What is an Email Blast? How to Send Email Blasts in 2023 (With Templates)

An email blast is one of the most popular and effective marketing strategies for any kind of business.

Email blasts are an easy solution to help you reach a lot of people. When done correctly, an email blast can achieve an incredible ROI and make a big difference to your sales. However, you need to make sure that you get bulk emails right because it’s also easy to send out annoying email blasts that can harm your brand.

In this guide, we’ll cover exactly what an email blast is, how to send out email blasts, as well as a few tactics to help you create a stronger email marketing strategy. We’ve also included some templates to make sending your next email blast a whole lot easier.

If you’re thinking of sending an email blast, you’ll find everything you need to know in this guide.

What is an Email Blast?
Are Email Blasts a Good Marketing Strategy?
When Should You Send Out an Email Blast?
How to Create an Email Blast
6 Tips for Successful Email Blast Campaigns
Email Blast Templates
Email Blast Examples
Use the Right Email Marketing Platform
FAQs

What is an Email Blast?

Email blasts, or email broadcasts, are types of email campaigns where a business sends out a single mass email to a large distribution list at once.

The aim of these email campaigns trying to get a broad message into as many inboxes as possible.

Instead of direct communication between people, email blasts communicate the same message to hundreds, or thousands, of people at once.

Email blasts form a huge part of email marketing, with most businesses using them in their email marketing strategy. For bulk emails to be effective, it’s important to understand what type of situation and message is suitable for an email blast campaign. You’ll also need to be aware of who the marketing email is being sent out to.

Are Email Blasts a Good Marketing Strategy?

Email marketing is essential for many businesses, and email blasts form one of the most important areas of this strategy.

An email blast can be incredibly effective, or it can yield little to no results. This just depends on the specifics of the email campaign.

Because of the lack of personalization, email blasts should only be done when the subject of the email is relevant to everyone on your mailing list.

This could include topics like the launch of a new product, a discount or sale, or important news or information about your business.

If an email is designed for a very specific user at a particular moment in their customer journey, then an email blast is not always the right strategy for them.

To understand email blasts a bit better, let’s lay out the pros and cons of these email campaigns:

Pros

Email blasts make it easy to scale your email campaign
They’re an effective way to broadcast an important message to everyone on your mailing list
Email blasts require minimal time and effort
Email blasts allow you to reach your audience directly, unlike many other marketing channels
When done correctly, email blasts offer an incredible ROI

Cons

There’s a greater chance of email blasts ending up in a spam folder
Email blasts lack personalization, so some messages may not interest your audience
If you send too many irrelevant email blasts, your audience might get irritated and lose trust
Email blasts could result in a greater rate of unsubscribes
Bombarding too many inboxes could affect our brand’s reputation

So, to summarize, an email last is an effective email marketing strategy in the sense that it saves a lot of time and effort. It allows you to send out a message to a lot of people very easily.

Just make sure that the email blast message is relevant to the entire audience you’re sending the email to.

When Should You Send Out an Email Blast?

Every business can and should use marketing emails to communicate with customers and prospects.

One of the most important things to remember with email marketing is to create different segmented lists. These could include things like lists for existing customers, customers in different locations, or people who performed certain actions (like downloading an ebook).

These segmented lists let you send personalized content that matches the audience’s interests and pain points.

You can use an email marketing service like Wishpond to create segments, and only send email blasts to relevant email recipients. Creating different campaigns for different audience segments will help you stay out of spam folders and offer more valuable information. This lets you develop deeper relationships with subscribers.

Sometimes, brands combine all of their audience segments and send blast emails to every address they have. When should you do this?

You should only do this when the email blast message is relevant to everyone you’re sending it to. Here are some examples of when email blast campaigns are a good idea:

Announcing a new product
Announcing an event
Announcing a company-wide sale, discount, or special offer
Announcing a change in systems or operations (like new contact information or operating hours)
Announcing any broad company news that is relevant to anyone your business comes into contact with

When shouldn’t you send an email blast:

If you launch a new product that only applies to a specific email segment (eg. a new line of men’s shirts and you have male and female email lists)
If you send out news or updates that are location-specific
If you send out a survey or questionnaire that only applies to specific people
If you send out promotional material designed for a specific stage of the customer journey, and you have email subscribers at different stages of their journey
Any other message that only relates to specific individuals

How to Create an Email Blast

When carefully planned, email blasting can be a powerful strategy.

Here is a step-by-step process to planning your email campaigns and ensuring you send out email blast content that achieves great results. By following the right tactics, you’ll be able to improve email deliverability and direct more traffic to your website.

Understand Your Goals

First, know what you want to accomplish with the email blast.

Every email should have an end goal or action that you want the recipient to take. This could include things like:

Driving traffic to a certain web page
Generating signups
Increasing sales for a certain product

Define the goal of the email campaign before you create content or send anything out. This will help you understand just how effective the email blast is, and create email content that has a greater impact.

Use the Right Email Marketing Software

Email marketing simply can’t be done without a specialized email blasting tool.

The tool you use should allow you to automate email communications, build and send emails, monitor email performance, segment subscriber lists, and personalize your communications.

The email software should also integrate with your CRM to keep all customer information and activity in a single place.

Wishpond offers the most powerful tools and email marketing services that any business can use. This is the easiest way to create and send effective email blast campaigns.

Create the Email

Once you understand the email campaign’s goal and have the right software, the next step is to create the email you’ll be sending out.

Emails will need compelling subject lines, email body text, a clear CTA, and possibly an image or two.

Spend extra time writing the subject line, as this determines whether your email is opened or not. Strong subject lines should stand out and grab attention without seeming too spammy. Keep them short, and try to use the subject to build interest.

Also, try to avoid using words like “urgent”, “cash”, and “millions”. These are stop words that could trigger spam filters.

Your email should read easily, naturally, and it should result in the user wanting to take very clear action. If the email is too long or dense, it will be quickly ignored.

Follow our guide to learn more about email copywriting best practices.

Choose Your List

As we’ve already discussed, an email blast is sent out to a broad list, not to individuals.

The best strategy is to send an email blast only to the relevant list.

Segmenting your lists based on things like purchase behavior, demographics, preferences, and email behavior will help you achieve better results from mass emails.

Creating specific email lists is a process called segmentation, and it’s something that your email blast service should assist with. The more specific your email lists are, the more successful special promotions to these lists will be.

Test Your Email

Your list is chosen and your content is ready, but there’s one thing you should do before you send an email blast.

Send out a test email to yourself.

Make sure it looks good in your inbox, the subject line stands out, and the email reads naturally. Check your links to make sure that they work, go over the spelling, and notice how quickly any images load (compress these if they take too long).

Once your email is perfect, hit send.

Measure the Results

Email marketing tools provide insights into how well your email campaigns perform. After you’ve sent your email, wait a day or two and measure the email’s results.

Pay attention to the most important email marketing metrics, like the open rate, the click-through rate, and unsubscribes. Measure and record this data somewhere. This can be used to help you understand what is effective, what isn’t, and how you can optimize future email blast messages.

6 Tips for Successful Email Blast Campaigns

Sending out mass emails could either end up in the spam folder, or they could result in an awesome ROI for your business.

Here are a few tips and tricks to remember to help you improve email deliverability and achieve better results from your email blast campaigns.

Always Test Your Emails

Always use A/B testing on your email campaigns to create more impactful email content. A/B testing is when you experiment with a certain variable and send out two emails to different halves of your list changing that variable.

For example, you can change the subject line, and experiment to see which one performs best. Take note of the variable that got the best results, and use this tactic in your next email.

By constantly testing and refining, you’ll end up sending better email content every time. This will help you attract more subscribers and easily create promotional content with a greater impact.

Try to Personalize Wherever Possible

Sending targeted emails to specific leads, customers, and prospects will achieve greater results than a mass email sent to everyone.

Wherever you can, always try to segment your mailing lists and personalize your emails based on these lists.

Understand the user in each list and what their interests and pain points are. Then send out an email that speaks to this.

If you just send the same message to all your subscribers, it won’t resonate as well.

Remember the Human

Automated emails shouldn’t feel automated.

Whenever you craft an email, make sure it feels like a genuine email sent from a real person, and not just a mass marketing message from a business to their whole contact list.

Personalize the email with the recipient’s first name, include your name in the email, and use friendly, human-like language.

Think of the recipient when you build your email, and remember that it’s being sent to a person. The more natural and less promotional your email seems, the better its results will probably be.

Make it Easy to Unsubscribe

While you may want to send out as many messages as possible to as many people as possible, you also need to realize that sending messages to people who don’t want to receive them will only cause more damage and frustration with your brand.

Not only is this polite, but it’s also a legal requirement as part of the CAN-SPAM act. You have to always offer a way to opt-out for anyone who doesn’t want to receive messages from your brand. This will help you avoid unwanted email bounces.

At the end of the day, sending an email blast to 10 people who want to receive your message is more effective than sending a blast to 1000 people who get annoyed when your message arrives in their inbox.

And if a user can’t unsubscribe, they will likely mark your emails as spam. This certainly won’t do your future campaigns any favors.

Know Your Audience

It’s important to understand your email subscribers, who they are, and what kind of content they enjoy if you want to keep your engagement and deliverability high.

Create audience personas, look into any audience insights you have available, and really think about who your audience is, what their pain points are, and what they want to get from your brand.

Testing email content and monitoring the results are also important here.

The better you know your audience, and the better you can craft email content that they enjoy, the better your email results will be.

Focus On the Benefits

Whether you’re sending a welcome message, transactional emails, promotional emails, or more, always highlight the benefits of what you’re sending. Let the recipient know that there’s value in your email.

For example, if you’re promoting a webinar, don’t only send out the event information. Also, explain why the person receiving the email will benefit from the event and why it is relevant to them.

If a user can see the value each time they receive communications from you, they will be more interested in your email blasts.

Email Blast Templates

At Wishpond, we’ve been helping thousands of small businesses with our email blast service.

From our years of experience, here are a few email blast template options that work. Try these templates out for your next email campaign. They’ve worked for us, so hopefully, they will work for you too!

Sales email:

Hey {{first_name | capitalize}},

I’m doing some research about how businesses in {lead’s industry}} are acquiring customers, and their primary concern is the difficulty (and expense) of ranking in Google and {more specific industry pain point}.

Is this something that you’re also challenged with at {{company_name}}?

Some {lead’s industry} businesses have told me they focus on inbound marketing – things like blogging, ebooks, and webinars – and others have told me they rely strictly on PPC and paid traffic.

If you have a couple of minutes, would you be open to hopping on a quick call? I’d be interested to see where {{company_name}} fits within this spectrum. It shouldn’t take more than 10 or so minutes and I can share with you some of the tactics that other businesses like yours have been using to great success

Let me know what works for you!

Cheers, {Name}

Lead nurturing email:

Hey there,

Thanks for downloading {resource they converted on}!

You can access your ebook {resource they converted on link}.

And don’t hesitate to let us know if you need any guidance on getting your {resource subject} up and running. Just email {marketing email address} (or drop by our office in {city} if you’re in the area), and we’d be happy to help.

Cheers, {Name}

Lead nurturing transitioning to sale email:

Hey {Lead Name},

I wanted to reach out and see if there was anything I could do to help you with your {subject leads interested in}?

I’m sure you’ve seen that {your brand name} has a {tool related to the subject they’re interested in}. Did you have any questions about what we do or how it works?

We’re currently offering {value proposition}, so you can get started quickly and easily.

If you want to have a conversation before jumping in, I’d be happy to set it up. Just reply to this email and we can get started.

Or, feel free to head to our {VIP Demo/Contact Us Page Link}.

I look forward to talking to you!

Cheers,

{Your Name}

These are just a few examples. You can check out our complete guide to email marketing templates for more options.

Email Blast Examples

To help you with your own email campaign, here are a few examples of email blasts from some brands that know how to do them well.

1. REI

Here’s a great example of an email blast used to promote a special offer. This is a mass email campaign that would interest anyone subscribed to REI’s list. The email has an enticing subject line and offers a clear benefit.

2. Beardbrand

When it comes to email blast campaigns, Beardbrand is a master. This message is a fun story to help drive traffic to the brand’s YouTube channel. It’s an entertaining email to read and is written in a way that any of the brand’s subscribers can relate to.

3. Trade Coffee

This email blast highlights a special release from the brand. It’s an effective email for helping Trade Coffee introduce its subscribers to something new and push more sales.

4. AppSumo

This is a perfect example of how you can use a giveaway to boost your sales. AppSumo sent out a coupon code to all of their contest entrants. Everyone who entered got the same email, and the benefit is clear to each recipient.

5. Blk & Bold

Here’s a great welcome email that gets blasted to everyone that completes the brand’s email signup forms. This single message explains who the brand is and what they do. It’s a great way to start building a relationship with new email subscribers.

Use the Right Email Marketing Platform

There are loads of strategies for sending out a good email blast, but your success really comes down to the platform you use.

Wishpond offers a complete email blast service to help businesses of all sizes create powerful email blast campaigns. With Wishpond, you get a full suite of tools to capture leads, segment leads into different lists, and send out a personalized, customized email campaign to the right list.

You can also create signup forms through the easy drag and drop editor, and set up email automation workflows – all from a single platform.

Wishpond’s team of experts also offers an email marketing service to help create campaigns for you. Get in touch if you want to find out more.

Conclusion

Using email for marketing is huge. It’s one of the most important marketing channels for most businesses, and it can yield awesome results if you use it correctly.

Follow these email blast strategies, be careful about how you send your messages, and use the right email software. Luckily, it’s easy to get these things right. And when you do, you’ll see some amazing results.

FAQs

Are email blasts spam?

Marketing emails are not necessarily spam. However, the improper use of email marketing will result in spam. Make sure you only send relevant messages to people who want to receive them and follow all necessary requirements in the CAN-SPAM act.

How do I send an email blast?

You will need to use a dedicated email blast service/platform to send your email to a large audience. You will also need a strategy in place to generate leads and gather new subscribers to send your emails to.

Are email blasts effective?

Email blast campaigns tend to achieve greater conversion rates than social media. They also have an excellent ROI when done properly.

How often should you send newsletters?

In general, it’s best to send email newsletters no more than twice a week and at least once a month. The optimal frequency depends on the business and its subscribers.