Email Marketing Skill for Claude

A skill that gives Claude deep, opinionated expertise in email, lifecycle, and CRM marketing.

This isn’t a generic best-practice summary. It reflects the experience and opinions of a practitioner.

What the skill can do

With this skill loaded, Claude can:

• Audit an email programme — work through a structured checklist (deliverability, list health, lifecycle coverage, automations, cadence, measurement, compliance) and deliver prioritised findings with severity ratings, not generic recommendations
• Diagnose deliverability problems — triage in the order a practitioner would (scope, then authentication, then reputation, then list quality, then content last) and prescribe fixes in order of leverage
• Design automations and sequences — welcome flows, abandoned cart, post-purchase, re-engagement and winback, each specified with trigger, timing, audience, exit conditions, and a measurable goal
• Write email copy — subject lines with rationale, preview text, body copy, and CTAs, delivered in labelled parts; multi-email sequences as structured specs
• Set up authentication — SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records, alignment, and troubleshooting failures after ESP changes
• Plan list building and opt-in — forms, lead magnets, single vs double opt-in, consent records, and source tracking
• Design segmentation — segment models (RFM, value tiers, lifecycle stage, propensity) with an honest account of when segmentation isn’t worth its cost
• Plan and analyse tests — A/B tests with hypothesis, sample size per cell, minimum detectable effect, and duration; flag underpowered tests instead of running them
• Measure whether the programme works — holdouts and control groups, attribution methods and their limits, incrementality, retention and LTV, and impact sizing before anything gets built
• Compare and select ESPs — a five-factor evaluation framework applied to your actual requirements
• Advise beyond email — SMS/RCS, WhatsApp, mobile and browser push, in-app, wallet passes, direct mail, and more: each channel’s permission rules, constraints, costs, and measurement
• Answer compliance questions — CAN-SPAM, GDPR, UK GDPR/PECR, CASL, CCPA, and consent for tracking pixels as distinct from consent to send

Powered by the CRM Open Knowledge Wiki

The skill is driven by the CRM Open Knowledge Wiki — an open-source practitioner knowledge base in the Open Knowledge Format (OKF), browsable at crmknowledgebase.com. When Claude has network access, it fetches the relevant wiki pages and grounds its answers in them, covering five layers: principles, foundations, channels, measurement, and references.

The topic files bundled in this repo are a condensed offline fallback for environments without network access.

Bundled fallback topics

• Authentication — SPF, DKIM, DMARC setup and troubleshooting; transactional vs marketing email
• List building — Forms, lead magnets, single vs double opt-in, subscriber source tracking
• Segmentation and data — Segmentation types, dynamic vs static segments, data hygiene, privacy compliance, personalisation and merge tags
• Copywriting — Subject lines, email anatomy, CTAs, spam trigger avoidance
• Automation and sequences — Automation triggers, welcome sequences, abandoned cart, re-engagement, campaign goal-setting
• Deliverability and metrics — How inbox placement works, getting out of spam, IP warming, full metrics reference, Gmail Promotions tab, MIME structure
• ESP selection and reference — Five-factor ESP evaluation framework, legislation quick reference (CAN-SPAM, GDPR, CASL, CCPA), common mistakes, glossary
• Impact sizing — How to size the potential impact of email experiments: model types, formula mechanics, input gathering, sample size planning
• Measurement — Core metrics, attribution, holdouts and control groups, retention/LTV, sample size and power, testing frameworks, uplift and incrementality
• Channels — SMS/RCS, push, browser push, in-app, wallet passes, conversational messaging, direct mail, and more: permissions, constraints, and measurement per channel

The bundle also includes Workflows — task procedures and output formats (programme audit checklist, deliverability triage sequence, campaign brief template, deliverable conventions). Unlike the topic files, this applies whether or not the wiki is reachable.

Usage

Claude Code

Clone the repo, then add the skill directory path to your project or user settings in .claude/settings.json:

{
  "skills": [
    "/path/to/email-marketing-skill/email-marketing"
  ]
}

Claude.ai

Upload the skill directly: zip the email-marketing/ directory and add it under Settings → Capabilities → Skills. This preserves the bundled topic files, so the skill works even when web access is unavailable.

Alternatively, add the contents of email-marketing/SKILL.md as custom instructions in a Claude.ai project — but note this drops the offline fallback files, so it relies on Claude being able to fetch the wiki (web search/fetch must be enabled on your plan or organisation).

API / other integrations

Include the contents of email-marketing/SKILL.md in your system prompt.

Examples

Once Claude has access to the skill, ask about anything email marketing related:

• “Help me plan a welcome email sequence”
• “What’s wrong with my deliverability?”
• “Write subject lines for a product launch campaign”
• “Should I use single or double opt-in?”
• “Compare Mailchimp and Klaviyo for my use case”
• “Set up SPF and DKIM for my domain”

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. If you have practitioner-level insights to add, open a PR. Keep the tone opinionated and practical — this skill deliberately avoids wishy-washy “it depends” advice where a clear recommendation is warranted.

License

MIT