Why email if you are going to do it wrong?

As we start the email portion of the New Media Marketing (NMM) blog series, we will not be spending time on what is an email or how important they are. Most of us are very familiar with emails; email marketing campaigns, and which ones seem to work. Creating emails as part of your integrated marketing program is not the same as sitting down and writing an email as most of us do several times a day.

When it comes to email marketing campaigns, there are three distinct tasks that you must follow to maximize your email campaign effectiveness. (Thus don’t waste your time sending out emails).

The first is to determine your message – what your email message should say.
Remember: Make your emails as concise and focused as possible. Most recipients scan e-mails and do not necessarily take the time to read every word or sentence of your email.

Your message should contain the following three content elements:

• Value proposition – why you versus someone else or some other solution/product/service.
• Supporting Information – Provide additional information to support your value proposition. Summarize the following four questions in a paragraph: (1) What are the features of your product or services, (2) Benefits (always more important then specifications), (3) How are you different (4) Why that different is important
• Call to action – ask the readers to take a specific action in a specific way. So often a well-crafted email forgets this part. Do not be afraid to ask the viewer to do something. This need not be “buy now” it could be call, click a link, download, save this message, forward this message, print out and use as a coupon, etc.

After you determine your message, you should select the look/type of your email. We will address this in more detail in the next blog.

The second step is to deliver your message. The how is easy to answer especially with the well-developed email service providers such as Constant Contact. The who is most important.
Like direct mail, email campaigns have the same mantra – junk mail/email is good mail/email sent to the wrong person.

As we so often mentioned in this blog series: targeting your campaign, categorizing your lists is critical.

The third step is to evaluate your message. The beauty of email is that you will learn very quickly if your message worked (usually within 48 hrs) and you can change the message or target for your next email.

Some suggested metrics you can use:

• Increase in number of web visits
• Increase in orders and sales
• Event attendance increase
• Increase number of opt-ins
• Change in opinions over time

Please refer to our last ezine Studio Buzz articles to read more about email as a marketing tool.

• Getting Started with an Email Campaign
• Do it Right – Five types of Emails

Note: links
Getting started… www.tcdgstudios.com/articles/articles_030901.php
Do it right… www.tcdgstudios.com/articles/articles_030902.php