When it comes to finding a great email campaign, you can either hire an outside firm to layout, and oversee your email marketing efforts, or to it yourself. Which way you choose to go, will depend on your budget, your needs, and the desired results, but mostly on your budget. Which ever method you choose, the steps needed to establish an effective campaign will be the same.
Here is a list of some of the things you need to consider, when putting together your email marketing campaign:
- 1. First things first, what do you hope to accomplish with this campaign? What outcomes do you need to achieve, in order to consider the campaign a success? This may sound like a dumb question, but if you don’t have a clear idea of your ultimate goal, than you don’t know the best way to structure your campaign. For example, is your goal to get more customers into your store, or to your website? Or is your goal to provide your existing customers with some sort of customer appreciation perk? Identify the goal of your campaign, so that you can structure your email messages accordingly.
- 2. Carefully consider what you are going to put in the “subject” line. This is a very important element. A good subject line, can be the difference between your email being read, or being sent to the spam folder. Your subject should be short and to the point, but also intriguing, and pique your readers curiosity. When you create your email, make sure that the opening is personal. Use the name of the individual you are sending the email to, this can easily be done by using a good autoresponder system.
- 3. Remember that most people receive dozens, and even hundreds of emails a day, and don’t have time to read them all. If they open your email, consider that a win already, and a bid step forward. In order to get them to read the whole message, make sure to keep your email short and sweet. Focus your message on your customer and their needs, and not on you, or your company. In most cases, people will only skim the email message, so only put in the important points. Don’t make your message too long, or your customer will lose interest and stop reading, and hit the delete button.
- 4. Don’t get too fancy with font styles and graphics. Remember, there are a lot of different types of computers, and all ages of monitors out there, and if you get too high tech, some of the customers may not be able to read it. Different font styles can also be difficult to read sometimes. Just keep your message short, professional, yet friendly, and to the point.
- 5. And of course, if you have the budget and/or you just don’t have time to do it yourself, you could always hire a professional to organize your email campaigns for you. In many cases this will be the best option, since they are experienced, and can make sure your messages are written in an effective way, to maximize not only your open rate, but your desired results as well.
When it comes to setting up an effective email marketing campaign, just remember that there are a few simple things to keep in mind. If you are able to hire a professional email campaign manager, than by all means, so do. If not, don’t let that keep you from setting up your own campaign, so you can benefit from the enormous potential of email marketing.
