How do you create your email marketing campaigns? Where does the inspiration come from? We have to constantly create new campaigns for clients so we need to be on the top of our game.
Here’s how we keep the creative juices flowing and generate new email marketing campaigns.
First we need a plan
Usually we find that email marketing isn’t created in a vacuum. Good email campaigns are often triggered by some need of the business or other marketing initiative. For example, an email newsletter has to have something to say. Often that something is an article or notice about something going on in the business.
Sometimes that something is an event or promotion that’s going on and you want to ensure your readers know about it.
Generally, email campaigns will support some other marketing program. A good example is lead generation. There is a sales team standing by to qualify and close new leads. You want your email campaign to generate those leads.
Before you create your email and blast away, step back and think about “What is the purpose or goal of this campaign?” What you’ll discover right away is that the clearer you are about your purpose the easier it will be to execute the email strategy. Your call-to-action will be easy to see.
It’s when you don’t think through your plan things are more difficult.
Then we need ideas
Now that you have a plan and clear purpose, what’s the best way to write the message? What’s the hook or angle? Here’s where you start to focus in on the subject line and what you’ll say to make YOUR email stand out from the hundreds of others in that inbox.
One thing we do at ZinMarketing is subscribe to lists. We’re on tons of lists. By tons we mean hundreds.
We watch proven marketers who know what they’re doing, we watch big companies (who should know what they’re doing), and we watch things that interest us.
Don’t assume that because a F1000 company sends you an email, it’s done properly. I’ve seen some pretty poor practices from big companies that should know better.
But when I do see something from a known marketing professional I pay attention, particularly when I see it more than once. That means they’re probably tracking results.
Keep a swipe file of the best emails and refer back to it for inspiration. You’ll save yourself a lot of brain power that way.
Finally, we let the cream rise to the top.
We’ve talked in the past about testing and split testing email campaigns. One thing we like to do is to create more than one version of an email and see which one works the best. Sometimes we hand it around the office and see if one stands out.
Ideally, we’ll send a version of the email to two groups of 10K each and then send the winner to the balance of the list. You’ll need to plan ahead to make this work but the gains can be well worth it.
The biggest difference I’ve seen in testing of this style is a 12X difference in results. Heck, even a 2X difference in results between two different emails can really make a difference.