First of all, let’s focus on the following question: Why should you include an Email strategy in your Marketing plan?
Email Marketing is one of the most active and effective communication methods of the moment. An Email Marketing campaign is easier to implement than you might think, as long as we have clear objectives and the necessary resources, and it is a simple and fast communication method. Its benefits are multiple and it makes the communication of the company more agile.
Also, Email Marketing campaigns helps you to:
*Build an image of professional authority.
*Cultivate customer relationships.
*Launch low-cost campaigns.
* Analyze the target audience.
*Increase traffic to the website Increase sales and revenue.
Here, we make a point of the 5 basic stages that every basic Marketing plan should have:
1. Planning: For every Marketing strategy we need to have at least a minimum action plan. In this way we will have an overview of what we are going to be doing, along with our objectives and steps to follow. Our initial step will be to develop a score of certain questions to be clear about the situation and then begin:
Do I have a budget? How much is my budget?
Put together a calendar with commercial dates and others that serve us for our shipping scheme. What is my competition doing in Email Marketing? A very simple and effective way to find out what other brands in my business are doing is to investigate them. And the easiest way to do it is by registering for their Newsletters and pretending to be interested in what they offer. In this way we can see what type of emails they send, what their contents are like and what subjects they use, as well as analyze when we receive those emails. What other means am I using for my general Marketing plan and what / what will / will be my / my objectives for this new medium? How will my channels complement each other?
2. Choice of platform for shipments: In this regard, the first question cited above will be vital: the budget. There are free tools that can help us in the beginning to launch our campaigns (MailChimp is one of them). They obviously have their limitations, but they are always an option. Then we have many tools where you can pay by subscribers, by sending or by sending speed (and unlimited subscribers and sending). Each platform has its own characteristics and will allow you to have access to more free tools.
3. Database: how to obtain and segment it. What data do I need? In order to start sending email campaigns, it is enough to have an excel file with a list of emails. Of course, the ideal is to have more data from our users to be able to later carry out personalized actions. Here, what is developed in the previous point plays a very important role, since the definition of a strategy will help us understand what data and information are needed and if they are enough or if we need more.
Once this data has been collected (understanding that this may happen later and not at the beginning of the start-up), it will be necessary to clean our list (MailMonster tool is a great option) and carry out the different segmentations that later help us to direct our messages in a specific and relevant way.
4. Email optimization: best practices.There are many factors to be considered for an online marketing campaign to be effective. We mention a point of those that we consider essential to take into account when creating email campaigns to generate the interest (engagement) expected by our clients: Customization of emails This is where the recipient fields that we have in our database will play a very important role. With more detailed information on each user, we can, for example, send you an email with the client’s name as the subject. Ex: Hi Martin! We have special offers for you. We can customize the pieces based on the information / tastes / preferences of our customers, based on the information we have about them in our database.
In addition, through the segmentation of bases, we will be able to send hyper-relevant information to each user. So, for example, knowing that a user constantly looks at the sneakers section of our website, we can send them offers related to this product.
Content Email marketing is becoming an increasingly shaped channel based on the individual customer profile. Why? Because we are invaded by campaigns that reach our boxes. Therefore, the segmentation and consequently, the relevant content of my email play a definitely important role. Content is THE KING.
5. Analysis of results and decision making. No marketing campaign would make sense if we cannot measure its effectiveness. The effectiveness of an email marketing campaign can be measured through its main KPIs (Key Performance Indicator) that allow us to discover if the established objectives have been achieved or if it is necessary to rethink the strategy.
Open Rate (OR – Open Rate): The Open Rate corresponds to the percentage of people who opened or viewed the email, even if they opened it more than once. For example, if you send an email to 100 recipients and 25 of those people open it, your open rate will be 25%.
Delivery rate: No matter how much we are sending an email with hyper-relevant information and with a great design, if our users are not receiving the email, we will not obtain any type of result. Without a good shipping reputation, your emails won’t reach your customers.
Click Through Rate (CTR – Click Through Rate): The CTR represents the number of recipients who clicked on one or more links that appear in the email, out of the total number of emails delivered. It is considered that if a CTR is higher than 7 – 10% it is a high value and the content of the mail is interesting for your subscribers. It is calculated as follows: CTR = (Total clicks or unique clicks / Number of emails sent) * 100 Bounce rate: It refers to the number of emails that have not been delivered to the recipient. This failure may be due to poorly written emails, non-existent emails, unsubscribed email addresses, etc.
Conversion rate: Measures the percentage of emails that lead to a specific action and the percentage of users who end up completing this action. It is one of the fundamental indicators, since it will let you know if users are meeting the previously defined objective.
CONCLUSION
It is important to find a balance in sending emails to customers, which is enough to generate commitment to our company, but not too much for them to bother and decide to choose to define us as SPAM. Customers should only receive emails that are relevant to their location in their spending cycle, their shopping habits, and their demographics. Reaching the right customers at the right time is just as important as the content of an email.