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While email marketing is still one of the most reliable forms of outreach, some important elements must be double-checked before hitting send. To ensure that your message comes through clearly and provides the most value possible to the right audience, it’s a best practice to follow a checklist of items that need to be reviewed, especially prior to sending a mass email

Here, 12 experts from Forbes Agency Council discuss the most crucial aspects that marketers should verify before sending any kind of email, whether it is part of a welcome, promotional, drip, newsletter, reengagement or any other type of email campaign.

1. Audience Alignment

The No. 1 thing we check is the audience and whether our campaign messages are aligned correctly with the customer or prospect journey. We use a variety of methods to get this right, including combining business contact data with intent monitoring to reach the right decision-makers at a time when they are ready to buy. - Paula Chiocchi, Outward Media, Inc.

2. Personalized Greetings

Make sure the personalization is set up properly. There’s nothing worse than receiving an email that starts with, “Hello [insert name here].” The whole point of doing this kind of campaign is for your audience to feel as if you have created it for them. If you can’t even get the greeting right, nothing else matters. - Scott Baradell, Idea Grove

3. The List Of Contacts

Always double-check the list of contacts before you hit send! The last thing you want to do is email a list of brand new clients saying, “We haven’t heard from you in a while. Is there anything we can do?” Everyone makes mistakes, and typos can easily be forgiven, but sending a message to the wrong list could damage your reputation. Some clients may even see you as insincere or disingenuous. - Joy Gendusa, PostcardMania

4. Who Has Opted Out

The one thing to check before hitting send on any email campaign is this: who has opted out. Many brands consistently make the mistake of not removing people from their customer relationship management tool, either out of ignorance or fear of a dwindling sales list. Not performing this step will only further disenfranchise your audience. - Roger Hurni, Off Madison Ave

Forbes Agency Council is an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies. Do I qualify?

5. Grammar And Punctuation

A great email campaign can easily be ruined by a few small grammatical or syntactical errors. This, in turn, looks very unprofessional. Grammar and punctuation are the most important factors because they constantly get overlooked. - Dmitrii Kustov, Regex SEO

6. The Value Offered

Apart from the obvious final proofread, I always check that I’ve added value in the form of a tip or special offer and have delivered a clear call to action with a specific goal, whether it’s to increase website traffic or social media followers or to announce a 24-hour sale to trigger impulse buying. - Sophie Bowman, Business Owner Society

7. Trackable Links

Always be sure to check the trackable links. Make sure that they go to the correct web pages and that the pages open correctly in both desktop and mobile browsers. Also, be sure the tracking on those clickable links works. It’s one of the best ways to quantify the effectiveness of a campaign. It gives great insight on not only what links were clicked, but also what content caused the reader to take action. - Henry Kurkowski, One WiFi

8. The Balance Between Informing And Selling

You have to double-check the balance between informing or educating and selling. Ultimately, we are trying to bring value to the readership, and that should not be led by an overbearing promotional theme. An information-only email misses the opportunity to bring expertise to the forefront. Take a position, provide insight and deliver something fresh, whether it’s popular or not. - Dean Trevelino, Trevelino/Keller

9. What Has Worked For Your Competition

One of the best ways to make sure that you are successful is by looking at what has worked for your competition. You want to look at copies of messages that have been sent out and see what looked good. If you have any doubts, taking the time to hire a professional copywriter is a great way to ensure that you are ahead of the curve. - Jon James, Ignited Results

10. Calls To Action And URL Links

Before pressing send on a marketing email or a series of emails in a campaign, we always double-check our calls to action (CTAs) and ensure that all URL links are active. Oftentimes the goal is to bring people off of the email or social media platforms to monetize them on our own websites and landing pages, in which case you need to make sure that all hyperlinks are set up correctly for best results. - Jonathan Durante, Expandify Marketing Inc

11. How It Sounds Read Aloud

Read it out loud. It may sound simple, but it’s the best thing you can do. If you have the time to clean up a mess before sending email copy out with mistakes, you have time to read it out loud before you click send. - Danny Star, Website Depot

12. The Subject Line

Double-check the subject of the message and ensure that it is catchy enough for the recipient to open it. And, to be on the safe side, I always send the first email to my personal inbox to double-check that it shows exactly as I wanted it to on my laptop and on all other devices. - Elissar Hajj Zarwi, Comma Hub