Kyle Hamer • May 11, 2020

Are you looking for different ways to create higher sales conversions for your brand? If so, then email marketing can be a tremendous tool to boost them.

However, email marketing just for the sake of doing it won’t render you any success. It takes an elaborate and strategic plan to witness the results you’re looking for.

The more organized your email marketing playbook is, the more you can provide a consistent effort for your brand.

Here are the several key elements of creating a masterful email marketing plan to transcend your business. Be sure to implement all the tips given below!

1. Vision/Mission

One of the most helpful practices for deepening your email marketing (or any marketing tactic, for that matter) is to create a mission statement.

Whatever your mission, you and your marketing team need to sit down to discuss the goals you have for it.

Are you looking to generate more revenue? Generate more leads? Build customer loyalty within your book of business?

The mission statement will serve as a reminder for every email marketing decision you make from here on out. It will keep your tactics on the straight and narrow path towards success… don’t leave home without one!

2. Develop a SMART Strategy

Almost 40 years ago, the great George T. Doran blessed the entire marketing world with a strategy for goal-setting called setting “SMART goals”.

The acronym “SMART” stands for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely, and are used as criteria to make your goals obtainable over time.

In order to develop a successful strategy, try to create mental “checkpoints” for your strategies to obtain.

For example, say one of your “Measurable” goals is to obtain 100 subscribers to your email marketing list. You can then strategize things such as exit-intent pop-ups, marketing automation, and call to actions directing clients to sign up for your email list.

3. KPIs

So you’ve installed a mission statement and have installed a strategy towards accomplishing it, now it’s time to measure your success.

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are going to be the best insight into tracking your email marketing initiatives. However, to be successful, you need to have the right KPIs in place.

Be sure to pay close attention to KPIs such as your number of emails delivered versus the number of emails opened, bounce rate, and click rates.

You’ll also want to keep an eye on your unsubscribe rate and spam complaints to see what kind of email initiatives are turning people off to your brand. The data from these KPIs can help your brand learn from past mistakes and strengthen your email marketing playbook.

4. Campaign Structure

Remember, organization is key to your email marketing playbook. It drives consistency for your entire marketing strategy.

One of the best methods of organization is having the same tried-and-true structure for all your email marketing campaigns.

Start off every campaign the same way: build a targeted list of clients, consider your goals, then determine the email type you want to send out.

Once you have those sketched out, develop and personalize the content on your emails to each recipient, then plan out steps to follow-up on your initial email.

5. Lifecycle Management

Lifecycle email marketing is a technique targeted at sending a particular message to each prospect/client at a specific point in the purchasing cycle.

The stages are awareness, understanding, contemplation, selection, purchasing, customer happiness, customer retention, and word of mouth.

Developing emails for these different stages will help your brand see improvements in each phase. For example, in the “understanding” phase, you’ll want to send out an email to them to help them learn more about your products, brand, etc.

6. List Management

Just as important as monitoring each stage of your recipient’s lifecycle is the effort of managing your email lists.

The process for this is fairly simple and can be repeated several times for each campaign you have going to generate higher conversions.

Start by making all new subscribers to your list feel as if they’ve made the best decision of their lives. Then allow them to choose how often they receive your email updates.

Next, you’ll want to cut out the fat of your lists by eliminating all non-verified addresses or ones that no longer work.

Lastly, make the effort to reconnect with old contacts frequently or delete them from your list if they no longer respond. In fact, try to make the unsubscribing process easy, so that you don’t have to go in the system an unsubscribe them yourself.

7. Governance

The governance of your email marketing helps all of your employees follow the same standard for your campaigns. It’s important for protecting vital information on themselves, your company, and your customers.

Make sure all of your employees read the policies for your email marketing and signs off on a documented agreement.

In case a policy is broken, be sure to have backup plans in place, and constantly update and educate your staff on the importance of it.

Lastly, make sure that your system is up-to-date with documentation, virus protection, and practices for protecting sensitive information. Even one slip up with email governance can spell catastrophe for your brand.

Build Your Email Marketing Playbook from Scratch

In order to build a successful email marketing playbook, you need to team up with the best in the business.

Be sure to read this page for more information on why the Hamer Marketing Group can help you design an email marketing plan that will thrive.

For more inquiries, please be sure to reach out via our online contact form and we’ll be happy to help you further!