Did you know? Email marketing is widely believed to have originated in 1978 with one mass email to 400 recipients on the original ARPANET.
Performed by Digital Equipment Corporation's marketing manager, Gary Thuerk, it was considered the first spam mail by some. However, it was very effective, generating a supposed $13 million in sales. Things were never the same again in the world of B2B.
Email today remains the most convenient technology to message people professionally and to file important documents. However, it has one other major benefit and trade-off: every professional on Earth now possesses an open, organic channel with which anyone else can contact them directly.
Email isn’t just a key tool for reaching out to potential new customers or clients. It is also a large part of how businesses maintain and nurture client relationships. Many online businesses today send out hundreds of emails daily to customers at various stages of their buyer journey, whether they are a new lead or have failed to renew a subscription.
Even at many small startups today, you can frequently become bogged down with hundreds of different automated emails for various customers. Once you get to that volume of emails, it’s time to hire an email marketing manager to make sure the right people receive the right messages.
Which Businesses Benefit Most From Email Marketing Managers?
Almost any type of business that deals with a high volume of automatic marketing emails should consider hiring an email marketing manager. Generally, these tend to be:
- Sales-heavy businesses
- With larger numbers of contacts or clients
- That profit from repeat purchases
Some examples of businesses that benefit the most:
- SaaS companies with monthly/annual subscriptions
- B2B service providers with retainer contracts
- Financial services (banks, insurance, investment firms)
- Ecommerce stores with a substantial past customer list
- Publishers or media companies with large newsletter subscriber bases
- Membership organizations or associations
- Real estate agencies and property developers
- High-ticket consulting or coaching businesses
- Luxury goods and bespoke services
Normal Responsibilities for Email Marketing Managers
While email marketers need to specialize in crafting and delivering automated email campaigns at scale, they are frequently pulled into running all aspects of outbound marketing, whether they be:
- Slack notifications
- SMS notifications
- Social media DMs
- And more
Email marketers are also commonly expected to run basic analytics for their campaigns and use CRMs like HubSpot to create email lists and segment their audience.
Ideally, a good email marketing manager will also have a decent basic understanding of copywriting so they can better craft their emails. Those subject lines are almost more important than the emails themselves
Outside of writing emails and repurposing them for other outbound channels, a good email marketing manager should also be constantly running tests to see which messaging works best. That means they need to be adept at coming up with a range of email styles quickly that they can run side by side.
Brite’s Qualifications for Email Marketing Managers
- 5+ years of hands-on experience in email marketing strategy, execution, optimization, and reporting cycle.
- 3+ years of experience in using CRM and marketing automation tools (HubSpot experience preferred).
- Strong analytical skills with a passion for experimenting via split tests.
- Strong communication and presentation skills.
- Excellent leadership skills with the confidence to lead, influence, engage and partner with cross-functional partners to drive business results.
- Thrive in a fluid, fast-paced, and results-oriented environment; able to adapt to changing business needs and influence decision-making across all levels of the organization.
- Bachelor’s degree in business, marketing, or associated studies.
How to Interview an Email Marketing Manager
When preparing to interview an email marketing manager, you should always make sure you understand all of the components of running a successful email campaign. These include things like:
- Common email marketing tech (Mailchimp, etc.)
- How to measure an email marketing campaign (CTRs, Open rates, bounce rates, etc.)
- Basic copy principles (how to write a good subject line, etc.)
- Audience segmentation (when to cut up an audience by factors like location, job, search history, etc.)
- They should also understand common ways to do this research; however, in some teams, specifically those with GTM leads, the GTM will do more of the market research.
- How to get around spam filters and comply with anti-spam laws.
Questions to Ask When Interviewing an Email Marketing Manager
- How do you approach building an email marketing strategy from scratch?
- Can you share an example of an email campaign that exceeded its goals and why it worked?
- Which email marketing platforms have you used, and what are your favorites? Why?
- How do you ensure proper email deliverability and avoid spam filters? How do you ensure compliance with regulations like GDPR and CAN-SPAM?
- Can you explain your process for setting up automated workflows or drip campaigns?
- How do you handle A/B testing in email campaigns?
- How do you approach subject line writing to increase open rates?
- What key metrics do you track for email performance, and how do you interpret them?
- Can you give an example of how you used email analytics to improve results?
- How do you calculate the ROI of an email campaign?
- What’s your process for managing subscriber lists, opt-ins, and opt-outs?
- Tell me about a campaign that didn’t perform well—what did you do to fix it?
- How do you adjust your email strategy when engagement starts to decline?
- How do you collaborate with sales, content, and design teams on campaigns?
- What’s your approach to managing tight deadlines or multiple overlapping campaigns?
Red Flags For Email Marketing Managers
- Seems inexperienced with automation – If a candidate is good at writing emails but only seems to know how to send them manually, they likely aren’t going to be able to handle a large-scale campaign.
- Does not talk about testing – The great part about living in the data age is that we can quickly test things like email campaigns, see the results, and try something else. If the marketer is unable to speak specifically about common A/B testing approaches, you may want to worry.
- Not super analytical – Can’t speak on KPIs outside of open rates and click-throughs. These days, we believe every marketer should tie things to revenue.
- Treats subject lines and preview text as something unimportant – This stuff is very important and becomes more so every day as users become increasingly fatigued by low-effort subject lines.
- Unethical – If they start pushing you to buy email lists in the interview, you might want to reconsider if they are the right candidate.
Interested in Hiring an Email Marketing Manager For Your Business?
If you’re ready to get your outbound strategy order with a skilled Email Marketing Manager pre-vetted by multiple ex-CMOs, book a call with us below. We’re more than happy to discuss how one of our remote candidates could aid your business as it grows – or point you in the right direction if we’re not the right fit.
