Strategy is everything when you want high-quality results for your Email Marketing campaign. But before you can create that highly successful campaign, there are a few things you must do first. Here are five steps you should take before you craft your email marketing campaign
Identify the purpose of your email marketing strategy.
Rather than crunching numbers from the beginning, take time to consider what you want the email program to do for your organization. Always remember that the purpose behind any marketing strategy is to acquire customers and keep them coming back for more. A sample goal definition would be something similar to the following:
- Sell your products
- Find good leads for the services you provide
- Tempt people to register for your events
- Bring repeat visitors to your Website
- Generate online advertising revenue
- Build your reputation
- Keep your company’s prospects alive
Analyze your current situation.
The goal here is to identify your current email program’s strengths and weaknesses. Write down everything you can think of, and if you have a team working with you on the email campaigns, have a discussion. You need to identify every aspect of online and offline marketing methods used by your company and analyze the results on the basis of how much you have done and how much you have gained from it. All strengths and weaknesses identified should be under your control, and prioritizing the most prominent of your strengths and weaknesses will help you improve on your existing strategy.
Do a competitive analysis
If you skip this step, you are likely to get lost in the big blue email marketing sea. It’s a good idea to keep track of what your competitors are doing and how they are doing it. The easiest way to do this is to get several free email accounts and sign up for a variety of newsletters and promotional offers provided by your competitors. By doing this, you’ll be able to learn several things about their strategies, including:
- How often do they send emails to their subscribers
- The types of emails they send, including the message type and format (long, short, article, postcard, etc.)
- Which days do they send their emails on, and what time do they send them
- The type of recipients they target
- The products and services they offer in their permission-based campaigns
- The quality of their content
Identify your target audience
The more you know about your recipients, the more you will be able to give them what they want. After all, your target audience is probably varied and can include big business tycoons and stay-at-home moms. The key to identifying each group lies in how you gather their information. If your target audience is the general consumer, it makes sense to gather information about age, gender, state, location, marital status, educational level, and hobbies. But if your primary audience is in the business world, then it’s far more sensible to gather information such as industry, title, seniority, primary contact details, and other info.
Design appealing and sensible emails
No one wants to read long articles filled with text paragraphs. The idea is to get the reader’s attention as well as keep it, so apply your talents in graphics and add a few nice pictures and animations in your email without overdoing it. If you have a load of graphics, the email will take forever to download, and the reader will just lose interest. The ideal email template design should include:
- An impressive header, with your corporate logo
• Simple and effective, well-written content
• Three or four strongly effective images
• Links to your Website
• Contact information
Creating a great email marketing campaign isn’t rocket science, but it requires careful planning and execution. Follow the steps above to give your email campaign the best chance to succeed.