Developing Winning Email Campaigns – Part 1, Get Ready
1) Establishing Goals
First, be reasonable – email campaigns are not magic bullets that will instantly solve your MarComm issues. Most people reading this probably have the goal of “shifting a large portion of their marketing spend into emails because they are cost-effective, easy to manage and are measureable.” While the former points are true, email campaigns are like any other marketing effort, they require careful planning, execution and analysis. Additionally, they are best used as just one of many marketing vehicles in your marketing campaign.
Second, determine the EXACT goals that you have for your email campaign.
A) Are you Testing the Method?
Are you benchmarking the email campaign against an existing direct response effort like direct mail or personal selling efforts?
B) Do You Just Want Visibility or a Way to Keep On Your Customer’s Radar?
Are you are engaging in an awareness campaign and want to see a high open rate (OR) and high click through rate (CTR) meaning many people viewed your message/product?
C) Are you Utilizing the Campaign for Viral/Word of Mouth Efforts?
Are you are seeking a high degree of forwards, sign-ups on your Social Media platforms, etc.
D) Are you Seeking a Specific Action?
Actual lead generation in sign ups and sales with the email as the point of origin in the sales cycle for that customer
Have a clear goal for your overall email campaign but also for each email flight that goes out. A beautiful thing about email campaigns is that you can test many things over time to find the optimal mix for your target audience with favorable costs compared to other marketing methods
2) Choosing an Email Service Provider (ESP)
If you are serious about getting results from email campaigns, get serious about researching and selecting an ESP. Sending out emails from your Outlook may be okay for small, intimate groupings but if you are prospecting or sending out to larger groups, you need an ESP.
ESPs provide your email campaign with many advantages over regular email:
A) Robust Distribution Capability
If your list is over 1,000, don’t try sending anything from your office email account, ESPs allow you to send serious volume.
B) Easy to Use Templates
ESPs offer easy graphic uploads, link inserts, personalization (very important) for bulk emails, etc.
C) Best Practices
ESPs have “Flight Checks” that test headlines, copy and more for SPAM scores, check links, personalization filters, etc.
D) Measurement
This is the MOST important part of having an ESP! With an ESP, you can measure Opens, CTR, Opt-Outs, Forwards and more. Try doing that with your office email.
There are many ESPs out there to provide a solution based on the goals of your email campaign, list size, options and reporting but we’ll group them into two categories with providers that we have personally used, the Start Up and Robust category
Start-Up
You’re new to email campaigns, don’t need a lot of features, medium-sized list
*Constant Contact
*Campaign Monitor
Robust
Experienced user, need a lot of features, very large lists >50K
*EMMA
*Fishbowl
*SilverPop
3) Building Your Database
The integrity of your database is one of the most (if not the most) important components of your email campaigns. Make sure it’s populated with the right people and defend their security and time like you would a family member. There are two general ways that you can build your database:
Internally
Internal methods rely on a sign up form on your website, in-store sign ups and other methods. This list is more or less an active effort on your part to gather the information of your existing traffic, which is a no brainer because they have already show interest though web visit, in-store traffic, etc. so they are likely more receptive to your messages (increased opens and decreased opt outs).
Gather as much information as is necessary to the goals of your email campaign. From here you can set up “preferences” and “triggers” in additiona to your general campaigns and start segmenting your database accordingly. For example, do you want to send emails according to product category, say a limited-time only special on shoes? Then you need to try and collect that “product preference interest” from the customer during the sign up process. Are you a restaurant that wants to send a FREE Birthday promo to a customer? Well, this is called a “trigger” in that a certain event (in this case the calendar) causes a specific email. For this, you’ll need to collect the DOB in the sign up phase.
Lastly, always give your database preferences on how they want to be communicated to. Give them options on frequency, format, etc. For example, there are some vendors that I want to hear from every day and there are some that I only want to get a text on my phone from.
Externally
You can build your database from external sources such as list brokers. While you cannot purchase the list, you can only rent according to usage, you can convert these tests into “opt-ins” to your internal list through the course of your campaign.
Choose a list broker very carefully based on the audience you want to target. There are a few things to look for.
A) Specialization
Do they specialize in that area or are they more general. There is nothing wrong with a general vendor but a specialist may have richer, more updated data with detailed benchmarks from other campaigns to that list.
B) Point of Origin or Reseller
Do they generate the list from their existing activities, like say a survey, or do they resell from another vendor. Nothing wrong with resellers but the list integrity of point of origin vendors is typically better.
C) Data Processing Capabilities
*note, you will not use your ESP for these external methods, the list broker will not allow it for security of their lists
If you are going to the vendor multiple times for the same list, can they suppress the names you’ve already mailed from the newest? Can they merge/purge multiple lists? Can they “nth” select for an A/B split test (we’ll cover that later in the series)?
D) Reputation/Results
Before renting a list, ask for a contact from other businesses that have used the list. Talk to them and see what they thought of the lists and the service they received. This is common-practice, you will not be thought of as rude for asking this. If they make you feel rude, move on!
Part 2 – Get Set is coming soon!
Harold Henn
Partner, CMO
