There are many tools in our belt as online marketers, branding specialists, and public relations managers. Each tool has its pros and cons, its strengths and weaknesses. They also each become stronger when you master them with earned expertise, and stronger still when you find the best and most effective ways to use them together. Now we’d like to discuss another tool on our belt: Email marketing.
Email marketing is definitely a powerful tool to fine-tune. In fact, when done correctly it can be the most effective digital marketing tool, often beating out social media and Google ads. This might surprise a lot of people, but it’s important to keep in mind that these days just about everyone has an email account (or a few) – and a cell phone that links to their emails. With that in mind, our team felt it was essential to dedicate a few posts to breaking down the basics of email marketing.
The first step to understanding what goes into email marketing campaigns and planning one yourself is setting appropriate goals. Deciding what you want to get out of any marketing effort might seem like an obvious detail that can be skipped, but the details really do matter here. In this case, how you measure success with your email campaign will directly determine how you will target your audience (which will be our next email marketing post). On the other hand, by not doing so you would essentially be guiding your email blast blind.
When considering your specific email marketing goals, here are some sample questions we recommend asking yourself: Do you want to sell something (or a certain amount)? Do you want to inform or engage your audience (such as with updates of some kind)? Do you want to grow your web traffic? Are you inviting them to something? Or is there another goal you might have?
All of these questions/goals would require different, distinct strategies that determine all the other steps of your digital marketing game plan. If you’re planning to bring in experts to handle the email campaign for you, it would still be a good idea to go through this exercise and figure out what your detailed goals are so everyone can be on the same page – and more likely to reach the goals you’re setting.
Stay tuned for the next Axel Email Marketing Basics: Setting Your Audience!
Need help with your email campaign or want to set up your own? Reach us at 866-DAVIDAXEL (866-328-4329) or dave@davidaxel.com
