The days when marketing departments were kept separate from corporate strategy are long gone, and companies need to be thinking more about how to integrate marketing into their business model. Email marketing is one of the most effective methods of connecting with consumers, and as a result it has become a significant tool in any business’s arsenals.
But despite its usefulness, email marketing can also be extremely challenging. Launching an email marketing campaign can be complex, and having a vision for the overall program is no easy feat.
Marketing departments have grown in number and in size, and many businesses suffer from a lack of direction as a result. Even the best-intentioned marketers can find their initiatives sidelined by more pressing business priorities.
To help marketers across the globe, we’ve put together a guide to marketing strategy, which includes everything from creating a marketing plan to analyzing feedback to determine key campaign takeaways.
Set Clear Goals
The first step to developing a successful email marketing strategy is to set clear goals for the initiative. While it’s important to have a general vision for the program, marketers must also set SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely) goals to ensure the campaign is both measurable and aligned with your overall business strategy.
These goals should be set at the start of the process and should be tailored to the nature of your product or service. For example, if you’re an e-commerce business selling luxury goods, your clear marketing goals might include boosting product discovery, increasing conversion rates, and driving traffic to your stores. You can also set goals for the types of content you plan to generate (e.g., short-form videos versus long-form blogs), and the platforms or channels you will use to disseminate that content (e.g., email marketing versus social media)
As a result of these goals, you’ll be able to monitor your performance throughout the program and determine whether you’ve reached or exceeded your expectations. Setting clear goals will also help you determine what success looks like, and it will give you a clear indicator of whether or not you’re on the right track.
Determine Your Audience
The first step in creating an effective email marketing strategy is to identify your audience.
You can do this by considering which groups of individuals you think would be interested in your product or service, and then tailoring your messaging to appeal to them. For example, if you’re a consumer goods business, you might decide that men between the ages of 25 and 55 would be interested in your products. You can use marketing tools like Google Analytics to determine the interests of your customers –> whether they’re men or women, young or old, rich or poor. With this kind of information you can create the ideal buyer persona and tailor your marketing material accordingly.
Once you have your ideal audience in mind, you can produce content that will resonate with them. For example, if you are trying to sell beach bags to affluent women, you might create a blog post encouraging them to leave the house and live their best life. The content might discuss how a simple yet effective change in wardrobe can enhance female self-confidence. Blog posts like this would be suitable for a young, affluent audience who have a large disposable income and influence online. The content might also discuss the importance of looking after their cosmetic appearance, as well as the various fashion choices available to accommodate this. This kind of content would appeal to the affluent woman audience you’ve determined, as well as any women who share this audience’s interests.
Plan Your Content
The type of content you will produce will depend on your product or service, and the kind of audience you’ve identified. But in all cases, your content should support your marketing goals and be of a reasonable quality. You don’t want to waste scarce marketing resources on low-quality content that won’t attract potential customers. It’s always a good idea to over-plan, especially in today’s world of digital content.
Once you’ve set the quality standard for your content, you need to work out how much you will produce. This will be based on a few key factors, including your target audience, how frequently you expect to update the content, and how long it will take to produce.
For example, if you are producing video content for an online platform like YouTube, you will need to determine the optimal duration of your videos. If you’ve done your research correctly, you will know that shorter videos perform better, attracting and retaining a greater number of views. If your videos are 3 minutes or less, you’re more likely to achieve higher engagement and lower churn, as viewers have less chances to skip your videos. Of course, if your video is exceptionally short, you might want to consider whether or not you should even be producing it in the first place!
Choose The Right Platforms
Now that you have your content planned, it’s time to consider the various platforms you will use to disseminate and receive the information.
When developing an effective email marketing strategy, you need to choose your platforms cautiously. Some platforms are more suitable for certain types of content than others, so it is important to consider the goals of your campaign when choosing the platforms you will use. For example, if you’re looking for higher engagement and lower churn, you might want to consider using platforms such as YouTube or Snapchat.
If your goal is to drive traffic to your website, you might want to consider using a content distribution network (CDN) such as HubSpot, which can create a more streamlined connection between you and your target audience.
Determining The Overall Message
With a clear idea of who you’ll be targeting and what you’ll be communicating, you can determine the overall message of your campaign. This will depend on your product or service, and it will be shaped by the content you plan to produce. But you should try to maintain some consistency throughout the program so that your audience does not confuse the various messages you send them.
For example, if you plan to use email marketing to promote a luxury goods store, the email can probably look like this:
Hi there,
Thanks for signing up for our newsletter! We’ll be in touch soon with more information about our fantastic luxury goods sale. In the meantime, please feel free to explore our site, check out our social media accounts, or call us if you have any questions. We’re available 24/7 through our live chat service or visit our website.
Thanks for subscribing!
Set Up Autoresponders
Once you have your content planned and disseminated to your chosen platforms, it’s time to set up your autoresponders.
If you’ve never set one up before, the process can seem a little tricky. But with a little bit of research and trial and error, setting up automated, semi-automated, or automated responses is very achievable. From creating simple welcome series to sending out regular updates, there are numerous ways you can use autoresponders to improve your engagement with customers.
One of the best things about setting up an autoresponder is the ability to customize your responses. You can do this by considering what you will say in your initial email, as well as what response you’ll get from your customers. You can learn a lot from this.
Measure The Results
Finally, we come to the most important part of the process: measurement. Without this, it’s difficult to determine whether or not your strategy was successful. This is why at the end of every marketing campaign you should always set up some kind of measurement or evaluation plan.
The first step is to determine whether or not the campaign was worth it. Did you achieve all your goals? Which ones were met, and which ones were not? With a clear idea of what to measure and how to measure it, you can determine the effectiveness of your campaign and improve your strategy for the next time around.