5 Do’s For Running Successful Email Marketing Campaigns

Running successful email marketing campaigns is one of the key components to a strong inbound marketing plan. Not only is email marketing incredibly affordable compared to print media and advertising, it gives you a chance to connect directly with people who are interested in your business and industry.

So what is the “secret recipe” to creating successful email marketing campaigns? The truth is there is no secret recipe. Every business is different. What works for you may not work for the next company. That being said, there are some basic rules you can follow to set yourself up for success. Here are some basic “Do’s and Don’ts” to follow.

DO:

– Make sure you are growing your email list organically

– Include valuable, creative content in your emails

– Figure out the best frequency for your subscribers

– Analyze metrics

DON’T:

– Buy email lists from 3^rd parties

– Be 100% self-promotional

– Send too few or too many emails

– Ignore statistics and reports

Find further insight and guidance below on each of these top points.

DO: Make sure you are growing your email list organically.

I’m personally shocked that I still hear business owners and marketing executives tell their marketing managers to buy email lists from third parties. This has been and always will be a big no-no!

Instead, you need to focus your efforts on getting people to want to subscribe to your mailing list. It’s not that difficult to do. If you need some more help, check out our article on how to build your email list for ecommerce businesses as well as our article on 10 ways to build targeted email lists with minimal resources.

DO: Include valuable, creative content in your emails.

The more you know about your customers and email subscribers, the easier it will be for you to come up with valuable email content. This is the most critical component of running successful email marketing campaigns. After all, if you’re not providing valuable information to your reader, you’re wasting their time and they will make that clear by not opening your emails and eventually unsubscribing from your list or marking you as spam.

TIP: Create a preference center for your subscribers where they can select their interests. For example, if you run an ecommerce website focused on healthy eating, you could provide options for selecting what type of products maybe of interest such as organic, digestive or stress reduction. Then also give options so your subscribers can choose which lifestyle categories they want to receive emails about, and so on.

DO: Figure out the best frequency for your subscribers.

One of the quickest ways to piss off your valuable subscribers is to bombard them with daily emails that they were not expecting. Daily deal companies (Think Groupon) are one of the few exceptions in the email marketing world, since people who sign up for these emails clearly understand they will be receiving info daily.

Again, there’s no magic formula for determining the perfect email frequency. However, you could ask your subscribers in your preference center how often they want to hear from you. Another way to determine this factor is by testing different frequencies and analyzing the numbers. You should also give people who are unsubscribing from your mailing list an opportunity to briefly explain why they are leaving. This can provide insight into the frequency you should be implementing.

DO: Analyze metrics.

If you have a high open rate with a weak click-through rate, you should focus more on writing compelling copy. If your open rate sucks, you need to write better subject lines and make sure you’re following best practices with regards to deliverability.

The great thing about digital marketing is we no longer have to guess why a marketing campaign is failing or succeeding. It’s all in the numbers. Most email service providers offer advanced analytics and reports that you can easily view and download to see how each email and the campaign as a whole is performing.

Follow these basic Do’s and Don’ts and you’ll be well on your way to creating successful email marketing campaigns.