Throughout November, I have been pulling together content in order to develop a direct marketing education course for small business owners. But, in the meantime, I thought I’d share 5 Must Do’s intended to help anyone in the midst of developing or implementing an email marketing campaign.

1)      Have a Strategy: Who, What, Why and Next Steps

a.       Who:  Who is your target audience? One of the key benefits email marketing offers is the ability to inexpensively and quickly hone your email marketing message specifically to your target audience. As you begin to layout your campaign, make sure that you take a moment to identify your target audience, and then consider the ways in which you might be able to subdivide your audience to ensure you’re delivering as relevant of a message as possible. For example, perhaps send one version to current customers, another version to people who provided their email via your website and a third to individuals whose information you acquired at a recent event.

b.      What:  What is the overall message that you are trying to deliver? Examples: Seasonal promotion, communication of sale, reminders, etc.

c.       Why:  Why are you running this email campaign and how does it fit in to your overall marketing strategy and plan? Keep in mind the various other marketing messages your customers may see in conjunction to your email. Ensure consistency, or know strategically why you are choosing to not be consistent.

d.      Next Steps: Once your prospect acts on the call to action (CTA), how will you keep the conversation going? What is your follow-up plan? And, what will you do if the email isn’t opened? Do you have a “next steps” plan? (for events and promotions, I am a big fan of “second chance” emails)

Note: if you are building the campaign for your channel to execute, make sure your channel partners understand the who, what and why - as this will help them determine the best way to include it in their local marketing plans.

2)      Build  your Database, and Use it

According to various studies, anywhere between 33 and 75% of marketers rank “increasing email opt ins” as a top email marketing priority.

a.       The highest performing lists are almost always your proprietary list—this is why building your database and keeping it current is essential.

b.      Always develop your marketing campaigns so you can capture names to add to your proprietary list. Have the prospect/customer register for something of value -- a contest, a newsletter or communication of upcoming sales and promotions. Every customer touch point, whether via digital or traditional marketing vehicles, should provide the opportunity to capture a prospects email address.

c.       When receiving permission (opt ins) from customers, set expectations regarding how you will use their email. If a prospect thinks they are signing up for an informational whitepaper series, and then they receive a 50% off promotion message, they will be confused, and may associate the experience negatively with your business.

3)      Copy is King And Design Matters Too!

a.       Write your subject line first. Doing so will ensure you have identified your key topic/offer. Subject lines need to be short with the most important message at the beginning of the sentence (since the viewer of the subject line, especially on mobile devices, may not see all the characters). Descriptive subject lines generally perform best, but you’ll want to test that for your specific service/product/target audience (see Must Do #4)

Note: If you are providing the email content to a channel partner, consider providing multiple headlines so that they have the opportunity to  choose the one that best fits their specific need(s).

b. Clearly communicate your Call to Action (CTA). First, please note that an offer (Ex: Learn More, Get 2 sandwiches for the Price of 1, etc.) is different than a Call to Action, which instructs the customer what they should do next (Ex: Click to Register, Visit the Shop on Friday). You want both an offer and a strong CTA in your email. And, since many people will view your email in a preview pane, or will only read “above the fold” (i.e. the part they can see on their screen without scrolling), make sure that your offer and CTA appear on the top part of the page, and repeat your offer and CTA more than once in the email—perhaps in a sidebar and/or at the end of your email.

c.      Think of the Call to Action as a Process. Clearly plan the flow of communication and actions once a prospect responds  

d.     Design does matter-- email design is different than other marketing vehicles. The use of good email design can significantly increase the performance of your campaign.

The following are some resources that I would recommend checking out if you are interested in learning more about email design:

Exact Target’s Email Design Toolkit

Lyris’ Email Design No-No’s Guide for Non-Designers   

4)      Test, Learn, Repeat

a.       Set campaign objectives. It’s important to set measurable objectives for your email campaigns. Track these regularly, and adjust your benchmarks accordingly.  In order to set your campaign objectives, you’ll need to know what you want to accomplish (Ex: $5000 in sales, increased traffic, etc.) , and then work backwards to determine close rates, number of qualified leads needed, number of click-throughs needed, number of email opens, and ultimately how many emails you need to send to reach your goal.

b.      Know average click through rates. Your email provider may be able to provide these to you or you can locate this information with relative ease through research. But remember these are averages. Once you get started with regular campaigns, you will be able to set benchmarks based on historic data. For small businesses,  I like these benchmarks provided by Mail Chimp.

c.       Do A/B testing for all email campaigns. A/B testing is a form of testing where only one variable at a time is tested against a control group. Thus, you can test different subject lines, different copy length, even different offers. Email is the perfect vehicle for testing as it is quick and inexpensive to make course corrections. And, the learning from email tests can many times be applied to other marketing vehicles, such as advertising or future promotions.

5)      There are Legal Guidelines Related to SPAM and Email Permissions, Plan Accordingly. If you are not an email marketing expert, you could benefit greatly by working with your Email Service Provider (ESP) or with a direct marketing agency to ensure your approach is compliant. The good news is these partners usually can also provide tips and tricks on how to tweak your campaigns to increase your ROI. Most companies find that the cost of a partner/agency is easily recouped by the increased return on the campaign. (FYI:  I’ve been developing and managing email campaigns for over a decade and I have relied on such partners for all my campaigns to ensure compliance).

Is email an important part of your marketing mix?

What is your top email priority—building your database, conversion rates, tracking?

Let me know by commenting below and I’d be happy to address your question(s) or perhaps even take a deep dive into your inquiry in a future blog post.