Four Crucial Tips for Crafting the Ideal Email Campaign

If there is one area of digital marketing that has proven itself to be a steady performer over the last five years, it’s email marketing. Email offers businesses an attractive ROI, largely due to its ability to provide a routinely inexpensive marketing avenue. And, it continues to outperform most other forms of marketing — especially when considering long-term strategies.

Simply put, a properly executed email-marketing campaign can work extremely well for the vast majority of businesses. And there are certain essential tricks of the trade that will determine the fate of your email-marketing campaigns. If you employ the following four tips, you will add massive leverage to a marketing avenue that already boasts a winning track record.

1. Ensure They’ve Opted-In to This Journey With You.
A time-honored rule of thumb with email marketing is that there can often be diminishing returns as you grow your email list. Acquiring email addresses from sources that are not legitimate or assuming consumer opt-in will, generally, not result in loyal subscribers — in fact, it will likely hurt your brand image and sending reputation. Be clear as to why you are asking for an email address and set expectations on what the subscriber will receive moving forward. Don’t assume that a customer who provided an email address for an order confirmation also wants to receive your promotional messages or newsletters.

2. Remember That First Impressions Are Everything.
Similar to a first date, you only get one chance to make a great first impression with your email subscriber. Your welcome or onboarding program will set the tone for your brand and email program.

Ensure your welcome message or onboarding program sets expectations with subscribers regarding what types of emails they signed up for, how often they should expect to hear from you, and where they can learn more about your brand — like your website, mobile app, or social pages.

3. Allow People to Set Their Preferences.
People love preferences. So, let’s take the previous tip just a step further. While many brands today set expectations in their welcome programs, many companies are discovering what happens when they enable their subscribers to personalize which campaigns they wish to receive. If you offer a short preference form during the opt-in process, you’ll continue to solidify subscribers’ positive perceptions of your company’s brand.

Remember, an email that’s destined for the trash bin will be of little use to either you or the subscriber. However, when people are allowed to define their expectations for how and why companies may contact them, the brand’s leverage increases with every new opt-in.

4. Test Everything, and Test Often.
Finally, testing is critical to discovering what works. Just as in dating, take your time to get to know your subscribers to figure out what works best for them. You’ll start to gain valuable insights into knowing your most loyal subscribers. However, kicking off an A/B or multivariate program may seem daunting at first. Testing is not always a simple tactic to execute, especially if it’s difficult to assess the effectiveness of your email campaigns. Start small by testing time of day or day of week. Some other testing suggestions to get you started include images, product offers, subject lines, or call-to-action placement. Some of Adobe Campaign’s most successful customers have become testing masters and use the data-driven approach to drive their email programs.