MarketingProfs published another great article on email marketing by Mark Brownlow. This article features six reminders to help you step back and reevaluate your email marketing efforts.
In short:
Don't let legislation drive you to distraction
Send relevant, valuable emails to people who asked or agreed to get them. Compliance with anti-spam legislation is of course critical to email marketers. But you shouldn't let it distract you from other key marketing issues, like eg. basic permission issues.
Revise your understanding of what email marketing covers
Marketing emails cover more than just dedicated campaigns or retention-oriented newsletters. Every email contact with a prospect or customer is a marketing opportunity. Make the most of all outgoing email to reinforce brand messages, encourage customer communication or cement customer relationships.
Avoid complacency
Constant improvements in email marketing practices are raising the quality bar across inboxes. A few years ago, people were excited to get an email... any email. Now, your email is constantly being compared with the rest of the inbox, and facing ever-tougher criteria to qualify for reader attention.
Check your assumptions regularly
Things which held true yesterday don't necessarily hold true today (eg. best day for sending your email). Look critically at generalized conclusions that are published. Each company has unique audiences, offers and objectives. So the insights from one company's campaign or a survey's "average" result might not apply to your situation.
Don't buy a wreath for the email marketing funeral
Base your strategic and budgeting decisions on hard data, campaign experiences and objective trend analysis.
Consider other delivery technologies for your email content
Are you integrating your email efforts with other marketing vehicles? And might you tap into new or improved markets by offering alternative ways to get the content previously reserved for email?
Top of the list here is RSS feeds. Some customers or prospects are likely to prefer RSS to email. So consider giving them the choice. It's not an "either or" scenario. You should be concerned with overall marketing success, and not protecting email as a marketing medium.
Read the full article here.
Source: MarketingProfs.com
