Email Marketing Planning & Preparation
A great way to introduce holiday promotions to an audience of consumers is with email marketing. This marketing strategy is cost-effective, allows you to target the audience, is easy to track and can be used throughout the year. Whether you’re marketing a service or product, the first thing you have to focus on is introducing your brand to a consumer.
When someone goes to the grocery store to buy something and they look at shelves with dozens of options for that product, they are going to make their choice based on what they’ve already used, what the cost is or what brand they are most familiar with. This is why businesses that have globally recognized brands continue to market themselves even though they are well known. It’s because this familiarity influences the decision the consumer makes when determining which brand to buy from.
Branding is a key factor in any marketing strategy and produces long-term results while improving the ROI for any future campaigns. The following steps need to be taken during your planning and preparation periods to ensure the best possible results.
Analyze Your Data
The first thing you need to do when developing a marketing strategy is to take a serious look at your current data. Who are your customers, how old are they, where do they live, how often do they shop with you, how did they find you and so forth? This information not only influences who you market to, but it also gives you key information in knowing how to present content, when and how to reach them and more. If the majority of your customers are women between the ages of 45-55, then marketing to women between the ages of 25-35 might be a waste of time and budget.
Select Your Audience
Now that you have this information you can begin to select your audience. One of the reasons email marketing is such a popular choice for advertising holiday promotions is because you have over 300 selects to choose from including location, gender, age, personal interests, financial interests, political affiliation, what type of car they drive, if they rent or own their home, how many children they have, marital status and more. All of these selects can help improve targeting which will lead to better responses for your campaign.
Focus On The Content
The quality of the content will heavily influence the results of the campaign. Holiday promotions are very straight forward as you are presenting the recipient with your brand, what the actual promotion is and encouraging them to engage by utilizing call to actions. The colors should match your brand, the images should be high-quality and not take away from the message. It’s also important to make sure that the top third of the message has the name, information about the promotion and a call to action. Remember, the majority of the recipients will be viewing this content on their phone which means they may only see the top third of the message at first.
That’s why you want the creative piece to get right to the point rather than hoping that they will scroll down to get more information. Make sure that the subject line is also to the point because even if someone does not open the email, they are still going to see who it is from and what it is about. This counts as an impression and a big reason why you want to make a good one if it’s the first time someone has ever heard of your business.
Where Are They Going?
So, you send out an email marketing campaign to a highly targeted audience, informing them of your upcoming holiday promotions. That’s great but now you have to decide where they are going. Most campaigns are designed to drive traffic towards a website or landing page. If this is your focus, then you need to take a look at that page and make sure that it looks professionally designed, is easy to navigate, is mobile friendly and is something that a consumer will feel comfortable buying something from. Any difficulty with loading, navigation or if it doesn’t look professionally done can cause a drop in conversions for the entire campaign.
Regardless of the marketing service you decide to go with, planning and preparation play a key role in the campaign’s success. These steps can be followed whether it’s email, social media, display advertising or anything else and will help you improve the ROI of the campaign.
The early you begin planning, the better. You want to launch your first email marketing campaign at least a few weeks before the sale begins, especially if it’s for holiday promotions. Waiting until the last-minute causes you to rush creative and doesn’t give your recipients time to learn about your brand. You need multiple campaigns, started early, with high-quality content to get the best possible results.
