Category: Email Marketing

To Evaluate Your Email Marketing Business

The EM business model

To say that email marketing can be a very effective method by which to reach target audiences around the world is most certainly an understatement, since the email marketing business model, when appropriately implemented, has been proven to do just that. However, not everyone who attempts to use email marketing as an additional income stream to augment their brand will acheive success. Reason? Failure to implement the email marketing plan! In other words, an individual’s email marketing efforts may not result in him / her reaching full potential unless s/he invests the time, energy and money needed to evaluat his / her email marketing strategy.

During this evaluation process you, as a motivated email marketer, must be able to determine whether or not your email marketing efforts are helping you to reach your goals during a particular email marketing campaign, as well as after that campaign has completed. Likewise, during the same evaluation process you can also determine if the email marketing is having an adverse affect on your business. That having been said, we will discuss a few of the reasons why evaluating your email marketing is as important as any other aspect of this Web-based business model, and will likely result in the kind of success many email marketers envision when they start out.

Ineffective email marketing

Consider an email marketing campaign which is not effective because it does not reach members of the intended target audience. This ineffectiveness can be attributed to an opt-in/subscriber list which does not consist of subscribers who expressed a high interest in the particular product, service or topic originally offered or discussed on the marketer’s website. Such failure and ineffectiveness result when business owners neglect to ensure that their email subscriber lists include recipients who are extremely interested in the products or services they offer.

Another group of business owners that often get less than optimum results from their email marketing efforts are those who take shortcuts by purchasing large email lists, since the recipients of their marketing emails are simply not interested in the products or services being offered. In this scenario the email marketing is likely to generate very few sales or website visits; but a reevaluation of the email distribution list to include recipients who are interested in their products or services will likely result in significantly more sales and website visits.

Let’s now consider a situation in which email marketing is being construed as spam by the recipients. In this scenario, if the email marketer has taken precautions to ensure that emails are reaching members of the marketer’s target audience, but emails still seem to be over-the-top sales pitches, the members of that particular subscriber list may view those emails as spam and not take the advertisements seriously. If this occurs, then members of your email distribution list may be more likely to seek out a competitor when they are in need of products or services, rather than making a purchase from you.

The nature of evaluation

Evaluating your email marketing efforts can be formal or informal in nature; but if you have specific business goals in mind you might want to consider using whether or not you are on the way to meet this goal as an indication of the effectiveness of your email marketing efforts. If you’re interested in reading about more detailed and proven email marketing strategies, techniques and success stories, take a look at this email marketing trend setters website.

Alternatively, you can evaluate your email marketing efforts by soliciting customer feedback, by asking customers for their opinions about the email marketing campaign and whether or not they were compelled to make a purchase because of the content, the advertisements or some other element. Based on this information you should have a good indication of whether or not your email marketing is effective. If it is not effective you should consider making changes to create more interest in your products, services or brand.

Regular evaluation

Changes you make should reflect the feedback you receive in order to ensure that you are not making changes which will create even less interest from the members of your target audience. To say that evaluating your email marketing strategy on a regular basis is important is a tremendous understatement. Regularly evaluating your email marketing is not only important, it is critical to the success of your business. Failure to evaluate your email marketing strategies can have adverse effects ranging from not producing results to causing you to lose customers to your competitors.

Use Goal-Setting to Achieve Email Marketing Success

Goal-setting parameters

As has always been a widely accepted truism about goal-setting, the task of setting clearly defined short-term and some long-term goals, often enables the goal setter to measure his/her progress, achieve personal satisfaction and, after successfully meeting the goals set, establish parameters for future goals and objectives. Charting one’s progress will also enable him/her to actually see the stages of completion leading to actual realization of goals, thereby eliminating that sense which always seems to sneak into a goal setter’s thinking, that the journey towards achieving such goal is a pointless grind.

The act of charting the progress of a particular goal or objective also instills within the goal setter, a sense of self-confidence and a level of competence which will go a long way to improve goal-setting skills and refine the process, while heightening awareness of the goal setter’s capabilities as s/he complete or achieve the set goals. Keep in mind that the basics of goal-setting is an open secret known and adhered to by top-caliber athletes, successful business people and numerous other high achievers in all different fields.

Breaking down goals

In other words, the basics of goal-setting provide you – if you are the goal setter – short-term and long-term motivation and focus. Goals help you to focus, and maintain that focus, on the acquisition of critically important knowledge needed to help you plan and organize your resources, as well as your time, so that you will be able to get the best out of both your personal and professional life. Goal-setting basics often involve decisions pertaining to what you really want to do with your personal life, and what short-term and long-term goals you need to achieve in order to get it.

Of course, you always have to reduce goals into smaller, more manageable targets which you must complete on your way to achieving your lifetime targets; and once your list is complete, you should waste no time in tackling the overall goals you’ve set. One effective manner in which you can have a manageable list is to create daily and weekly sets of goals; and by doing this you will always be in a position of going towards you life plan goals. Everyday will give you the opportunity to fulfill a certain goal, thereby creating within yourself, the feeling of accomplishment.

Following are a few tips that should help in the goal-setting/process.

Attitude • Time • Education •

Attitude – This controllable characteristic plays a very big role in setting and achieving your goals and, as such, you must ask yourself if any part of you or your mind could be impeding the progress in completing your simplest goals. And if you can identify any part of your behavior that is a hindrance to your plans or throws them into disarray, it is important that you immediately address this problem. Some solutions may include a visit to your doctor or psychiatrist in an effort to control your emotions.

Time Management – Many a career have been made as a result of good time management practices, while failing in a career have often been attributed to bad time management. Most successful business people will attest to the fact that a career requires a lot from the individual; and the kind of commitment an individual must make in order to achieve a successful career can become a consuming force in the life of that individual. To avoid this destructive side of “commitment to your craft,” make sure to plan how far you want to go into your career and stick to your plan.

Education – This is key to achieving your goals, especially if those goals require you to have a certain kind of degree, require a certain specialization or demand a certain skill to be developed; so make the necessary plans to get the appropriate education where and when applicable.

Family! Finances! Physicality!

Family – Your family should never be left out of any plans you make pertaining to your career choices. If you are just starting out then you have to decide if you want to be a parent, or when you want to be a parent. You should also considerable thought to whether or not you would really be a good parent, and how well you would relate to extended family members.

Personal Finances – An individual’s personal financial situation will probably always play a major role in achieving his/her goals, since almost everything s/he does, or is able to do, is predicated upon affordability. That having been said, if you are that individual it is important that you have realistic goal on how much you really want to earn. You also must be able to create plans or stages by which you will be able to reach your earning potential.

Although it is not something most of us can control, physical ability is another characteristic that can be categorized when setting goals; meaning that physically gifted individuals are also able to achieve sports-related goals, whether they compete in the NBA (National Basketball Association), NFL (National Football League) or MLB (Major League Baseball; so determining your physical capabilities should be one of your priorities, since physical limitations could sometimes be conquered with proper planning.

Plan good and work hard

While it is important to plan good and work hard, it is just as important to rest and have a little fun along the way. According to the old adage, which you’re probably familiar with, ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy’, or something to that effect; and which this saying is probably true down to the last the letter, giving yourself a little pleasure (rewarding yourself for accomplishing your goals?) should be included in all your plans.

A good way to start achieving your lifetime goals might be to set a quarter of a century plan, then break it down to 5 year plans, then break it down again to 1 year plans, then 6 month plans then monthly plans, then weekly, then daily. After that, create a things-to-do list for the day; but always review your plans and prepare for contingencies, and the basics of goal-setting should really not be as difficult as some folks make them out to be, once you become familiar with the process.