The Anatomy of an Email Marketing Campaign
Effective email marketing campaigns are designed to achieve specific goals, contain clear calls-to-action and present a value proposition to your recipients. Let’s take a look at a recent campaign from one of our clients, The Oregon Coast Aquarium to see what this looks like.
What are your goals?
Sending an email marketing campaign for no reason doesn’t make sense, particularly since it takes time and money to send them. In addition, the people that have opted in to receive marketing emails from you presumably are interested in receiving something of value, otherwise they will eventually unsubscribe to your emails.
In this example (you can click the thumbnail image to view a larger version) the goal of the email campaign is generate Twitter followers and Facebook fans. This is a simple goal, and a clear goal. That’s the best kind of goal. We also like this goal because it is quantifiable, in that there will be a measurable metric (in this case, the number of Twitter followers and Facebook fans) that we can look at before and after the campaign to see how effective it was.
Tell people exactly what you want them to do.
If there is some action that you would like the recipients of your email to take, you need to make sure that your call-to-action is simple, obvious and descriptive. In this example, we have two calls-to-action: “Follow us on Twitter” and “Find us on Facebook.” We make it very clear to the person reading this email what we want them to do. Additionally, we go on to show people step-by-step how to accomplish our call-to-action, since in this case it might help people that would like to respond but don’t know how.
Other common calls-to-action for email marketing campaigns are things like “Buy now,” or “Call now to speak with a representative.” Perhaps the goal of your email is to sell a product, or perhaps it is to generate leads or encourage personal contact through a phone call. Whatever your call to action is, be sure that it is simple, clear, and also achievable to your recipients.
Present a value proposition.
You probably had to give your recipients some sort of value proposition in order to get them to subscribe to your email list. Or perhaps they are just customers, or people that are interested in your brand, company or message. Whomever they are, you cannot assume that just because they opted in to receive emails from you they are interested in everything you have to say. An email campaign should make it clear to the person reading it what value this email offers to them.
In our example, the value proposition for becoming a follower on Twitter is that the person will be able to receive the latest updates and information from the aquarium. Of course, the value proposition for becoming a fan on Facebook is slightly different, and explained as an opportunity to meet, connect and interact with other people that are interested in the Oregon Coast Aquarium and its mission.
Again, your value proposition will be dependent on your overall goals and your call-to-action. However, the reason for the value proposition is to make the case for why someone should follow through with your call-to-action by explaining how doing so will benefit them.
A shameless plug for our client.
By the way, we encourage people to support the Oregon Coast Aquarium by becoming a follower on Twitter or a fan on Facebook.
Published by Brian Getting on Wednesday, May 12, 2010.
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