If you really want to add email to your marketing mix, you need to take email seriously enough to develop a plan for it. Too many organizations launch an email program half-baked and then are disappointed when it doesn’t live up to expectations.
The plan doesn’t have to be as long as War and Peace, but it should include a few key elements so you can develop a focused, specific, and measurable program that gets results. At a minimum, these are the elements that Hoover ink recommends:
* Goals
* Definition of audience
* Key messages
* Size
* Tactics
* Chronology
* Budget
* Extent
First, determine what you want your email program to accomplish from a marketing and communications perspective. 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, build loyalty, or close sales?
Next, you need to define the audiences. Who are you trying to reach? What do you know about them from demographic and psychographic perspectives? Are you targeting multiple audiences? If so, do you need to segment your audiences and develop emails with different messages? How will each audience benefit from our communications?
Now, what do you want to say to each audience? What is the nature of the content? Will this include only editorial information or will it also contain some sales-oriented material?
Closely linked to the messages is their format. Are you producing a newsletter with a lot of editorial material or just short 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 the tasks and who is responsible for them. What technology do you need? Does it have internal email capabilities or should I use an app like nTarget? How will you build and manage your list? How will you acquire new subscribers? Who will create the content, design and distribute the email?
After answering those questions, it’s time to move on to your timeline. Develop a timeline to get your technology in place, build your list, create content, design and distribute the email. Determine if it will be a one-time shipment or if it will be repeated weekly or monthly.
Your budget can help you answer many of the above questions. Small budgets may mean you complete a lot of the work in-house.
Finally, it is time to establish criteria to measure the program. An awareness program may require baseline research so you know how you’re doing. A relationship management program can measure customer retention. The increase in clicks from your email to your website is also a measurable element. Sales-oriented programs can measure total email sales or incremental sales lifts with individual customers.
No matter what your goal is for using email, spend a little time developing a plan so your results aren’t half-baked.
