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At
the year's end everyone needs to look back on their email marketing efforts to
see how successful their program was and if it wasn't as successful as they
were expecting, then what steps should be taken in order to make the program
successful.
The
main points to be looked upon are:
The first step in the process of
annual review is to note down the newsletter or campaign's annual result in a
spreadsheet. All important statistics such as clicks, referrals, complains,
unsubscribe, bounces, spam, etc., should be included in the spreadsheet. After
assembling the results must be used to calculate the overall averages. By this
the best and the worst performing message can be calculated for every metric.
Beyond standard metrics like click through, open, and bounce rates, corporate
newsletter publishers must also look at metrics which are more appropriate for
achieving the company's objectives and goals. The major metrics which should be
looked upon based on objectives are open rate, click to open rate, click
through rate, deliver rate, bounce rate, referral rate, unsubscribe rate, spam
complaints, net subscribers, subscriber retention, unique clicks, unique clicks
on certain recurring links, website actions, orders, downloads, transactions,
total revenue, conversion rate, average order size, and average price per
email.
The content of the actual messages
should be analyzed. Every aspect should be relevant and should also involve
creativity. The style, tone and the length of the subject line should be
reviewed. It is very important to include the company's or brand's name in the
subject line or easy recognition by the reader, otherwise the email will land
in the spam folder. If the format of the emails is being changed constantly,
the samples must be compared to see which one is more effective. If personalized
emails have been sent, observe the results to see whether the attempt was
successful or not.
- Recipient
feedbacks, web site analytics and surveys
An email account can be created to
receive feedbacks containing both negative and positive comments, which can be
reviewed upon at the end of the year. If the number of feedbacks received isn't
adequate, the feedback procedure must be made easier. Another problem could be
of not creating a motivating personality which could make the subscribers to
respond. Readers surveys helps in finding keys which can be worked upon in the
next year. Analyzing the website statistics also helps a lot. If there are
articles present on the website, figure out which ones interest the readers the
most. If the website sells products, check out for the product categories which
are visited the most and produce the most revenue and orders. Also ponder upon
the offers which draw the most attention from the subscribers.
- And finally
comparison between internal and external benchmarks
The co-marketers can share information
in an organization which produces more than one campaign or newsletter. This
helps in benchmarking the key metrics. The company's performance can be
compared to the industry averages to see whether the program is going according
to the plan or if it needs attention immediately.
After
the internal audit has been done and the review has been completed, it is now
time to make an improvement plan for the future, which should include:
- Analysis and reporting
- Testing
- Creativity
- Maintenance
- List building
- Personalization and segmentation
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