Disrupt, Connect & Inspire.
That’s the whole point of a campaign isn’t it? Disrupt a viewer and catch their attention and connect your content to their lives somehow, and finally inspire them to take action. Whether it’s “buy a ticket, make a phone call, or hit reply all,” marketing campaigns have a purpose. Here are 13 tips to getting your email marketing campaign working extra hard.
1. What is the timeline?
How frequently are your viewers receiving your message? Developing a timeline of when you will email and how often will help you get it done! Need a little more guidance? Check out this article, 19 Tips to a Successful Direct Mail Campaign Timeline, by Craig Simpson from Entrepreneur.com. He details what needs to be done to create a functional marketing timeline that can be used to keep you moving in the right direction.
2. Determine what your goals are.
If you can identify the outcome of what you want to achieve you will be able to determine your success. Do you want people to click on your links? Are you working to have brand believers? Are you using email to build credibility in your brand? Are you sharing your expertise to illicit a response? Are you promoting an event and ticket sales are your measuring gauge? Is the purpose of your email to inform, entertain or engage your recipients? Creating your own questions and determining the answers will help you set your goals.
3. Get a GOOD writer!
Who on your team would be good at generating content? Is there someone on your team that was an english or language arts major in college? Who has the time, or who can make time, to generate blog posts that you can link in your email messages? Use the strengths of your team to help create the email content. Or if you don’t have someone on your team that has time, hire Peppershock to help you generate content for you.
4. What is your key messaging?
Or in other words, what is the main message that you are trying to convey to your viewer? In a highly competitive market, the goal is to develop a marketing message that sets you apart from the competition. For instance, your competitor may offer the same product as you, but do they have the same great customer service or warranties? Identifying what qualities distinguish your company’s brand, and incorporating them into your key marketing message, will not only increase brand awareness but ultimately increase your sales.
5. Design matters!
5. Design matters!It really does! According to the Visual Teaching Alliance, 65% of the population are actually visual learners. Coincidentally, another study stated that after a period of only three days, 65% of all information received visually was remembered, compared to a mere 10-20% of information received audibly or written. That speaks volumes when it comes to how your messages are being received and remembered. One more reason why the use of an eye-catching and memorable design is worth the investment!
6. What are your metrics?
Metrics are the basis from which a business measures success. Consider tracking the open rate of the emails, or in other words how many people actually open your messages. Look at the click through rates, what exactly are people clicking on most? What are the bounce rates? Are typos in email addresses in your database causing issues? How many people who clicked on your links in your email actually converted to a client or customer? There are endless metrics that can be used to gauge the effectiveness of a campaign. The most important thing to remember is to keep it simple. So many marketers get lost in a metric mania, that they fail to remember the real reason behind having metrics in the first place–to produce real, lasting results. First you need to decide what it is you want to achieve or change (this can be done by having clearly defined goals, see #2), and base your campaign metrics off of that. Once you’ve established a clear, simple set of metrics, you can then begin to track your successes or failures more effectively. If you need an email system to help you track, we can help get you set up with an email marketing system we use called BenchmarkONE, we are brokers and experts on using this system. We’ll do it for you or we’ll teach you!
7. Create a subscriber preference center
People move, jobs change and so do email addresses…that’s just life. What doesn’t change is the fact that you want your email marketing messages to continue to be received by your audience. Creating a subscriber preference center can help resolve some of the issues that come along with informational changes. When you give your viewer the ability to change their personal information as their life changes, as well as control how often they see your message, you’ve just increased the likelihood that your email will be seen. Feeling lost? Check out this excellent article detailing how you can start implementing a subscriber preferences center on your site today or allow us at Peppershock to help you get started.
8. Know your audience!
In other words, who is your target customer? Have you performed the adequate research needed to get to know your audience? More than likely you know who your audience is, and maybe you even know what they want to hear, but the real question is whether or not your data driven research is being nurtured?
According to Steve Olenski at Forbes.com: “In the B2B space, the word ‘nurturing’ was the most commonly used phrase amongst all the companies I surveyed when it came to using customer data for marketing.”
But what does this mean exactly? When they speak of nurturing their data, they are referring to the time and effort they are putting into predicting, as well as fulfilling, their client or customer’s needs and wants. This produces a two-fold benefit in that it aids in generating not only new products, services and/or marketing campaigns, but also increases customer demand and satisfaction. Understanding what your audience likes and wants is important to further fuel the ongoing success of your email marketing efforts.
9. Study the art and science of subject lines
Ok you have an email ready to send, but how are you going to get your viewer to open the message? Bloomberg Business Weekly asked business leaders for some tips and their responses came back around to a general theme–think outside the box but remain relevant. One example is from an article on how Warren Adelman landed a job at GoDaddy.com. One day Adelman emailed the founder with the following subject line: “How I know you.” The article goes on to state that the founder did indeed open the email, and interviewed Adelman as his email requested. Twenty years have passed since that first inquiry, and Adelman is now the CEO! Talk about crafting the perfect subject line!
10. Proofread, again & again
This cannot be stressed enough! Proofing is important and our cardinal rule at Peppershock is “two sets of eyes on everything before it goes out the door, and not your own set!” Meaning ask others to proof your work as they might catch something you didn’t. They might see an unintentional error or typo. Did you catch a typo in this article? How sharp are your proofing skills?
11. Avoid Spamming
Automatic deletions, forwards to the spam folder and often times utter annoyance are merely a few of the bi-products of spamming. We can agree that the end goal in any marketing message is to generate traffic, awareness for a cause or profit for a business. All of which cannot be done if someone doesn’t want to receive the message in the first place. However, these small tragedies can be avoided by simply asking the viewer whether or not they would like to receive the message through the subscriber preference center, as well as providing an easy opt-out option embedded in the email at the bottom. Interested in learning more about the laws of spamming? Visit the National Conference of State Legislators to learn more.
12. Data-analysis
You’ve sent out your messages and the feedback is in, now see what is working, as well as what is not. Keep track of the trends on how many people opened your email messages, the time of day the open rates increase or decrease and pay attention to the clicks on your links. All of this data can be converted into information that can be used to shape and strengthen your future marketing messages. As the former CEO of HP, Carly Florina, once stated, “The goal is to turn data into information, and information into insight.” Use that insight to fuel results!
13. What can you improve?
After all that has been said here, what will you take away? Are you excelling at data-analysis, but too varied in your metrics to paint any real clear pictures? Are you killing it with the subject line, but maybe your email design needs some work? Is the day and time you send your emails a factor in the success of your open rates? The best place to start is by making a checklist of what you need to improve, as well as what is working. Focus on strengthening what you are doing right and giving more attention to where improvements need made! And as always if you need help, please feel free to contact Peppershock Media for a free quote for our services! Good Luck!
Diversify. Be Relevant.
Find out the interests of your target audience.
Be useful, entertaining, memorable…
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If you would like to hire Peppershock services to help get your email strategy and design completed we can help you get on a path to success!
