Email marketing is still a highly effective marketing tool in 2010 as tracking and measuring results and return on investment is strong. Marketing departments are increasingly under pressure to report back to management on how effective their marketing reach is and email marketing, if effectively run, can provide excellent and in-depth analysis of results such as open rates, click through rates and the return provided.
Before starting any email campaign ensure that you have all the tools and resources to measure the success and reach of your email marketing campaign.
If your email campaign has links pointing to your website, ensure that you have strong analytical packages on your website. Here at The WebMarketing Group we strongly advocate the use of Google Analytics to measure who, what, when and why people interact with your website. With Google Analytics you will be able to track the success of your email marketing driving traffic to your website.
Website analytics to one side, an effective email marketing service provider must have powerful analytical tools embedded within each email campaign. The email marketing software we use has excellent reporting functionality which shows:-
- Open rates – the number or percentage of emails that are opened in each campaign. Further more granular analysis shows which individual recipients opened the email, at what time of the day, if on the day of the email marketing campaign itself
- Bounce rates – this allows you to continually cleanse and maintain your email marketing database by researching any emails that do not reach your recipients because they were either hard or soft bounces
- Click through rates – in addition to web analytics, the email marketing software we use will show how many recipients click through to links you have placed in your email campaign. Granular detail will show who clicked through and to which links
Each and every email marketing campaign will be unique given the content of the email and the intended recipients. While we work to email marketing best practice there is a certain amount of trialling needed to truly perfect email marketing.
Given that trialling is needed, the above measurement tools give the capacity to refine and perfect email marketing. After your first campaign dig into the analytical reports and find when is the best time to send. If you are emailing consumers using a personal email address your window of opportunity is widest. Consumers will read an email at their convenience while emails directed at businesses require better targeting. Business recipients will typically access email throughout the day but emails late in the day succeed less well as do emails sent on a Friday.
Identifying the best time to send en email ensures success as it won’t get lost in the Inbox pile.
Again emphasising the importance of tracking email campaigns and strong analytics, ensure that after your first email broadcast you delve into the granular data. Customise content to loyal followers. Dig to find who opened and why, where they went if they clicked through and tailor content of future email campaigns to meet their needs. Understanding and engaging with your recipients is key.
Take for example an email marketing campaign from an electricals retailer. The email contained content covering MP3 Players, Kitchen Equipment and Home Computing with links to the relevant landing pages for those products.
Using the reporting function, any future campaigns should delve into the granular detail and tailor content by breaking down that list into recipients who expressed an interest in MP3 Players and so forth. By understanding their interests, any future email campaigns can be created to cater for their interests through promoting products specific to their interests.
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