 |
 |
 |
           |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
 |
Add Email To Your Marketing Mix
If you are serious about adding email to your marketing mix, you should take email seriously enough to develop a plan for it. Too many organizations launch a half-baked email program and then are disappointed when it doesn't live up to expectations. The plan does not have to be as long as War And Peace, but it must include a few key elements so that you can develop a focused, targeted, measurable program that gets results. At a minimum, here are the elements that Hoover ink recommends: * Objectives * Audience Definition * Key Messages * Format * Tactics * Timeline * Budget * Measurement First, determine what is it that you want the email program to achieve from marketing and communications perspectives. Is this a newsletter designed for relationship management purposes, or is it a sales-oriented vehicle? Are you trying to build awareness, generate leads, increase web traffic, encourage loyalty, or close sales? Next, you need to define audiences. Who are you trying to reach? What do you know about them from demographic and psychographic perspectives? Are you addressing multiple audiences? If so, do you need to segment your audiences and develop emails with different messages? How will each audience profit from our communications. Now, what is it you want to say to each audience? What's the nature of the content? Will this include just editorial information or will it also contain some sales-oriented material? Closely tied to messages is your format. Are you producing a newsletter with a lot of editorial material, or does it contain just brief snippets of information? Is it an announcement list, a discussion list, or just commercial messages? Think about your audiences as you develop the most appropriate format. Your tactics section lays out tasks and who is responsible for them. What technology do you need? Do you have in-house email capabilities or should you use an application such as nTarget? How will you build and manage your list? How will you acquire new subscribers? Who will create content, design and distribute the email? After you answer those questions, it's time to turn to your timeline. Develop a schedule for having your technology in place, building your list, creating content, designing and distributing the email. Determine if this will be a one-time mailing, or if it will recur on a weekly or monthly basis. Your budget may help you answer many of the questions above. Small budgets may mean you complete a lot of the work in-house. Finally, it's time to establish criteria for measuring the program. An awareness program may call for some baseline research so you'll know how you are doing. A relationship management program may measure customer retention. Increased click-through from your email to your website is also a measurable element. Sales-oriented programs might measure total sales from email, or incremental sales increases with individual customers. No matter what your objective in using email, spend a little time cooking up a plan so your results won't be half-baked. Harry Hoover is managing principal of Hoover ink PR, http://www.hoover-ink.com. He has 26 years of experience in crafting and delivering bottom line messages that ensure success for serious businesses like Brent Dees Financial Planning, Duke Energy, Levolor, North Carolina Tourism, Ty Boyd Executive Learning Systems, VELUX and Verbatim.
MORE RESOURCES:
Email-Marketing - Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Six Tips for Nonprofit E-mail Success An opt-in e-newsletter is one of the most effective marketing tools you can use because it is fast, personal, and inexpensive. Many small businesses are using e-mail newsletters to introduce themselves to new customers and to communicate with existing ones. All I Really Needed to Know About List Building I Learned From Stephen King! I have always been an avid reader of Stephen King's writings over the years, he's one of the few authors that I can safely say I have read everything he has written. Granted, I am a couple of years behind, but I do manage to catch up as I get the time and opportunity to read him. Could This Be The End of Sp^am? The war on sp^am has so far been waged on two fronts: legislation to make sp^am illegal and filters that prevent sp^am reaching its destination.But neither approach has worked. Taking Care of Busines... E-mail In this digital day and age, communicating through email is getting more and more important. This is of course also true for customer service and help desks. Email Autoreponder - How to Put your Business on Autopilot Answering emails can take up a significant portion of the time you have to do business. Many times the same set of questions are being asked over and over again. Tips to Bounce-Proof Your Email List Keeping your email lists fresh is critical to the success of your online marketing and e-commerce efforts. In the early days of the Internet, the novelty of web sites and free e-newsletters made acquiring customers online all too easy. Email and Newsgroup Etiquette Email EtiquetteIn order to effeciently communicate on the Internet it is critical to understand the unwritten rules of email communication. Please use these tips as a guideline to online email communication. Using Blind Carbon Copy (BCC) For Email Privacy Need for PrivacyPeople have become hypersensitive about their privacy during the last few years. They now expect that their details will be used only for the purposes for which they have been provided and not shared by original trustees. Why Use Permission-Based Email Marketing? The goal of all marketing is to attract interest in, build desire for, and generate sales of your products or services. Email marketing is a perfect medium to pick up where other marketing leaves off. Email Advertising - How Ad Tracking Helped Create a Killer Ad I recently undertook an email advertising promotion, using a number of advertising media. The exercise involved a program of mine called the Magical Marketing system. 22 Simple But Highly Effective Methods To Ban E-mail Opt-In List Here are 22 simple but highly effective methods to build anemail opt-in list easily?List RentingOne of the quickest ways to build an opt-in list is to rent a list from a company.These lists are normally targeted and you can request what demographics you are looking for. Kick-Starting E-mail Profits Growth From One Single Shot! Perhaps the most critical step in guaranteeing the success of your e-mail promotions is to send your messages to a targeted list of opt-in subscribers who have specifically requested to receive information on a particular topic from you. That's your "in-house" email list. The Most Simple Way to Mask Your Email-address We all know that spammers are looking for your email-address. You can mislead them easily in order to prevent receiving spamming emails. Success Guaranteed With Your Opt In List Some time ago I was thinking about the best and most foolproof way to earn great income on internet. I came to conclusion that success in internet marketing can be reached with my own opt in list. 12 Tips For Writing Winning E-mail Learning to write more effective e-mail is a valuable skill when you are trying to build an online business. Here are a few tips to get you started. Guideline to Hiring an Email Marketing Company A common practice in today's e-commerce environment is to use email marketing campaigns to launch advertising initiatives for products and services offered online. Since 2003, CAN-SPAM laws were enacted to protect consumers from abusive spammers and email marketing exploits have been harnessed. Seven Ways to Dramatically Increase Your Email Marketing Profitability 1. The Power of SevenWhen choosing a price point for your product, studies have shown that prices ending with a number 7 (specifically in the dollar amount) sell more. 7 Great Email Habits for the Beginning Internet Entrepreneur If you are just starting out as an Internet entrepreneur then you have a lot to learn about doing business online. One such thing you need to concentrate on is your e-mailing habits. Introduction to Autoresponders If you've reached the point of exhaustion trying to keep up with answering the mountain of emails that threatens to bury you alive every single day, you're ready to learn about autoresponders.The bad news is that people expect prompt replies to their email inquiries. Autoresponder Services that Boost Your Business In the world of ecommerce, millions of sites are fiercely competing with each other to gain new clients. For any ecommerce site to succeed, it must capture the interest and the trust of its visitors.
|
 |