Common Email Campaign SNAFUs
Customers are happier when marketing aligns with sales
An email campaign represents an effective and cost efficient way to stay in touch with customers and prospects, providing helpful information about a company's products and services. Email also represents an ideal tactic as part of an ongoing drip marketing program. But while automated email can be a worthwhile marketing activity, there are some inherent challenges with an effective email campaign:
Ensure sales and marketing are aligned - Customers are happier when marketing aligns with sales because there is consistency in a company's message. Too often, marketing is disjointed from sales. The result is an email campaign that goes out without the knowledge of the sales department. Effective marketing organizations keep sales up-to-date with all marketing communications.
Align email content with search marketing efforts - Active email recipients are likely to go straight to Google and search on the product that is being discussed. Ensure your email communications are using consistent, branded product language that can be found via pay per click (PPC) and organic search.
Don't forget mobile and different browsers - Emails are increasingly read in mobile email readers and in different browsers: Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Chrome. Test them all and make sure it looks right in all of them.
Consider outsourcing the email campaign - Many formatting and reporting issues arise from using integrated email campaign software. For example, Salesforce.com and Eloqua were not engineered to focus solely on email functionality. Superior results may be achieved by outsourcing the project to a specialized agency, or managing the campaign with specialized email software available from Constant Contact, Cheetah Mail, Exact Target, or Vertical Response.
"KISS" Keep it simple, stupid - Resist the urge to cram too much into one email communication.
