Mar
15

Tony Robbins would say “Define your email marketing program”

You’re probably asking what I mean in the title of this blog called Tony Robbins would say “Define your email marketing program”?

Recently I read Tony Robbins book titled “Awaken the Giant Within.”  Upon reading the book I found it not only very inspiring and full of valuable insights that can be used in everyday life to achieve peak performance but there was one section in particular within the book which made me think not only about achieving peak performance in life but also how some of the techniques can be applied to achieve peak performance with email marketing campaigns.

Tony Robbins states in the book that in order to be successful in life an individual has to properly define themselves. In fact it is the way that individuals define themselves that allows them to reach peak performance or holds them back from achieving their dreams. The definitions that individuals tie to themselves has a lot to do with their beliefs about themselves and this can either create boundaries or push them forward to their peak performance.

For example, is an individual just a high school math teacher or maybe they are more? Maybe the high school math teacher empowers future doctors, engineers and scientists with Math skills that they would need to enter universities. So the defintion of the math teacher could be “I empower future generations” . That is much different then just being a math teacher. See the difference?

This made me think about email marketing campaigns and how we as individuals can and should define our email marketing campaigns. Now you may be asking yourself why this would be a good idea and the answer is quite simple. If we don’t take the time to define our email marketing programs and the campaigns that follow them we don’t really know what to inspire to and are held back from achieving peak performance. For example, what do you feel certain about the email marketing campaigns that your organization sends out? This is not what others within or outside the organization said about your email marketing campaigns but what do you feel yourself about the campaigns that are being sent to your subscriber list?

  • How are your email marketing campaigns different from your competitors? Do they offer unique advantages over the competition or are they just messages sent to make more sales?
  • Is your email marketing program a success and how do you measure success?
  • Do you lead in new innovation and ideas from within your campaigns or do you watch the industry and follow the herd?
  • Are the marketing campaigns contributing to individuals or organizations quality of life or are you just sending emails to sell a product?
  • Are the email campaigns growing and improving in quality over time through the testing of different strategies and techniques (Example, A/B testing on content, subject lines, images) or are email marketing campaigns stagnate which leads to the same message going out all the time?
  • Is your organization creatively growing your email subscriber list and monitoring which marketing campaigns lead to engagement with email subscribers or are emails being sent to such an old subscriber list in the hope of capturing someone’s attention?

The problem with many organization is that they send emails without defining the identity of their email marketing campaigns and if they are asked how they define their marketing campaigns they state that they are just looking to increase conversions. By defining email marketing campaigns as well as the purpose behind the sending of these campaigns organizations can then move forward with proper planning and development of strategies that center around the definitions of their email campaigns. This can and will lead to peak email marketing performance.

For example let’s say that the Canadian pharmaceutical chain Pharmaprix wanted to define their email marketing program what could it be? Maybe they define themselves as the leading pharmaceutical chain in the province of Quebec or maybe they could define themselves as providing superb professional care. In my personal opinion a good definition of the Pharmaprix brand and one that could be attached to their email marketing campaigns would be “We heal people.” This definition is plain, simple, effective and describes what Pharmaprix does. Let’s face it when they dispense medication or provide professional advice from a licensed pharmacist, they heal people. Not only does Pharmaprix heal people by providing medication and professional advice, but they have a variety of health care programs that empowers their clients, patients and email subscribers.

By defining their campaigns, email marketing peak performance will follow because Pharmaprix will focus around one idea and that is healing people. This is Pharmaprix’s core business. It will not focus on driving revenue from the weekly sales items or promoting the latest digital camera within the Pharmaprix stores but rather on healing people by providing medication, services and advice that will build trust. By building trust through email newsletters, click though rates to the website will increase, store footprint will increase and so will revenue. This all started by defining who and what their email marketing campaign could stands for.

How do you define your email marketing program? If you haven’t already so, do it now and Awaken the Giant Within your organization’s email marketing program.

Positive mindset will result in positive actions.

Feb
17

Implementing a metrics driven infrastructure for an email marketing program

Seven action plans to take when implementing a metrics driven infrastructure for an email marketing program

1) Prior to starting with an email marketing program, an organization needs to consider what are the goals and the objectives. Once the goals and the objectives are decided, the organization needs to focus on these throughout the life of the email marketing program as they will help shape an organization business and marketing decisions.

2) Select email marketing metrics which can measure the goals and the objectives that were set out in as well as identifying the difference between email marketing procedure and results metrics.

3) Ensure that your current email marketing software is able to provide the types of metrics that will be needed within your organization. If this is not possible with the system that is in place at the present time, you might have to figure those metrics manually or perhaps pick an appropriate third-party system that is able to track and provide them upon request.
Another option is to set up an Excel spreadsheet which collects live data every time it is opened from a source database. Based on certain formulas that are programed into an Excel spreadsheet and the data that it obtained from the database Excel would then provide metrics as well as graphs.

4) Create and build up the required template for reporting based on the data that is being captured by the email marketing software. Reporting can include just numbers, graphs or both depending on the needs of those that will be analyzing the results.

5) Utilize charts as well as tables whenever possible to identify developments, tendencies and general trends of email subscribers. For examples, these trends can be an increase in the click through rate (which can indicate email subscribers are more engaged with the type of email newsletters that have been recently sent to them). Another trend could be an increase in the amount of money that email subscribers are spending on a particular product once they received an email newsletter (which could be an indication that the merchant should be offering more of this type of product.)

There are many trends that can be identified once data is analyzed which is why email marketing reports are very important.

6) Examine the data that is generated by email campaigns testing to see if the goals and the objective are met. For example, the popular A/B testing that can be done on each of the following:

  • Subject lines of the email that is being sent out (“Summer wear is on Sale” compared to “Discounts on summer wear”).
  • Written content from within the body of the email.
  • Discounts on certain products or services (“Save 35% on all books” vs. “Free shipping on all orders over $25.00”).
  • Holiday and seasonal promotions (“Santa’s party favorites” vs. “Treat yourself to something special this new year.)
  • Landing pages that users view once an email recipient clicks on a call to action from within the email.
  • Banners within the email (size and colors of banners. Avoid the flashing banners type as they have a low conversion rate).
  • Colors (Background colors, color of text, color of any highlighted text, banner colors, image frame colors).
  • Images (Large images, small images, different images of the same product, not including any images in the email body).
  • The ‘from’ name which the email recipient sees upon receiving the email in their inbox as well as the ‘from’ email address.
  • Call to action (“Buy Virus Protection Now!” vs. “Protect your computer”)
  • HTML template design changes such as one column, two column, three columns or the placement of different elements in different locations within the email body.

Always observe the outcomes of testing email campaigns paying special attention to what specifically worked and what didn’t work.

7) Reaching the goals and objectives that were initially set out may not be easy and may take time but they can be achieved by constantly evaluating just about every component of your current email marketing strategy and always planning for improvement.

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