations
Give recipients more control over which types of emails they receive (improving customer experience)
Allow you to measure the performance of your email outreach through detailed analytics, helping you optimize your campaigns for maximum engagement
In this article, we'll give you an overview of what "marketing emails" are in Planhat (compared to other email types), and the functionality available for this use case.
📌 Important to note
The specialist email features discussed in this article are available in the Planhat marketing add-on plan. If you don't currently have access to these features and would like to add them, speak to your Planhat contact, e.g. CSM.
📌 Important to note
When sending marketing emails:
You can email up to 10,000 End Users in one go (which you will see in the UI - you can't select more than 10,000 End Users for sending emails)
There are monthly limits depending on which tier of marketing add-on you have
What are Planhat marketing emails?
Marketing emails are a type of email that you can send manually (not via a Workflow) to a group of End Users ("End Users" being the Planhat data model representing your customers, prospects and other contacts). Each marketing email includes "Unsubscribe" and "Manage my preferences" links in the footer, and whose data (open rate, click rate and bounce rate etc.) is recorded via a specialist Planhat model called "Sendout". We list typical use cases for marketing emails in the next part of this article.
So what does this actually look like?
When you are writing an email in Planhat, you will see a "Marketing Email" toggle switch in the top left - select this to convert the email into this specific email type.
Here's a summary of the main distinguishing features of "marketing emails" in Planhat:
Marketing emails are sent via "Email Automation Provider" functionality (rather than your own personal email) for performance reasons - if you try to send a large number of emails to many End Users at once using your personal email, this could be blocked or delayed
For each marketing email (sent to a group of End Users - e.g. your July newsletter), you assign it to a specific marketing subscription category (which are custom-configured within your Planhat tenant). This is so email recipients can subscribe/unsubscribe to particular categories (via the "Manage my preferences" link at the bottom of marketing emails - as mentioned in the next bullet point)
When marketing emails are received, they have links in a footer at the bottom so each recipient can unsubscribe from all future marketing emails or manage subscription preferences in a more granular way (subscribing/unsubscribing to specific categories of marketing emails)
When marketing emails are sent, the details of the campaign are automatically recorded using the Sendout data model. Each Sendout record includes all the data of that marketing email - its content, how many people it was sent to, how many people opened it, and many other statistics. This enables you to get an overview of its performance, and compare that to other marketing emails you send. You can view/analyze Sendout data in the Email Manager and Data Explorer; and you can create your own custom Pages (such as Data Tables and Dashboards), organized in your own email marketing Section if desired. This makes it easy for you to understand the success of your email marketing campaign, and adjust future campaigns if necessary
Click the image to view it enlarged
Click the image to view it enlarged
Why use Planhat marketing emails?
There are a wide variety of situations where you'll want to send a single manual email (as opposed to an automated series of emails, as in Workflows/Sequences) in bulk to a group of End Users. Here are some typical use cases:
Regular (e.g. monthly/quarterly) newsletters with news about your products or your company in general
Ad-hoc emails to launch new products or features
Emails to invite people to upcoming events e.g. exhibitions/conferences you are attending or running
Promotional emails about discounts or other special offers
One of the key elements of such marketing emails, to meet the relevant regulatory requirements, is the ability for the recipients to unsubscribe. Planhat marketing emails automatically include a footer with links that recipients can use to unsubscribe from either all marketing emails or manage their subscriptions in a more granular way: unsubscribing from their choice of marketing email categories. The categories mean that End Users don't feel they need to unsubscribe from all your marketing emails - potentially missing information that they would find relevant, interesting or useful - just because there are some types of communication they would rather not receive. This benefits you as the sender, as well as empowering the email recipients.
Additionally, each time you send a marketing email (to a group of End Users), the related data is recorded in a Sendout record in Planhat. Sendout records include details of the delivery (such as how many people the email was sent to) and also performance analytics (e.g. how many people opened the email). The Sendout also links to each Conversation record in Planhat, where the individual copies of the email sent to each End User are saved (with relevant data, such as whether that specific copy of the email was clicked).
Using the Sendout model, combined with other Planhat features such as Pages, you can track and analyze the performance of each of your email marketing campaigns, all in one place, enabling insights and improvements. For example:
If your open rate is low, consider how you could improve your email subjects (titles)
If your click rate is low, review your email content
If your bounce rate is high, investigate whether your emails have been mistakenly classified as junk mail, or your target audience list needs cleaning up
If you've made some changes to your marketing emails to improve results, can you see the desired improved stats in response?
You can compare the performance different marketing emails, e.g. for A/B testing, to help you identify what works best
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How to use Planhat marketing emails
In the next articles in our series on marketing emails, we will take you through the technical details of how to set up, send and analyze marketing emails in Planhat: