Regardless of the time year, it’s always good to set marketing goals. It's important to reassess your campaigns and look for ways to improve your business. Although social media marketing continues to be on the rise, it's important not to neglect your e-mail marketing campaign.
Setting goals makes it much easier to measure the results of your various marketing activities. Also, it provides you with the focus and motivation you need to stick with them.
This article will discuss the email marketing goals you should be setting for your overall marketing strategy in 2015.
Growing Your Email List
Your email list is easily one of your most valuable marketing resources. The contacts featured on this list are the ones who have opted in to receive regular updates from your business. Typically, you will find existing customers on there, who have already bought from you in the past and continue to do so. You'll also have individuals who are completely new to your business and have signed up to find out more about you, your business, and how you can help them solve their problem.
You might be having some success in growing your email list, but it's important to keep wanting to grow this list. Your goal is to continue improving and making bigger impacts each year. A few things you might want to consider are:
- Am I making it easy for people to sign up? Growing an email list that is effective begins with making it easy for visitors to sign up in all the places they’re interacting with you. You can collect email addresses in-person by using a sign-up sheet or a mobile device, or you can add contacts online by adding a sign-up form to your website.
- Am I giving people a good enough reason to sign up? Ensure your audience understands the value behind signing up right from the beginning. What can they expect to receive? How often will they hear from you? What have others enjoyed about your emails? You can customize your sign-up form to convey the value of joining your list. A good idea is to provide your audience with opportunities to reward them with bonus offers from the beginning.
Open Rates
The rate at which your emails are opened is one of the best metrics for measuring the effectiveness of your email marketing.
Open rates tell you how many people of those you are emailing are actually opening it and reading your content. The more people who open your emails, the more opportunities you’ll get to drive sales.
To improve your open rate in 2015, here are a few things you need to consider:
- Are people keen to open my emails? Once people sign up, you’re responsible for providing value in every email you send. To put it simply, focus on sending emails that people will appreciate.
- Are my emails standing out in my audience’s inbox? Standing out means making sure people recognize that the email they are getting is from you. Using a consistent form name and email address is important. Also, you want to make sure people know what they can expect from your email when it finds its way into their inbox. A catchy subject line that grabs their attention will go a long way to getting them to open your email.
Increasing Engagement
You have a generous amount of people opening your emails, but how are you able to tell if people are engaging in your content? The best way to measure engagement is through click-through rates. They show you how many email subscribers are engaging with your content and the links within your email.
Getting more people to engage your emails may mean more traffic to your website or even an increase in the number of people acting on an offer you have sent out.
If you are wanting to increase email engagement, ask yourself the following:
- How easy am I making it for people to engage with my emails? Design plays a role in getting people to interact with emails you send out. It’s especially important for readers on mobile devices who might be less likely to engage with emails that are hard to read on small screens. Will more images be better or more texts?
- Am I offering a good enough reason for my audience to act? People might not be connecting with the content you send out. If so, take the time to look through your click reports to see which links are getting the most action. It allows you to see what your readers are most interested in and enables you adjust your content accordingly.
Don’t try to change everything at once. Try to look for small things you can improve on in a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. Making tweaks to improve opens and clicks may mean more exposure for your business and more opportunities for conversions.