Email Marketing: Tricks of the Trade with Erica Walter Part II
In our second installment of email marketing tips from expert marketer Erica Walter, we explore strategies, cadence, and metrics. With any email marketing program, it’s important to set goals and measure them. Walter walks through some applicable methods you can use when planning your email marketing.
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What’s the best way to strategize campaigns?
ERICA WALTER:
I have a strategy 1-2 punch.
- #1. What is my goal?
- #2. How will I measure if I accomplished the goal?
A lot of businesses don’t simply answer those two questions and end up sending emails that have a LOT of content, too much for the customer to even sift through. If you have one goal and one measurable going into the campaign creation process, you’ll keep things simple for your subscriber AND for whoever has to build the email.
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The million-dollar question - what kind of cadence do you think is best for email campaigns?
ERICA WALTER:
This is the #2 question I get asked when speaking for groups or training.
This one doesn’t have a silver bullet answer, because it is different for every business based on your unique customer demographic, your business needs and calendar, what expectations your subscribers had when signing up, and so many other factors including what your subscribers are already used to.
I recommend NO FEWER than monthly emails. If you’ve gone more than 1 month without emailing everybody who is engaged on your list, you’re missing out on opportunities and you’re probably being forgotten. If you aren’t sending that frequently already, start there and then start to experiment with more frequent, relevant emails as your bandwidth allows. Watch your unsubscribe rates to ensure they don’t go over .5% over the course of a quarter with an increase in frequency and fine-tune from there.
* DISCLAIMER: RELEVANCE solves 99% of your cadence issues. If you send valuable, relevant emails every other day, most of your subscribers won’t complain. Most businesses are not emailing their subscribers enough.
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How should businesses measure success beyond sales?
ERICA WALTER:
I recommend a scorecard that includes your open rate, click through of open rate, unsubscribe, and conversions. These are the metrics that you want to consistently work to improve, so measure and review these metrics on at least a quarterly basis.
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Any time/days you recommend sending emails?
ERICA WALTER:
This is another one where I strongly recommend that you test test test! Your unique customer base and the content you are sending will dictate the best days and times for your brand.
In general, I like to avoid Monday mornings and Friday late afternoons (for what I hope are obvious reasons). Monday afternoons actually work GREAT for event-based emails (where people are already jonesin’ for the weekend and have also cleaned out a cluttered inbox from the weekend). And weekend sends are a great time to capture last chance communications. Have an offer expire on a Sunday and resend on a Saturday evening to drive those last-minute shoppers while they’re in weekend mode!
Here’s a fun YouTube video describing the three-send resend strategy.