5 Keys to Defining Your Email Marketing Strategy

When you first started your business, we’re willing to bet it’s because you were passionate about your vision, not details like email marketing. But for most companies, email marketing is an essential investment that can provide a huge payoff (when it’s done well).

So what happens when you realize your email marketing just isn’t working?

Before overhauling your current campaign, start by going back to the basics. Whether you’re shuffling things around in-house or you’re engaging an awesome email marketing company (*cough* *cough*) to help you, take the time to consider the following:

Be clear on you email marketing goals

Do you want to engage new customers, re-engage old customers, find new prospects, or a combination of all three? Are you trying to increase sales, build brand awareness, or get people to engage with your company in new ways? What defines success for your company? Having solid goals will guide your campaign strategy and set clear KPIs for measurement.

Define your target audience

This is one of the most important questions, and it’s surprising how often it’s overlooked. First of all, how did you get your list? Are these prospects, existing customers, people who visited your booth at a trade show, or emails you purchased from a vendor? (Fingers crossed it’s not the latter.) Are they primarily men in their 60s or are they women in their 30s? Knowing who you’re talking to will help define a segmentation strategy—and figure out if you’re talking to the right people in the first place.

Be consistent with your brand voice

Are you quirky and fun, or logical and reliable? An awe-inspiring combination of the two? Defining your company’s personality will help shape the nature of your campaign and keep your broadcasts consistent.

Have one clear call to action

If you’re doing email marketing well, you’re going to get clicks. Where should those clicks go? Do you have a robust blog or an awesome Twitter account? Are there areas of your website that seem to get thousands of views or some that have unvisited potential? Make a list of the click worthy content you have that can be used in future broadcasts.

Analyze all the data

If you’re sending emails, but not analyzing the data, you’re wasting your time. When you look closely at all the data metrics, you can see what resonated—and what didn’t—with your audience.

Key metrics to track from campaign-to-campaign, analyze, and optimize for include the following:

Open Rate—This tells you how well your subject line caught your audience’s attention. The higher the open rate, the better the attention grab.
Click Rate—Did the content of your email interest your target audience? Did it compel them to click on any link in the message? If not, you should look closely at your messaging and choose topics more wisely for future messaging. Also, be sure to include many links. The more links you include, the greater the chance someone will click.
Bounce Rate—How healthy is your email list? If you’re experiencing a high bounce rate (specially hard bounces) you may want to consider auditing your list.
Unsubscribes—If your audience is turned off by your messaging or no longer finds it relevant, you’re likely to see a high unsubscribe rate. This is important!
Abuse Reports—Even worse than unsubscribes are abuse reports. This is an extra step for a recipient, so they were likely bothered or offended by your messaging and decided to report it.
Most-clicked LInks—We love this insight. You can see how many people clicked on links throughout your message. Which ones were most interesting? It may give you ideas for future content.

Who is taking the lead?

Who is responsible for making decisions? Whether you’re carrying out your own campaigns or working with a partner like us, assigning a point person is the way to go.

If you know you need a change, the answers to these questions can help you pinpoint where you got off track and the direction you need to be going. That’s an awesome starting point for your internal team and/or the agency you’re planning on working with.

So, what comes next?

If you work with Email Broadcast, we’ll start with a 20 minute consultation that will help us make a recommendation about your company’s specific needs and help you decide if you like us. If you do, our entire team of email marketing pros will brainstorm a list of 100 campaign ideas your audience will love. From there, you’ll be assigned your own dedicated account coordinator—along with a talented designer, a ruthless copy editor, and a nerdy coder to help make your campaigns wildly successful.

We’ll collaborate every step of the way, but you won’t have to carry the extra weight of your email campaigns anymore—and you can focus your energy where it’s needed most. If you don’t like us, or burritos, or chocolate…well, then you’re on your own.