Not Insightful – Just Practical

I get continually caught up in the complicated world of online marketing, looking for all the hooks and ties to a customer experience and what really drives what. In many respects this can be a meaningful exercise, but in the world of most email marketers it’s a daunting challenge. The phrase, “Think globally, plan locally and panic internally” comes to mind when I think about the email marketing teams out there.

After spending the last few months at most every email marketing trade show, I’d say one thing is consistent: there are many more people that know about and have worked in email marketing — and yet, most of us can implement so little of what we have in mind.

The very first column I wrote for MediaPost years ago was “Making the Complex Simple.” Life in marketing is exactly that, distilling the complex into a manageable plan.

In email marketing that doesn’t mean you think only about testing subject lines or what opt-in is, it means go to the core of why your customers want to receive email. The original value proposition your company provides is the key to simplicity. We tend to get carried away with messaging strategies and triggered email and forget about the simple art of communication.

Where to start is a difficult question these days. Most everyone reading this has or has had an email marketing program for years. The varying needs are so disparate that it’s virtually impossible to give 101% on all you need to do. The cookie-cutter approach is fine. As evidenced by the “Marketing for Dummies” series, everyone wants a simply stated approach to work from. Very few can begin with a blank piece of paper and create from scratch, including me.

The funny thing about our practice is that there are so many areas to improve. It just starts with generating motion. I think some of the key principles of my first column still work today.

Here are five key guidelines to help you (and your e-mail program) keep it simple:

1. Be clear about your goals. Keep objectives to a maximum of two to three per campaign. Any more and your program will become muddled.

2. If there isn’t a measurable value on an action, question it. Every step is measurable, including what your vendors are doing.

3. Only test what you are able to act upon. Why measure today what you can’t change tomorrow? Stick with what you can measure and adjust to achieve greater results.

4. Quantify response — both in cost to attain and cost to manage.

5. Stick to a six-word return on investment. If you can’t state the return on your program in six words, it’s too complex.

by David Baker
David Baker is vice president of email solutions at Avenue A/Razorfish. Visit his blog at http://whitenoiseinc.com
Courtesy of http://www.mediapost.com

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