Add Email To Your Marketing Mix

If you are serious about adding email to your marketing mix, you should take email seriously enough to develop a plan for it. Too many organizations launch a half-baked email program and then are disappointed when it doesn't live up to expectations.

The plan does not have to be as long as War And Peace, but it must include a few key elements so that you can develop a focused, targeted, measurable program that gets results. At a minimum, here are the elements that Hoover ink recommends:

* Objectives

* Audience Definition

* Key Messages

* Format

* Tactics

* Timeline

* Budget

* Measurement

First, determine what is it that you want the email program to achieve from marketing and communications perspectives. Is this a newsletter designed for relationship management purposes, or is it a sales-oriented vehicle? Are you trying to build awareness, generate leads, increase web traffic, encourage loyalty, or close sales?

Next, you need to define audiences. Who are you trying to reach? What do you know about them from demographic and psychographic perspectives? Are you addressing multiple audiences? If so, do you need to segment your audiences and develop emails with different messages? How will each audience profit from our communications.

Now, what is it you want to say to each audience? What's the nature of the content? Will this include just editorial information or will it also contain some sales-oriented material?

Closely tied to messages is your format. Are you producing a newsletter with a lot of editorial material, or does it contain just brief snippets of information? Is it an announcement list, a discussion list, or just commercial messages? Think about your audiences as you develop the most appropriate format.

Your tactics section lays out tasks and who is responsible for them. What technology do you need? Do you have in-house email capabilities or should you use an application such as nTarget? How will you build and manage your list? How will you acquire new subscribers? Who will create content, design and distribute the email?

After you answer those questions, it's time to turn to your timeline. Develop a schedule for having your technology in place, building your list, creating content, designing and distributing the email. Determine if this will be a one-time mailing, or if it will recur on a weekly or monthly basis.

Your budget may help you answer many of the questions above. Small budgets may mean you complete a lot of the work in-house.

Finally, it's time to establish criteria for measuring the program. An awareness program may call for some baseline research so you'll know how you are doing. A relationship management program may measure customer retention. Increased click-through from your email to your website is also a measurable element. Sales-oriented programs might measure total sales from email, or incremental sales increases with individual customers.

No matter what your objective in using email, spend a little time cooking up a plan so your results won't be half-baked.

Harry Hoover is managing principal of Hoover ink PR, http://www.hoover-ink.com. He has 26 years of experience in crafting and delivering bottom line messages that ensure success for serious businesses like Brent Dees Financial Planning, Duke Energy, Levolor, North Carolina Tourism, Ty Boyd Executive Learning Systems, VELUX and Verbatim.

---

7 Ways Email Can End Your Business Relationships Before They Start

Too often, people forget they're anonymous in the internet world.... Read More

Email Hosting ? Learn How To Use eMail To Grow Your Business

Email is a wonderful thing. It costs next to nothing... Read More

FIVE ADVANCED and Essential features of Your Follow up Autoresponder

If you are not using a follow up autoresponder until... Read More

Ways To Persuade Your Web Site Visitors To Give You Their Email Address

These are several ways that you can use to persuade... Read More

Guideline to Hiring an Email Marketing Company

A common practice in today's e-commerce environment is to use... Read More

Email Scam Warnings

Most people online are very familiar with the Nigerian Email... Read More

How to Do an E-mail Interview in 9 Easy Steps

Need a fresh idea for your e-zine content? Do an... Read More

Harnessing the Power of Email Marketing

Given the inherent problems with traditional marketing techniques, it`s important... Read More

Why Autoresponders are an Absolute Must

With autoresponders, you never have to lose money advertising again!... Read More

Viral Marketing with Your Signature File

Computer viruses are usually a bad thing. They can compromise... Read More

The Benefits of Interactive Online Characters

This Stanford University study surveyed the leading research on virtual... Read More

Analysing Autoresponders

An autoresponder is an automatic or software-mailing program. Why... Read More

To Get Your Email To Stand Out From All The Junk

We know that email marketing is a cheap method to... Read More

Why You Need Run Survey

Do you have a list of e-mail addresses of your... Read More

A Guide To Automated Email Marketing

You've probably heard the expression, 'the money isin the list'.... Read More

Email Autoreponder ? How to Put your Business on Autopilot

Answering emails can take up a significant portion of the... Read More

What A Newsletter Can Do For Your Business

Newsletters are often thought of as easy, do-it-yourself communications projects.... Read More

Sales Prospecting for Appointments by Email

A few months into the job and Sabrina's cold calling... Read More

Spam Check Your Newsletter for FREE

Spam is a bigger and bigger problem nowadays. Recently Ralph... Read More

Autoresponders for Beginners

Hi you may or may not know that your Autoresponder... Read More

Confessions Of An Info Junkie

I love the Internet! Information about any topic that piques... Read More

Signature File Dos and Donts

Signature files have been around since, well, before most current... Read More

An Unexploited Market: Striking Gold Without Searching for El Dorado

Companies have been focused on using the Internet to market... Read More

Sucking in Readers: Proven Ways to Increase Reader Interaction

You've probably heard this educational philosophy:Tell me, and I'll forget.Show... Read More

Using Mirror Pages Effectively

Thought I would share with you a very effective technique... Read More