Or, what to read and why.

Over the past few weeks I have seen an increase in specific buzz-terminology subject line emails that I receive in my inbox and my RSS readers. Mostly it seems that everyone has the latest tip or secret to a successful email campaign, or how to drive the most traffic to your site, or how to quadruple your ROI. All you have to do is sign up and download a white paper, or read that writer’s top ten tips and —voilà!—you are an overnight success.

Of course, most of these tips are geared towards the clients ‘we’ work with and that rarely read these types of emails because they expect US – as paid consultants – to tell them what they should be doing. My first step: Don’t read too many of those emails! (probably NOT a popular statement to make…) Find a few reputable sources and follow their advice, but don’t over do it.

It amazes me that many of these ‘magic bullets’ rarely speak specifically to a client or a client’s need, but are really just a lead generation technique to sell services. I don’t have a problem with that, but that goal should be pointed out sooner rather than later and that the information the reader is going to accept as ‘gospel’ is really biased towards a closed-sourced-product. And for this magic bullet to work that they must sign up for a service or subscribe. Keep in mind that many of these best-of techniques may work against your existing tracking and metrics and cause you to lose data on processes that are working for you but just may need some tweaking.

So, here are MY tips to make your way through the clutter of “Industry Averages,” “Best Practices” and the “Tips to Increase your ROI” propaganda.

• Only read the emails that you feel are in line with your current activities or goals. If your emails are not selling a product; then a best practices email to increase online sales or conversion rates will not help you much if you really just want provide information about a product or service. In that case, look at tips that help you increase your open rates to increase brand awareness – everything else is icing on the cake. Make sure that you understand the goals of each email that you are sending, and test test test to get a good idea of what works for YOU. Do you really think that following what Amazon.com does is going to work with your audience?
• Understand Industry Averages. Industry Averages are generally calculated by the ‘big guys’ that have sophisticated tracking in place and years of data to work from. It is important to understand your own ‘industry average’ and look at the trending of your own results and how they measure up against your business or organizational goals. In some cases, for smaller businesses or organizations, ‘industry average’ can crush your infrastructure and cause more problems than good. This is not to say that all “Industry Averages” are bad numbers to be avoided, but they help to keep your own metrics in check. Establish your own average by looking at your historical data and make changes to increase the numbers that work for you.
• Be leery of anything promising an ROI of 2000%!! These are probably rare cases and interesting math (let’s say an email costs a nickel to send and generates a $100 sale…that’s 2000% ROI in some calculations). Be realistic in your ROI calculations, and be thorough in all the criteria included in the calculation to get a truer idea of the money you are spending and the return on that investment. It’s not just how much that email cost to send, but the staff in the marketing department, fulfillment centers, outside vendors, profit margins. That 5cent email probably really cost a few dollars to send, dropping that ROI considerably. And that one email has is cyclical – it drives repeat traffic to your site, and will lead to more and more sales over time, so that ROI calculation over time – annualized – could be much different than that one email send and that one time ROI calculation.

The most important take away from this posting is that you shouldn’t worry if you are just starting an email or online marketing program or have a program that has been running for years and you are seeing results from competitor organizations or companies that are not in line with yours. Sit down and look at your numbers and work with your vendor to create a plan that will increase successes by testing and re-testing, segmenting, analyzing ROI, and most importantly - identifying goals and objectives that work with your overall business goals.

Filed under: Administration, Agency, Analytics, Email Marketing, Non-Profits on Friday, September 7th, 2007 by Serengeti Communications |
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