Email Marketing Strategy

Posted By emailadmin on February 4, 2010

How many links do you have in your newsletter?

Actually, maybe the first question should be: What’s the purpose of your newsletter? And is that the right purpose?

I was working with a client on a newsletter for an herbal supplement. The goal was to keep the reader engaged, and have them go to the website and order more of the supplement. Well, the newsletter went out twice a month, and the minimum order was 90 days. So the client was disappointed that more people didn’t order. The point he missed was that the newsletter was not supposed to be a sales letter but a sales tool to keep the product brand on the client’s mind.

When analyzing the ROI on an email, you do have to look at the cost to send the email, and how it fits into the overall budget. You might be taking a loss on the newsletter, but it might be a method for others to refer the product. And you wouldn’t know if the new order was from someone who just happened to find you or if it was a referral. Unless you ask. Which wasn’t done, so the newsletter was scrapped.

Another mistake that I think the client made was to send out a coupon for 10% off every 6 weeks that was good for 4 weeks. People got too used to seeing the same coupon. I would have varied the coupon amount to see which had the better pull.

And since the client only had name and email address, there was no way to do segmenting. One way to resolve this is to send out an email asking people to update their account, and then ask for 2 more pieces of demographic data.

A consultant can provide useful information, however, it is ultimately up to the client which path to take. My advice is to have a strategy, and test it.

Another client of mine sends out an email once a month where the articles are only previewed, and there are links back to the website. This works perfectly because it increases the useful information on the website (which improves page rank and offers more text for SEO), and it has a purpose. Once the person is on your website, they can poke around and see what else is there.

Additionally, they have their contact information in the email. Always give your readers multiple ways to say yes. Yes to calling, yes to emailing, yes to clicking through to your website. And hopefully yes to buying your product or service.

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