There are a lot of considerations when preparing for any marketing email campaign. The process to target your audience through an email will build relationships, understand the buyer’s journey, promote your brand, keeping engagement, nurture your prospects, and tell your story. I have established a standard tactic checklist that simplifies my process to encourage a successful email marketing campaign.
Know Your Audience!
STEP 1. Objectives – Who are you trying to reach? Knowing your audience, which persona is the focus, do you have specific segmentations to follow, what stage is the buyer’s journey? Answering these few questions at the beginning of the planning will make the process move quicker.
STEP 2. Goals Setting – Before making any writing decisions, understanding your campaign’s goal and objectives will assist in crafting your email and connect throughout your campaign. Take advantage of the SMART goal philosophy-Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely will keep your objectives in check.
STEP 3. Compliant and Segmented List – Yes, keep questioning yourself will ensure campaign success. Is your list clean? Did your contacts accept marketing communications and opt-in? Having eligible lists will maintain the trust and relationships that you already develop. Filtering a current list through verification SaaS (Software as a Service) will eliminate bounces, and lock-outs-I like to call mail jail. Now that you have a clean list, it’s time for segmentation based on persona, demographics, geography, firmographics, past purchases, or any specific interests.
STEP 4. Developing Content – Now that you have a plan with objectives, goals, and an audience, it’s time to determine an outline with compelling and relevant content. What are your topics? Keep your topics short and have the necessary resources to back your topics. Give something of value to the reader. Tip – when developing any content, think about other ways to utilize various media channels
STEP 5. CTAs (Call-to-Action) – Have supporting landing pages or blog posts that focus on the different lifecycle stages, making it easier for your audience to find just the right content. Tip – make sure that all landing pages have forms and opt-in compliant options.
STEP 6. Keeping the HUMAN – Select a specific person as a sender, not a generic name like info@ or sales@. Personalizing your message and talk to your audience, not at them.
STEP 7. Craft a Catchy Subject Line and Preheader Text – Research! Make sure to stay away from any spam filters. Avoid using all caps, too many exclamation marks, and overstated phrases like RUNNING OUT OF TIME and URGENT!!!!! A short preheader text is a limited amount of copy that shows up under the subject line within the email inbox. This extension of the subject line can determine if your audience will read your email.
STEP 8. Design Approach – Simplify the layout and structure your elements by building a wireframe outline. Keep your core branding, such as logo, colors, typography, website URL, social links. Have an easy flow between topics with relevant images or illustrations that are not too flashy. Placement of your CTA, remembering the buyer’s journey. Have a footer that includes Unsubscribe options.
STEP 9. Development and Analysis – Now your visual design is in place, the email template should be programmed with responsive HTML and CSS and have a formatted text version. Make sure your images have the necessary alt tags in place. Some inbox platforms have an option not to allow pictures to be visual. Set up the essential CTA and links UTM codes that will enable tracking.
STEP 10. TESTING! TESTING! – Send a test of your email to ensure that all elements are responsive and legible on all devices. Review and read your email! What will damage your campaign before you can hit SEND is not proofing for spelling or grammatical errors. Ask someone with no affiliation to the project to proofread and check all links. If your list and resources allow A/B testing, this can determine how your email will perform best with your audience by analyzing the results of email A copy to what email B copy.
STEP 11. Track the Results and Follow-Up! – Build an automated confirmation and notifications reply to make sure that cross-departmental communication and confirming what your prospect is requesting. It is critical to keep those prospects prominent and to continue moving them through the sales funnel. Analyze your results. Did you reach the goals and objectives? Did your content resonate with your selected audience? Check the number of opens and click-throughs to measure against other campaigns sent in the past. Are there any behavior patterns in the data?
Your subscribers are interested in hearing from you, and they want to develop a relationship. Follow my process checklist and always keep in mind that combining good planning, analyzing patterns, and adjusting the content will create powerful email campaigns.