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Sometimes It's Good to Get Ahead of Yourself
The execution of a single effective email campaign, much
less your entire email marketing strategy, requires some
serious thought, planning, scheduling and tweaking. So, take
some time to look ahead and develop an email marketing plan to
keep you focused and on track to meet your goals.
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What are your goals?
New customer acquisition, customer retention, stronger
relationships, repeat sales? Are you providing helpful
information or trying to prompt a particular response? If
your answer is all of the above, you should have separate
plans to help you reach each goal, simply because your
audience and your message will be different for each one.
Your audience
You may want to use a rented opt-in list for new
customer acquisition, while using your in-house list for
retention. Make sure you know and understand each
audience to maximize the effectiveness of your email
campaigns. Who are your most important customers or
clients, and why? What motivates them? What do they want
or expect from you? Who are your most important
prospects, and why? What is important to them?
Your message
Think about what kinds of campaigns you may use. You
have many options including newsletters, holiday or
seasonal promotions, preferred customer sales, new
product or service announcements, press releases,
general business communications and more.
See Hints & Tips Volume 1 Issue 8 for more details.
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How do you spell success?
How many sales or leads do you expect to generate? How
many visits to your retail store, phone calls to your
office, or new subscribers to your newsletter will make
your campaign a winner? Evaluate results including open
rates, click-throughs, and unsubscribes. Then, use that
information to improve your next campaign. Even if your
campaign is purely informational, you can measure your
success the old-fashioned way: via subscriber feedback.
Take it from me, your subscribers will tell you what they
think!
Test, Test, Test
There are many variables including your list, your
subject line, your
email copy, your offer, your campaign type, delivery
day/time and more. Testing the subject line is both the
logical first step and, conveniently, the easiest
variable to test, so why not start there? Just remember
to test by changing only one variable at a time.
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What does your schedule look like?
Take a look at your calendar to decide what information to
communicate and when. Consider upcoming seasons
(back-to-school, tax season), holidays and events as email
marketing opportunities. You may even be launching a
direct mail campaign, a newspaper ad or flyer distribution
that could be complimented by email marketing to make your
overall campaign more powerful and profitable.Your
schedule may change, but your plan will give you a strong
foundation. Be realistic in estimating how much time you
will need to execute your plan.
A word of caution: be sure to follow through on the
promises you make to your subscribers. A "monthly"
newsletter should always remain on schedule unless you
communicate a change in frequency. |
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How Much Communication is Too Much?
This is a tough one because all audiences and businesses
are different. A stock broker may send an email to his
client base every trading day, while an appliance store
may communicate much less frequently. Think about your
product or service and how often your customers use it or
buy it to determine how often to communicate. Beyond that,
let your click throughs, unsubscribe rates and customer
feedback be your guide. |
Autumn officially starts on Saturday, September 22nd, and
the holidays are fast approaching. So, create your email
marketing plan today and get results before the first leaf
falls!
Email
Marketing Video Tutorials Show you how to plan, create, and send
successful newsletters.
Read Email Marketing Tips
and Lessons written by Michelle Keegan, Constant
Contact's Email Marketing Diva.
Learn E-Marketing Lingo from the
glossary of Email
Marketing terms.
| by Michelle Keegan, Constant Contact's Email
Marketing Diva(TM) |
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