Tips for Running an Effective and Successful Email Marketing Campaign
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Planning to Succeed
The definition of success varies from person to person. A young graduate may consider scoring a low profile entry-level job as successful, whilst a ruthless businessman would consider a lucrative high-profile job as the ultimate step towards success. Success is usually defined by your life’s circumstances. In view of this fact, when planning to create a successful email marketing plan, you should establish what your personal definition of success is. More specifically, what must you achieve to deem your email marketing campaign successful?
Determine this at the outset and you’ll start off on the right footing.
As a result you’re able to equip yourself with the correct tools, ensuring that your email marketing campaign runs smoothly, achieving and maintaining a constant splurge of profitable results. There are many ways to skin a cat, but there’s only a few guaranteed ways to ensure success–taking precautions, having a back up plan, and knowing what you’re dealing with. A slight hindrance can cause a rift in the workings of your campaign. Unless, your marketing plan is rock steady.
So, before embarking on your venture prepare yourself for any pitfalls. Here are a few pointers to set the ball rolling…
1. Legality
Ensure that emails clearly identify who you are (sender) and give the recipient the opportunity to opt out at every point of communication. Make sure the email is sent to existing customers and is about similar or associated products and services to the ones they have previously purchased from you. Emails should be permission based and sent to individuals who have specifically stated that they are happy to receive emails from you or your company. The majority of people who receive permission based e-mails open on average, 78% of them. Proceed only if your third party list provider has provided assurances that all addressees on that list comply with at least one of the above statements.
2. Cover your tracks
Record who opts into your database, the date, the method and which version of your opt in clause each responder has accepted. Run an audit on all your marketing communications to identify every single touch point with your customers and prospects verbal, mail, email, web etc.
3. Spam! Spam! Spam!
The average consumer receives more than 300 emails a week, 62% of which are spam. Remind your subscribers to add you to their "safe senders" list. Also, make sure your email marketing service provider has a good relationship with ISPs. This will ensure that your email marketing campaigns go into your subscribers' inboxes, not their junk mail folders. When choosing an email marketing software, make sure the company has strict anti-spam policies and complies with the guidelines of Can-Spam.
4. Speak to the professionals
Whether you’re focused on B2C or B2B, speak to professional data providers to gain insight. Don’t restrict your targeting to lists that provide elementary data such as SIC code or number of employees when there’s so much information out there that you could use to your advantage. Build your own list. This takes time and commitment, but ultimately it is rare to find any list that will better your own, which gives you an added advantage.
5. Consider the format
A survey by AOL in 2003 stated a 50-50 split between recipients who preferred to receive emails in HTML and those who preferred text-only emails. If you cannot afford proper creative, don’t use it at all. Note that typing your email in large text is very off-putting. Many spam filters will weed out embedded graphics. Test your creative pieces on different platforms; various applications, Mac and Linux boxes.
7. For interest sake
In a recent study by DoubleClick, email users are more likely to respond to a business e-mail if its content is based on the interests they have specified. Users said the most compelling reason for them to open a business email is the name on the “from” field. So, it'll be worth your while to include your company name in this very section.
8. Ace your subject line
If your email gets through the digital assault course of spam filters and firewalls, the subject line is the first point at which your email will rise or fall. Choose the right subject line and your email gets opened, pick the wrong one and it could be deleted without a second thought. Many spam filters and firewalls will block email based on a predefined set of rules. Words such as ‘free’ and ‘offer’; exclamation marks and block capitalization even the ‘wrong’ font color can all consign your email to the junk folder before it ever reaches the target recipient’s inbox.
Email marketing is a low cost medium which generates high conversion rates and includes detailed tracking. Ultimately, creating an effective email marketing campaign requires foresight and the desire to constantly feed your mind with valuable knowledge to keep up with the changing trends.
