It's Not About the Send

Author:

Jeanne Jennings

Source:

Truthfully, it's not about the send.
 
Don't get me wrong. I'm a big believer in having a send schedule for your email marketing efforts and making deadlines. But too often I see email marketers that are so focused on getting the email out "on time" that they don't stop to really think about what they're sending.
 
They forget the big picture, the only thing that really matters: Will the email be effective? Will it engage people enough to get them to open it and take the action we want them to take?
 
If it doesn't, then even if you've gotten the email out on time, you've failed.
 
A successful email campaign takes time. It begins with an analysis of your past campaigns. What's worked previously with this offer and/or this audience? The quantitative data, like opens, clicks, and conversions, is good; you also need qualitative analysis that takes those numbers and relates it back to creative – copy approaches, email layouts, etc.
 
It's not enough to say this past email campaign was successful – you want to try to understand why it was successful. The same is true of past campaigns that weren't effective – you can learn as much from failures as you can from successes. Sometimes you can learn more.
 
Once you've analyzed past campaigns, it's important to set a clear qualitative goal for your upcoming e-mail. What do you need the reader to do to meet your business goals? ...
 
Click here to read the full article.