Establishing Priorities For Your Email Campaign

If you are running a marketing campaign, then you should be running an email marketing campaign, too. The internet is one of the most cost-effective mediums for reaching potential buyers, and emails are the surest way the internet offers to do just that. The need for an email campaign is not that questionable for many businesses (unless you happen to have the luck of selling a tremendously popular product that is necessary for human survival...but that's not the case for most of us), but how to establish one and squeeze as much potential out of it as possible is up for question. Anyone venturing into the terrain of email marketing should take stock of certain realities first, create a clear picture of priorities and methods, and then start putting the gears in motion.

The first thing to be done is simply establishing the objective: are you selling a product, looking for affiliations, trying to broaden your readers base? Email campaigns aren't always just about sales, although that is usually the top priority. One objective might be to promote a more personalized form of interaction between you and the reader or customer, in order for you to get to know your market better. Whatever it is you want to achieve, keep that foremost in your mind and let your marketing strategy proceed from this starting point.

Next, get to know a bit about how other companies in your niche are conducting their marketing strategies online. Learn from the success and failure of others. This is not done with the intention of copying, but rather seeing what you are competing with and figuring out how to overcome it. Identify the weaknesses in other campaigns and make sure you avoid them.

A fundamental aspect of your emails should be the first four inches, and they should become a top priority within the email itself. Be aware of how most common email providers work, and keep the important catch-phrases near the beginning and in the subject line. It shouldn't take a recipient the time to read your entire email to understand what it is you are sending them emails for.

Then, it is important to establish what your own expectations are. What is the definition of success for you? Do you need you email campaign to provide almost all of your sales, or will you be content if it only expands your customer base 10-15%? Make sure you are using the right tracking software to keep a clear picture of what the impact of your email campaign on your overall business operation is.

It is important to establish these sorts of priorities before beginning your marketing strategy online, as otherwise you will be like a ship without a compass on the high seas: adrift and doomed to imminently sink. If, on the other hand, you do manage to set these issues out in a clear action plan, you will be much more likely to find that your efforts are rewarded. Remember, planning first, execution second always!

Consider iContact for your email marketing campaigns. It's a powerful platform that generates sophisticated results with the simplicity of a point-and-click interface. iContact is your best choice for email marketing software.