We often see email marketing campaigns being sent with no understanding of the impact and no effort to measure ROI. Email Marketing Management is on the science side of marketing. Art is there too: the message creativity. But the opportunity lies in studying the reaction of the recipients to each email marketing campaign. Here is an overview of our process:
When a campaign is sent, the recipients are classified into three groups:
1. Responders – the people who take action; email back, call, click on a link to make a purchase, etc.
2. Openers – the people who have enough interest to open your email
3. Non-Openers – the people that delete or ignore your email
If you’ve done it right – your initial message was split into two parts, typically starting at the subject line. So you send an email with Subject A to 5% of your list, and the same email with Subject B to another 5%. Then, based on opens, clicks or conversions (people buying) you determine which subject to use for the remaining 90% of the list. Once the email has been sent and the groups separate, you have new knowledge and opportunity.
Similar to panning for gold, it’s time to sift the openers and non-responders to find additional responders. With the original non-responders, we keep the original body copy, but try a new set of Subjects (typically waiting a few days before launching this secondary campaign). With the openers, what we learned is that the Subject was compelling, but the body of the email did not resonate. So, a new campaign is launched with a new, but similar subject. This time, however, we test different body copy: Body A and Body B (in the same way we tested Subjects above). The list of openers will now break into responders, openers and non-openers.
This process continues until the original list has been emailed three times in the course of a week or so. The result is that we will ultimately yield significantly more response than the typical 2%. It’s crucial to keep track of each list throughout the process.
Our team has strong email marketing management expertise, and we would love to help you get more out of your email marketing campaigns.