Creating effective email campaigns
What is an email campaign?
An email campaign is a
formal and organized effort of email marketing. Email marketing is a type
of digital marketing technique involving sending mass emails to customers and
prospective customers. The goals of an email campaign include announcing a new
product or service, gaining new customers and prompting existing customers into
new sales activity. Email campaigns can happen as one-off events or regularly
scheduled marketing exercises that occur daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly
How do you create a successful email campaign?
The most successful email marketing campaigns start with an email
list full of qualified leads interested in what you offer. The best way to
build a targeted email list is to convert your website visitors into
subscribers. You'll need to create attractive opting forms that get attention
and encourage people to sign up.
How to create an email
campaign
Here are 11 steps to
follow to create an email campaign to reach your audience and meet your goals:
1. Consider your
stakeholders
Identify who the
ultimate stakeholders of your company's email campaign are. Email campaigns are
generally joint efforts between the sales and marketing teams, and these people
are often ultimately responsible for the success of the campaign. Consider what
tools, resources, and human capital are needed to bring the campaign to
fruition.
2. Meet with your
creative team
Your creative marketing
team will play a critical role in the execution of your email campaign.
Schedule regular meetings and touch points with the creative team during the
campaign drafting process to ensure that look and wording of the emails are
consistent with your goals and campaign message.
3. Determine your
purpose for your campaign
Email campaigns can have
multiple simultaneous purposes and goals. They act as driving factors in the
content creation and strategy of the campaign.
Here are six common reasons
for using an email campaign:
To entertain: An entertaining email campaign is one
that produces engagement through exciting and captivating means such as humor,
intrigue or celebrity endorsement.
To inform: An informative email campaign provides new
and interesting information that can help convince the reader of the value of a
product or service.
To persuade: A persuasive email campaign provides
evidence and anecdotes of the effectiveness of a product or service, with the
intention of persuading the reader into thinking that making a purchase is in
their best interest.
To increase brand
awareness: Email campaigns
that center around brand awareness are used to bring a new company to the
marketplace or to help launch a new sub-brand, product or product line..
To increase sales: At the core of most email campaigns is the
goal to increase sales both by engaging existing customers and acquiring new
customers.
To increase
subscriptions: Email campaigns
can also be used to generate increased numbers of new subscriptions or ensure
existing subscribers renew or extend their subscriptions.
4. Identify what
products or services you're pitching
Clearly identifying the
products or services that are being pitched in the emails, helps the target
audience quickly identify and understand the intent and purpose of a message.
Most people receive a large number of emails per day, so brevity and directness
are important for connecting with customers and potential customers.
5. Know your target
audience
Crafting language in your
emails that speaks directly to the motivations and desires of your audience is
critical to email campaign success. Knowing the target audience and how to best
interest and entice them is an essential component of how to design an email
campaign.
6. Compile a recipient
list
Mining your company's
contact list of current customers, former customers and prospects is a crucial
step in compiling the recipient list of the email campaign. Contact details are
regularly found in internal customer databases or tools such as a customer
relationship management system.
7. Decide the
specifics of your campaign
It's important to
clearly define the specific logistical parameters of the email campaign.
Here are five elements
to consider when designing your email campaign:
Length of time
Determine the length of
time the campaign will last, as length may differ based upon the goal of a
campaign. A campaign focused on a new product being launched may only run up to
the day of launch for example.
Total number of emails
Decide how many total
emails you want to send to each recipient throughout the campaign and the
length of time between them. This way, you can monitor progress based on how
long recipients have had access to your email campaign.
Time of day
Choose the best time of
day for maximum engagement with your emails. Research existing data studies on
the times of day that most people open and read their emails to determine this.
Overall message
Defining the overall
message of the email through the careful choices of wording, length and tone is
a crucial success factor in an email campaign. Consider creating a list of
different mission statements that describe your campaign’s goals and ask other
people on the team for feedback to choose the best one.
Design aesthetic(art)
A visually catching and
pleasing design to the email itself can be a decisive factor in the recipient's
decision to engage with the message. If you have any graphic designers or creative
individuals on your team, consider reaching out to see if they can create any
custom logos, designs or any other visual content to elevate your campaign.
8. Create atractive
and engaging material
The words and images you
choose to use in an email campaign are extremely important. They contribute to
the overall effectiveness of your design aesthetic, and they play a crucial
role in the success of your campaign.
Here are four areas to
focus on when trying to create an enticing and engaging email campaign:
Email subject lines
An attention-grabbing
email subject is needed to ensure your audience is compelled to click on the
message and read further. The exact number of words is less important than
arranging the subject line in a way that communicates the most important
information first.
Attention-grabbing
copy
Content and copy
represent the language used in advertising and marketing. It’s important that
the people viewing your emails feel compelled to continue reading.
Images that evoke
specific emotions
Imagery that evokes
(feeling) the desired emotion of the message, is a powerful tool for successful
email campaign composition. It’s especially effective when paired with
attention-grabbing text.
Easy-to-navigate links
Readers should be able
to identify and navigate ( to walk, find one's way) to embedded links very
easily. Leverage these links to direct viewers to shopping pages, social media
sites or your company homepage.
9. Review marketing
regulations for email campaigns.
(a planned
series)
Many countries have laws
and regulations that companies must follow. These rules are designed to protect
email users from unwanted communications and spam. Consult with the company's
compliance team during the planning and design of your campaign to ensure
proper adherence with rules.
10. Test and review
Before officially
launching the email campaign, it’s important to review, edit and test the
message. Ensure that it is free of spelling and grammar errors, the layout is
correctly being displayed across multiple platforms like mobile phones and
tablets and that all embedded(combine) links work and direct to the correct
place. Consider conducting a small focus group to see how people react to the
text, images, links and layout of the email before going live with your entire
distribution list.
11. Track your
performance
Keeping track of metrics
and key performance indicators will provide insight into the level of success
of an email campaign.
Here are four key
areas to track:
Open rate
Click rate
Website traffic from
embedded links
Sales from embedded
links
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