If you’re diving into email marketing for the first time, you may be feeling a little overwhelmed. Your inbox fills up each day with newsletters sporting flashy graphics, one-time only offers, and multimedia elements. You know that many of those messages go straight in the trash without even being read, but how do you keep your messages from following suit? Before you start biting your nails, however, take a deep breath and relax. The success of your email campaign will depend largely on strategy.
Define your Goals
Don’t even think about sending your first email until you have clearly defined goals in place. Will your messages be primarily sales oriented, offering coupons and special deals to entice people to shop? Will they be information oriented with the goal of getting people to click on your website link to find out more? You can use your email messages in a variety of ways, but make sure you clearly know what you want to accomplish and stick with those goals so your readers will know what to expect when they hear from you.
Build Your List
For starters your email list should include only subscribers who have opted in. Looking for ways to build a list of subscribers? One of the easiest ways to grow your mailing list is to give your website visitors a way to easily signup to your mailing list, this can be an automated process through the website subscription form. Also, keep in mind that the more information you collect up front on your subscribers will give you the ability to segment and further personalize campaigns based on their demographics as you move forward.
Determine a Schedule
Some companies email once a month, some once a week, and some daily. Your schedule will depend on what you hope to accomplish as well as your reader demographics, but be careful not to flood reader inboxes on a regular basis. Daily campaigns should usually be limited to special events when readers might expect to hear from you more often. eConnect Email can also help you automate your campaigns by scheduling them to be deployed at pre-determined times, keeping your schedule on track.
Pinpoint Highlights
Take a look at your calendar and determine which times of year you’ll want to create specialized email campaigns. Holidays, special sale events, and seasonal changes may all be highlights for your business. Take the time to create special campaigns centered on these highlights to give readers something to look forward to.
With your email campaign strategy in place, eConnect Email can help you take the steps you need to put your plan into action. Take a look at our email creation and testing tools, subscriber list management options, and deliverability tools to build an email campaign that helps you achieve your business goals.