Email Marketing Campaign Strategy and Planning
Email marketing is a proven online marketing channel, that when executed correctly, works. It is inexpensive and has a high ROI value. But, like any new business, an email marketing campaign needs a plan with a strategy that identifies measurable business goals and objectives, a defined target audience and an implementation plan that includes tactics, cost, timelines and milestones.
Every email campaign strategy has to fit the needs and situation of a business. However, there are components one just can’t ignore. Any email marketing campaign plan should at least address the goals and objectives, situation analysis, target audience and an implementation plan with cost analysis.
Goals and Objectives
Before you can define an email marketing campaign in detail, you need to determine what your organization expects to get out the campaign. This could be leads, more sales, registration sign-up, or customer retention
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Situation Analysis
If you are already running an ongoing email marketing campaign, it is important to audit the existing campaign and make an inventory of the components of the current campaign, including:
* Email list. Review the current email list size, average list growth and determine where the list growth is going to come from in the future, including the acquisition cost of the email list.
* Current campaign attributes. Review the current campaign type (editorial or promotional,) the send frequency and campaign performance (open rate, click-through rate, leads, sales).
* Campaign integration. Determine how the current email marketing campaign relates to and effects other online and offline marketing efforts, including social media marketing and mobile.
Target Audience
The better you define the target audience, the better you will be able to focus your email efforts. Options for email list acquisition must be determined based upon business goals directly tied to the bottom line and not just on how many e-mail addresses are acquired. The typical consumer demographics for email list acquisition are hobbies; interests, gender and age, while the demographics for business typically are industry, company size, job function and job title. Once you know who your target audience is, you will be able to tailor your email list acquisition efforts for your email newsletter or promotional email message to your target group’s interest.
Gather as much information as possible to determine what the specific characteristics and interests of your target audience. Some segments are more price sensitive than others, while excellent customer support may make or break the sale for one product and be totally irrelevant for another. It is also important to determine what the specific business goals are for the demographic you are targeting with your email marketing campaign.
Campaign Types
There are different types of email messages that can be sent as part of an email campaign. The most common ones are a short and long editorially-focused message or the promotional short and long format message. Depending upon the campaign goals and objectives, you need to choose the appropriate message for your campaign.
Most promotional email marketing messages are focused around the email postcard, one computer screen in size, without scrolling. The primary use for the email postcard is acquisition, meaning that the main focus is to sell products and services directly to the recipient of the message.
Another popular format is the editorial long format message or email newsletter. The main goal of the email newsletter is to provide valuable expert information to customers and potential prospects or position your business as the go-to expert in your field. When the editorial content is of high value, it will attract paying customers.
List Acquisition
If you’re looking to build a list from scratch or would like better list growth, you need to develop a list acquisition plan – a road map for how you are going to find a significant number of new email addresses to add to your list each month. Building a list is an ongoing project and there are various ways to grow an in-house email list quickly.
Email Append. One option is email append. With email append, an e-mail append vendor will take the address list of your existing clients, prospects, or both, and match those with the e-mail addresses in their database. Most append services use their own database of e-mail addresses to accomplish this. There are two flavors of email append: opt-out and opt-in. Opt-in assures the people you’re sending to want to hear from you and hence boosts the quality of the list. Most email append vendors, however, use the opt-out method, which means that there’s no affirmative consent to sent email to the recipient in which they assume anyone who doesn’t respond, wants to hear from you.
This is the least expensive way to acquire email addresses through email append. Email addresses acquired via opt-out rarely perform as well as those that were acquired via opt-in or with permission. Opt-out addresses also can expose you to spam complaints and blacklisting, which can jeopardize your sender reputation and the deliverability of all the e-mail you send. Email append can be a pricy way to acquire email addresses. The cost for each opt-out email address can range from $0.10 to $0.20 per address.
List Brokers. Another quick way to build an in-house e-mail list is by using a mailing list broker. Most companies that historically have provided compiled direct mail address lists are now also in the e-mail list business. You typically provide the list parameters, e.g. by industry, company size; the job function of your target audience and the list vendor compiles an opt-out email address list from across several internal database sources. Before using a compiled list, we recommend you check with your email provider to see if they have any recommendations regarding email acquisition and also confirm whether their policy allows you to broadcast from compiled email lists.
Organic Email List Acquisition. Append and compiled lists are quick fixes that rarely perform as well as organically built in-house email lists, made up of individuals who subscribed or gave permission to be included in the list and they almost never reach a response rate that out performs the in-house list.
Building your own in-house email list is, in the long run, usually much less expensive than email append, compiled lists, list rental, or sponsorship/advertising options. Building an in-house email list is not a difficult task if you have someone on staff; hire an outside consultant or vendor with the expertise in email list acquisition.
The first step in building an in-house list is defining how many email addresses you want to acquire each month and the development of an email acquisition strategy that may include a way for web site visitors to subscribe to the list from each web site page and email message and offers benefit-oriented content, on a regular basis, to people who opt in.
Other specific tactics for building an in-house list are to use every touch point with clients and prospects, to get them on your email list, e.g.:
* Identify specific Web sites, web directories, email newsletters, vertical ad networks, social media networks, search engines, and other online properties where a banner, co-registration, or other mechanism will help reaching the target market.
* One often used practice is to collect business cards from contacts at trade shows and networking events and ask if you can add them to your email list for future product or service updates.
Send Frequency
Send frequency almost always depends on the type of email campaign. When in doubt, less is better. It is better to send a good monthly newsletter than a mediocre bi-monthly one. In general, email broadcasts sent early in the week or on the weekends are earning higher open rates and click rates; Monday is the best day for broadcasting a promotional email message or email newsletter, followed by Tuesday. Here are some suggested send frequencies:
* In-depth technical newsletters with value-added content: bi-monthly.
* Promotional email postcard with high value offer: bi-monthly or weekly.
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