Email Marketing is one of the most cost efficient and effective tool.


    As its core, Email Marketing is a tool for customer relationships management  (CRM).


 Its Purpose: To build virtual relationships with existing and potential customers. 


 Its Benefit:  Maximise the retention and value of these customer, which should ultimately lead to greater profitability. 


What is Email Marketing?

   Simply put, Email Marketing is a form of direct marketing which utilises electronic means to deliver commercial messages to an audience.  It is one of the oldest and yet still one of the most powerful of all digital marketing tactics. The power comes from the fact that it is:

 ●    extremely cost effective and has a low 

       cost per contact.

●     highly targeted 

●    customisable 

●    completely measurable 

A successful email campaign requires careful attention  from planning to execution and evaluation of the campaign. There are certain best practices and steps to follow which will ensure  the success of email campaign:


Step 1 - Strategic Planning:

The first part of any email campaign should involve planning around the goals you will need to achieve. 

There are roughly 2 types of commercial emails you can send:

Promotional emails are more direct and are geared at enticing the user to take action through purchase or sign up

Retention based emails usually take the form of a newsletter and may include promotional messages but ultimately should contain information of value to create a long term relationship wirh the reader. 

A successful email campaign is most likely to be the one geared at retaining and creating a long term relationship with the leader.



Step 2 - List Building and                Management:

Running a successful email campaign requires that your business has a genuine opt-in database. This means that you need to have the user's permission to communicate with them or you risk having your mail regarded as spam or unsolicited ( bulk) email.
Emil regarded as spam can have dire consequences for your organization as not only will your reputation be in jeopardy, but legal action may be pursued in many parts of the world. 
An effective, best practices Email Marketing campaign requires an in house list cultivated over time. This list should contain people who are prospects, customer or potential evangelist of your business, who have explicitly given their permission to hear from you. You can use the website, subscription campaign as well as the newsletter itself (e.g. send to a friend function) to build lists. An equally important feature is the unsubscribe function. A reader needs to know how they can easily opt-out of your email communication should they need to.


Step 3 - Creative Execution:

       Email content that your readers will value is vital to ensuring the success of an Email Marketing campaign.  Valuable content is informative and progressive and should address the problems and needs of readers. It's all about what they want to hear more than what you want to say to them. The reader determines what value your content provider, not the publisher 


Step 4 - Design 

     The design of a mailer is sometimes an area that has the least amount of thought put into it. This is usually due to the lack of understanding some designers have of usability. The common problems are the:

 ●     length of the email 
 ●     dis- organized structure of information 
 ●     readability of text 

Interactive emails are best constructed with lightweight HTML capability allowing the email to open quickly in order to grab the user's attention before he/she moves on.

The structure must allow people to scan and navigate the email without too much complication. The length of paragraphs, emphasis through bolding and colors as well as sectioning information with bullets and boards all contribute to a well- structured email.
Any good designer will test their email on a variety of current, most used email clients.
( E.g. Outlook, Thunderbird, Lotus, Notes, Eudora etc.) This process is called platform testing and ensures that the email will display correctly in as many email clients as possible. Sometimes it is not possible to ensure exact consistency on every email client; however the vaiations can be minmised through following best international practice and staying abreast of new developments in email clients. 


Step 5 - Newsletter Components:

    Within every newsletter, there are a number of components that will aid the reader to orientate and better accept and react to your newsletter over time. Consistency is key in some areas while others can be refreshed although remaining within the style and tone of the communication.  The most prevalent component are as follows:
   
●    Subject Lines are essential! They aid the 
       reder in identifying the newsletter and 
       enticing them to open it. It is important
       to avoid promotional words like "free",
     "win"  and "buy now" due to these being
      flagged aa potential spam by email spam
      filters. Using the name and edition of the
      newsletter in the subject line aids in
      maintaining consistency and also helps
      readers filter them from their inbox.

●  "To", "from" and " reply" fields are also
      opportunities to build the relationship
      through creating a perception of
      familiarity. In other words, the reader
      needs to perceive that the newsletter is
      somewhat unique for them and sent
      personally by the publisher. Using a
      personalized company email address for
      the "reply" field creates familiarity and
      builds trust with the reader. The " from"
      address should also include the
     organisation's name. A meanigless 
    "from" address which the reader cannot
     identify only servers confuse the origin of
     the newsletter. 

●    Personalisation should be standard
      practice with emails. However, some
     companies still start the newsletter witha
     greeting like " Dear valued Guest " . This
    can be acceptable as a default greeting;
    however,  using their first name or
    surname can create a perception of a              more personal email. This can be taken          future of the customers give you a
    preference regarding the content they like
    the most . The text and images in the                email can be tailored to match                          preferences and interests upon delivery.


Step 6 - Deployment:

      Any good email marketers should be able to ensure an excellent delivery rate. A challenge for email marketers today is getting past the various spam filters on the path to the readers inbox. It is worthwhile to check emails against various spam filters,  like Spamassasin, to ensure your legitimate message is not mistakenly picked up by one of them. Delivering emails at correct and consistent times also contributes to the reader fostering a relationship with your organisation. A good offline example of this relationship is the daily newspaper delivery which arrives  at your door at the same time every day. Week or month. 

Step 7 - Tracking  and Reporting:

     It is crucial to determine the success of your email campaign on the short and long term basis. For this you will need an email tracking system which produces statistics in a user friendly manner.  It is important that these statistics are used in a way which improves and refines the email campaign to boost your goals and return on investment (ROI). The following measurable contribute to your understanding of the performance of email campaigns:

●   subscriber Growth v/s  Decline:
     Tracking the Growth or shrinkage of
      your database can help you analyse
      what is or what is not working in a 
     newsletter. A significant or consistent loss
     in subscribers is a key indication that you
     are not meeting the needs of your
     subscribers. A high pass on rate indicates 
     that your list values the content enough         to constantly share with others. Splitting       the list and testing 2 versions of the                 newsletter can help determine the cause      of high unsubscribe  rates. The size of the      list however, is not as important as the            quality there of as a high percentage                response from your existing newsletter          recipients   carries more impact than              subscriber growth which may still yield          low response rates.
● Click Through Rates and Conversion:
    This measures the effectiveness of your
    email via the link placed there in . When a
    reader clicks through to a webpage, these
   can be easily measured as a percentage
   against number of delivered, opened or
   sent emails. By analysing these statistics,
   the email marketer will be able ti tell               which content or promotion was the most     enticing for the reader.  Measuring the           click  through and conversion rates will         ensure that you are able to track                       differences  and trends the same way over     time in order to improve the newsletter          content and its impact. 
●  Feedback and Interaction Handling:
    The feedback from readers is probably the best way to gauge what impression your newsletter is making on them. If you are receiving regular positive feedback,  chances are that many of your readers are impressed with the style and content of the newsletter.  Evaluating what they are saying about you in other areas on the internet will also help you get a better picture of the reputation of your brand online.

●   Split testing:

      This is one of the most important parts of an Email Marketing campaign! Split testing across a host of factors like open rates across different subject lines, different days of the week and times of the day, different copy styles and email length,  for example,  will enable you to see what is working best for your campaign. In short there is no alternative to putting a lot of time and energy into testing and fine tuning your email marketing strategy your open rates will improve and the results are well worth it !