How The Best Email Marketing Campaigns Define Their Goals

By AdStation | July 12th, 2016 | Categories: Email Marketing
How The Best Email Marketing Campaigns Define Their Goals

Have you ever wondered How The Best Email Marketing Campaigns Define Their Goals? Top industry content marketers tap into a strategy that we’re going to explore further, but before we do, we thought we’d share some interesting facts that may surprise you!

Did you know, 91% of consumers check their inbox at least once a day? Most of us are addicted to email, and I for one am in dire need of an email detox program. But ADOBE’s eye-opening report on email respondent behavior was mind-boggling!

Here are a few staggering statistics:

• 70% check their email while watching TV
• 52% check from bed
• 43% check while on the phone
• 42% check in the bathroom
• 18% check while driving!

Those statistics suggest email marketing is not dead! But it also proves that you have to be savvier than ever if you want to reap the benefits of creating one of the best email marketing strategies that convert.

The Best Email Marketing Campaigns Have These Elements In Common

The best email marketing campaigns have the following characteristics in common – a pre-determined goal and a strong call to action that persuades your reader to take action and convert.

Whether your goal is to drive traffic to your website or collect product, service or contact submission requests… the result should meet your predetermined goal. Providing relevant and engaging information with the purpose of meeting your target outcome, will tighten your campaign and help persuade your reader to take action, which will result in a conversion.

With that in mind, where should you start when you want to produce quality content that subscribers will want to engage with, share, and continue to reference? It’s always best to start by defining your campaign goals.

Setting goals not only makes it easier to measure your campaign’s success… it makes it easier to deliver a strong marketing campaign with engaging and actionable content your reader will look forward to receiving.

Defining the essential purpose of your email campaign by answering Who, What, When, Where, Why and How, will automatically increase the chances of obtaining higher conversion rates right out of the gate.

In an article created by Kissmetrics, these important questions are clearly defined:

1. WHY are you sending your email?
2. WHO is your intended audience?
3. WHAT do you want to communicate in your email?
4. HOW do your customers think and communicate in relation to your topic?
5. WHERE do you want the reader to go? Make the call to action clear.
6. WHEN are your subscribers most likely to read your email and take action?

Let’s dive in and go deeper …

1. WHY are you sending your email?

Why are you sending out your email in the first place? What’s the purpose of the email? Knowing this in advance will make other questions easier to answer. Creating clear goals at the beginning is essential to your email campaign’s success at the end. If you don’t have anything valuable to say, it’s best not to say anything at all. The importance of providing valuable information your reader is eager to open, not only helps increase your conversion rate, but it also helps increase email deliverability.

2. WHO is your intended audience?

Who are you sending your email campaign to? Segmenting your email list will help you create and deliver the right message, to the right person, at the right time. This strategy is generally more effective than blasting the same email message to your entire list. Which more often than not, will result in killing your list.

3. WHAT do you want to communicate in your email?

What do you want to say in your campaign? Many campaigns fail because the content of your email lacks focus and includes too much information. Keeping your message simple and concise is key. Litmus suggests, 72% of consumers prefer email communication, which is why it’s important to provide useful information that they genuinely need so that you earn their attention.

It is also essential to provide relevant information that will solve your reader’s problem. Over complicating your email with too many offers, will result in your reader getting lost, confused and not taking action.

Creating clearly defined content that leads to a single call-to-action will provide a much higher success rate with your email marketing campaign. Another important statistic states, the average read time of an email, is 15-20 seconds. That’s why it’s important to keep your message short, sweet and to the point.

4. HOW do your customers think and communicate in relation to your topic?

How do your prospects or clients communicate? Knowing and understanding your audience is crucial to your email campaign's success, which is why It’s important to match the tone of your email to your intended audience.

If you are sending out an offer to dog lovers – formal, stuffy language won’t resonate with them. Similarly, when you reach out to corporate professionals promoting an upcoming seminar, a professional tone would be more effective.

Your audience will vary, and how you ‘speak’ to them should too.

5. WHERE do you want the reader to go? Make the call to action clear.

Where do you want the reader to end up? What is your precise call to action? It is important and effective to lead your reader straight to the Call To Action at the beginning, middle and end of your email. (A single call to action listed in 3 areas that lead to the same landing page)

Tell them what you want them to do.

By following the steps outlined above, you make it easy for the reader to accomplish your goals. After all, we live in a world that thrives on immediate gratification. Buttons and links within your email help your reader by taking them straight to your call-to-action, allowing for an easy transaction. The fewer steps it takes for your reader to complete a task, the more likely they are to finish the process.

6. WHEN are your subscribers most likely to read your email and take action?

And finally, when are your readers most likely to open your email and convert? As we mentioned above, most people read their emails while doing other things. So the question also becomes… what device are they consuming your information on? Recent studies show, 66% of emails are read on a smartphone or tablet (49.5% smartphone and 16.8% tablet).

Additional Tips For Creating The Best Email Marketing Campaigns

Creating an email campaign with mobile optimization in mind is critical to the success of your campaign.

When writing for mobile devices, your content will be more appealing if your paragraphs are short and concise. Streamlining and breaking-up paragraphs into 4-5 lines will make your email appear easier to read.

By incorporating the power of reverse engineering at the beginning of your campaign and answering, Who, What, When, Where, Why and How, you will increase your email marketing campaign’s success rate.

Setting clear goals for your email campaign will make it easier for your audience to engage, especially when the call to action is boldly communicated in a clear and concise manner.