Understanding Email Marketing Executives: Roles and Responsibilities
Find out why email marketing executives are the unsung heroes of successful email marketing.
Updated December 24, 2023.
In the digital sphere, everyone's trying to grab your attention. Social media, ads, SMS marketing—it's like a never-ending party. However, as a brand, email marketing gives you a unique opportunity to convey your message directly to an audience that genuinely wants to hear from you. Consider that email marketing has an impressive return on investment (ROI)—30-35x for smaller businesses and even 40-45x for more high-profile campaigns.
But, to get in on that ROI, you may need the help of an email marketing expert or manager as they play a crucial role in orchestrating successful email marketing campaigns. Below, we explore:
- Key email marketing executive roles and responsibilities
- How email marketing executives collaborate in a team
- An email marketing executive's approach to creating an email marketing strategy
- Critical tools an email marketing executive needs
» Let Mayple's AI algorithm match you with a vetted email marketing expert who gets you and your brand.
Meet the expert
Sandra Stepan, a seasoned digital marketing and eCommerce expert, is the founder of SnapAdvantage. Her diverse portfolio includes collaborations with startups and companies with $20 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR), solidifying her as a leading resource for brands seeking growth and revenue optimization.
Key roles and responsibilities of email marketing executives
Email marketing executives play a crucial role in designing, executing, and optimizing email marketing campaigns to reach and engage with target audiences effectively. While their responsibilities may vary depending on the organization's size and specific needs, there are some key roles and responsibilities typically associated with the position:
Create an email marketing strategy
Effective email marketing starts with a well-thought-out marketing strategy and plan. This includes:
- Setting clear goals for the email marketing campaign that aligns with the overall objectives of the organization.
- Creating an editorial calendar aligned with marketing events.
- Determining the ideal email cadence—daily, weekly, or otherwise—for consistency.
Set up automated emails flows
Email marketing executives set up automated email flows, such as cart abandonment emails, welcome email series, post-purchase flows, and browser abandonment flows.
This starts by segmenting your audience based on particular actions or events, allowing them to send targeted emails and increase your chances of conversion.
Compile email campaigns
Crafting the actual email campaigns is another core responsibility. Email marketing experts design campaigns based on predefined templates, often developed in collaboration with design and programming teams. These campaigns require meticulous planning, including defining the content, tone, voice, copywriting, and graphics.
» Follow this copywriting guide to craft emails that stand out.
Build and grow an email list
Building and maintaining an email list is a continuous effort. Email marketing executives use strategies like pop-ups, content marketing, partnerships, and ads to keep your email list growing.
To fully attend to their roles and responsibilities, email marketing executives can't operate in isolation. They have to work closely with the entire marketing team. Consider that when your email marketing, social media, and other teams are in sync, it's much easier to maintain a consistent brand voice across platforms.
For example, if your social media team is launching a new product promotion on Instagram or TikTok, coordinating this with your email marketing campaign results in complementary messaging and perhaps even better results.
How email marketing executives ensure effective collaboration across the board
To ensure seamless collaboration with other departments, email marketing executives typically practice the following:
Utilize brand guidelines
An email marketing executive must always have brand guidelines for all the brands they work with to ensure consistency. These guidelines typically include details such as colors, typography, brand voice, and overall aesthetics.
Communicate design requests clearly
While email marketing executives don't always delve deeply into graphic design, collaboration with the design team is crucial for creating visually appealing campaigns. When working with designers, email marketers must provide clear design requests and outline the copy and specifications they need for the graphics, ensuring that they align with the email marketing strategy.
Implement project management tools and standard operating procedures (SOPs)
Email marketers use project management software like ClickUp, Asana, or Monday.com to facilitate smooth collaboration among team members. These tools enable them to assign tasks, use tags to identify team members, and keep everyone in the loop.
Similarly, standardized operating processes (SOPs) ensure that anyone joining the team can easily pick up where others left off, fostering efficiency and consistency.
An email marketing executive's approach to creating an email marketing strategy
As we already mentioned, one of the main responsibilities of an email marketing executive is to create effective email marketing strategies. Here's how they do it:
- Clearly defined goals It all starts with understanding what you want to achieve with email marketing. For most brands, the primary goal is revenue growth, so it's essential to specify the additional revenue you want to generate through email marketing and the percentage of total revenue it should contribute.
- Email cadence The next step is considering your available resources, including list size and segmentation capabilities. This step facilitates alignment between strategy, resources, and goals.
- Analyzing current flows After sending lead nurturing emails for a while, looking at their performance is crucial. That's why email marketers spend a lot of time assessing the performance of existing email flows and optimizing them for effectiveness.
- Understanding customer behavior Email marketing experts also prioritize examining customer behavior to identify opportunities for tailored email flows.
- Monitor and improve After putting an email marketing strategy into motion, email marketers regularly monitor campaign performance, analyze data, and refine the strategy over time.
Optimizing your email marketing strategy means recognizing that your brand is unique and your email marketing should reflect that distinctiveness. Hence, an email marketing executive can start with assumptions and industry best practices but are always ready to pivot and fine-tune their approach based on the specific needs of the brand they're working with.
Critical tools for email marketing executives
Email marketing executives rely on the following essential tools and strategies to optimize campaigns and achieve their goals:
Analytics integration
Email marketing experts regularly review analytics data to track key metrics like email engagement, open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, and revenue generated. They then use this information to refine their email marketing strategy and identify areas for improvement.
Native integrations
Native integrations simplify the data flow between email software and other essential tools like eCommerce platforms (e.g., Shopify, WooCommerce). Email marketers leverage these native integrations to automate processes, such as syncing customer data, tracking purchase behavior, and triggering targeted emails based on user actions. Where native integration isn't available, a tool like Zapier can bridge the gap.
Data privacy compliance
The general rule of thumb is to only email people who have willingly subscribed to your list and expressed a genuine interest in hearing from you. Hence, email marketers must prioritize permission-based marketing, avoid purchased lists, simplify unsubscribing, and understand local regulations to maintain data privacy compliance.
Unleash the power of email marketing with the right expert
Email marketing is still one of the best ways to connect with an audience, build a brand, and grow a business. But, it takes a skilled email marketing executive to bring it all together. They're the key players in ensuring campaigns hit the mark, working effectively with other departments, and keeping data privacy in check. With an experienced email marketing consultant by your side, you can also fully tap into the incredible power of email marketing.
