Email Marketing - are you ready?

No other communication has the power to reach your target audience in such a personal way. E-mail marketing allows you to transport your website directly into their ‘inbox’ and talk directly abut your products and services. But are you making the most of it?

Do you offer an e-mail opt-in form or link on every Web page? The starting point of any email campaign is a list! If you’re not inviting people to join your list you risk losing them to a competitor. Give them a reason to join the list and you then have their permission for you to keep in touch.

Do you have a welcome e-mail with content driven by the marketing group? In 2007, the Email Experience Council (EEC) released a study on the growth of welcome e-mail usage across the retail industry. While the EEC found a 12 percent year-over-year increase, it found that only 72 percent of retailers send a welcome e-mail. We think it’s significantly lower for other market sectors. Many studies have shown that a confirmation / welcome e-mail's impact and effectiveness are significantly reduced if the message isn't sent within two hours and can be a vital part of your marketing mix.

Do you analyse your campaign stats to help define future e-mail strategies? This is a difficult one, but it's critical. Over recent years, e-mail surveys continually predict that as e-mail technology improves it will enable better behavioural targeting, dynamic content, and even some level of predictive modelling.

While pieces of this prediction have come true, the sad fact is many of us in e-mail still don't leverage the basic results we get in a meaningful manner. If your open rate is 25 percent, do you use that data to gain insights into why the other 75 percent of recipients who said they wanted to hear from you aren't engaged? Do you use that data to build a reengagement strategy?

If you have a question you think would be valuable to add to our list, e-mail your recommendations.