Have you seen the Direct Marketing Association's latest statistics on email? For every $1 spent on email, it delivers an average $42.08 back.
Sweet! The only problem is, marketers who are seeing those kinds of results aren't getting them with a "same old, same old" approach to email marketing (i.e., broadcast messages sent to rented lists or old, tired house lists, over and over and over again).
Today, your email subscribers have likely been spammed and even phished via email. Their inboxes are bursting at the seams, and as such, subscribers' standards are now much higher. To increase the ROI of your email marketing, you now have to set new standards.
Email marketing as a discipline
It's time to apply some discipline to your email program, and I don't mean beating up on subscribers who click the report-spam button on email they actually requested, or on the co-worker who sent a test message to the entire list.
Rather, email marketing returns the best rewards when it is pursued as a discipline, with a set of expectations, protocols, best practices, and behaviors.
Discipline in email marketing means striving to do things the right way instead of the expedient way, even if it takes longer to achieve:
- Using double opt-in to build a high-quality, engaged mailing list, even if opt-out marketing to a rented list gives you more names out of the gate
- Building in enough project time to test messages before sending to make sure they render correctly and use images and text that will resonate with your recipients
- Resisting the urge to send "just one more email" in a desperate attempt to make budget
- Taking the time to plan and execute a segmentation program to create and send targeted and more relevant messages, even though the "ready, aim, fire" model of broadcast email is so much easier
How email segmentation imposes discipline
Broadcast email is so popular because it's so easy. Create the message, load it into your program, and fire it out. On to the next task.
Segmentation, on the other hand, takes discipline through applying what you know about your subscribers or customers and tailoring messages to fit. It can be a tough sell if you have a million other responsibilities besides email or if your program is starved for resources.
Yes, it takes time to strategize and execute the plan. Yes, you might need to upgrade your email list software or sit down with your friendly database manager and ask for help.
What's the reward? A more vital email program, valued by recipients and more likely to return the high ROI that will make you a revenue champion at your company.
Applying discipline in email marketing
Here are three easy ways to get started:
1. Acquisition: Quality over quantity is the key, but try to sell that to your marketing manager or VP, who's more impressed by numbers. Opt-in, permission-based marketing is the disciplined approach that creates a more highly engaged list that is more likely to open and act on your messages and less likely to go inactive.
2. Content: Today's email subscribers want messages that don't waste their time or clutter their inboxes. So, you need to figure out how to send messages that speak to your recipients' needs, wants, interests, and past history with your company.
Adding preference selection to the opt-in process, or warming up a new subscriber relationship adds another step, but it generates the valuable data you need to create the segments for more targeted and more relevant messages.
3. Reactivation: A disciplined approach to email marketing means not just knowing who's acting on your emails but also who isn't. This is a classic beginner's approach to segmentation because you don't need mountains of data to start.
All you have to do is decide how long an address has to sit on your list before you assume the owner has lost interest. If you have a long consideration cycle, a name that doesn't have any opens or clicks associated with it for two years is a good bet to start. If you run a daily newsletter, then three to six months is safe.
Segment out all the qualifying addresses; then, send an email inviting the recipient to come back to your website and either update preferences or unsubscribe. You might need a second and third email to satisfy any concerns that you're targeting valid addresses. After that, move the addresses off your list to a "do not email" holding pen.
Although these approaches might sound rigid, if you're used to making decisions on the fly, approaching email marketing as a discipline can help you achieve a stronger program and avoid the problems that befall seat-of-the-pants decision-making.
Maybe one person in a million can make that pay off. For the rest of us, whether you're an athlete, an entertainer, a soldier, student, President Obama, or Donald Trump, it takes discipline to deliver the best results from your email marketing campaigns.
Wendy Roth is the senior manager of training services for Lyris Technologies.
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