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.