Creating a “business” environment that complements other marketing channels, increases brand awareness, and builds relationships that drive direct sales is a key factor in establishing a successful email marketing campaign.
iContact’s “Email Marketing 101: Invest, Engage and Grow in 2016” webinar focused on how email marketing is a cost-effective solution that gives users the power to reach customers in a place most people visit every day—their inbox. Letitia Petway, iContact’s Strategic Advisor, revealed new, creative and proven email strategies that will help expand ROI, open rates and over engagement in your next email marketing campaign by providing four strategic steps in building a successful email marketing campaign.
Planning and Goals
Set clear objectives and ask yourself what you want to achieve, then aim to develop the right content. The key is to understand the marketing opportunity and build a workable plan that delivers the right content to the right audience at the right time. Failure to do this may result in rushed, ineffective and ill-thought-out campaigns that do not deliver significant results.
Building Your List
Before you start your first email marketing campaign, take inventory of the resources available to you and ensure everything is in place to maximize your opportunity. Review your current list and break it down into more targeted groups. By segmenting your list, not only will it will lower opt-out rates, but by targeting specific clients, it lets them know you’re listening to their needs.
A great way to grow your list organically is to make it as easy as possible for people to subscribe. Always include a sign up button on every page of your website, blog and Facebook page to drive subscribers to your email list.
Building an Email Campaign
Developing an email campaign that builds trust with the audience is crucial. Since it’s the first thing your clients will see, your subject line must be clear and concise, promote a sense of urgency, or provide an incentive to your audience. First impressions are everything.
Also, the quality of your content is key. You must take time to develop interesting content and keep it relevant and simple. Once your email is done, you need to determine the most effective time to send your email.
Make sure to test your email and ensure that it works in all email programs. It could look good in one program but not in another. In order to avoid spam filters, you should avoid ugly fonts, excessive capitalization or punctuation, generic terms, sloppy coding and image-only messages.
Tracking Your Results
Once you’ve created a beautiful, tested, valuable, non-spam email you must track your results. Analyze the open rate, click rate and click rate open ratio, conversion rate, bounce rate, unsubscribe rate and complaints. Measuring and understanding your results is vital to the constant improvement and effectiveness of your email marketing efforts.
