Any successful business will tell you that an email marketing campaign is a critical element for the overall marketing strategy. The reason why email marketing is so important is because it allows the business to nurture leads, build brand awareness, obtain prospects, build customer loyalty and of course generate sales.
So then the real question is ‘What are the components of a successful email marketing campaign?’
Well, the people who know what it takes to make a ‘killer’ email marketing campaign are definitely reaping the rewards for taking their prospects and/or customers on a journey and leading them to an abyss of utopia. (Okay, I might be making that sound a little dramatic, but I think you get the idea).
Email Marketing Components
1. Develop your campaign around specific goals – The first thing you want to do is develop a tangible objective. Make sure what you are aiming to do can be done and know what the result will be when you reach your tangible objective. Don’t forget to profile and target your audience. If your ‘bread and butter’ is 18-35 year olds who like sports and outdoor activities, do not build anything in your email marketing plan that doesn’t fit into that mold. If you do, you’ll lose credibility.
Create a good offer and a compelling call to action and present it early in your message. The attention span of most people today (myself included) is about as long as a hiccup. You have to grab their attention right away and make it count. If you don’t, they’ll delete your message immediately like the other 200 they get everyday. Make sure you plan a series of emails to create an ongoing campaign and run it for an amount of time that is appropriate from your goals. Some philosophies are ‘until they buy or die!’. Other campaigns might be more appropriate for maybe 3-6 months. Do what’s best for your business and don’t forget about the fulfillment.
2. Invest in good content – Your prospects or customers love people who are ‘real’ and genuine, and that’s exactly what you should do in your email marketing campaign. If you can make your content more personal and maybe tell some stories, GREAT! It’s also important to offer content that’s relative to your target market. Once again, don’t talk about retirement homes or worrying about your retirement if your target audience isn’t interested in that. Please, please, please avoid superlatives like ‘I’m the best… or We’re the best…’ If you think about it, experts are just experts. They rarely say they are.
Most importantly, get right to the point and avoid any unnecessary text. Just imagine the voice of the teacher from the ‘Peanuts’ cartoon. Don’t be that in your emails. (For the younger generation, google the teacher in Peanuts and you’ll understand what I’m talking about) Finally, have a clear call to action that cannot be mistaken for what you want the prospect to do. In fact, don’t give more than 1 option if you can. A clear mind takes action while a confused mind doesn’t.
3. Choose the right technology – Having the right ESP (Email Service Provider) can be the difference between a successful email marketing campaign and a bad email marketing campaign. ESP’s, among other things, deliver emails for you, personalize the content, host images and generate reports for you making them a solid ’1-stop shop’. The top popular ESP’s are iContact, Constant Contact, Mailchimp, Benchmark Email, Campaigner, Pinpoints, Mad Mimi, Vertical Response, Graphicmail and Stream Send.
One thing to keep in mind is that your email newsletters must be CAN-SPAM Act compliant. That means you cant just write an email and send it out. Get to know what makes emails non-compliant and it will save you tons of time and money in the long run.
It’s a great idea to email to your list regularly as even corporate email addresses change frequently. When there’s more time between campaigns, you’ll have a higher rate of ‘bounces’ and all those ‘bounces’ can trigger spam filter and spam alarms. You don’t want that. You have to make your emails have the ability to easily ‘opt out’ of any further communications with you. That will keep you compliant as well. By the way, if you do buy or rent a list, make sure it’s an ‘opt-in’ list.
4. Continue to test, refine and review – If you’re working with a new ESP or list, evaluate your delivery and response rate before you roll out any new email marketing campaign. Try out different subject lines with a small percentage of your list and see which one gets a higher response. It’s also important to test out different layouts and different colors that your ESP has, but keep everything in alignment with your overall objectives and branding.
You can also try personalizing emails, tracking previous purchases or following up with customers after they’ve made a purchase. Experiment sending out the emails during different days of the week and also at different times. You’ll never know what your list responds to best unless you mix it up. You can test a long email copy versus a short email copy. It’s also a good idea to do A/B split testing with email titles and maybe even compelling offers. Test, test, test and do some more testing. The great thing about these ESP’s is that they can monitor and track all of the results for you.
Bottom line is email marketing campaigns are very effective only if you have all the right ingredients to make it work. As with anything, the more you measure and track your results, the more effective your email marketing campaigns will be.
To your dreams,
