Email strategies are constantly evolving, with changes ranging from legislative pressure to announcements from major companies like Yahoo! and Google. As a technology-savvy business professional, you know the importance of keeping up with these changes and ensuring that your email strategy is effective and efficient. With email remaining one of the top-performing revenue channels for marketers, it's crucial to regularly assess and improve your email program to maximize its potential.
That's where an email strategy assessment comes in. This process aims to evaluate, understand, and improve every aspect of your organization's email program. It's a cross-functional exercise that involves reviewing elements such as design, copy, conversion rates, deliverability, data, and compliance. It's important to involve members of your IT and marketing teams in the assessment to get a comprehensive understanding of your email program.
During the assessment, you'll be looking at the big picture and identifying trends, opportunities, weaknesses, and threats. This will help you compile a presentation of what's working well, what needs to be changed, and what can be tackled in future steps. It's essential to keep track of specific examples to support your findings.
When evaluating design and copy, consider factors like whether the design leads the eye to your call to action, if there are too many calls to action, and the effectiveness of your copy. You should also assess accessibility, suitability for message, and conversions. Are your clickthrough rates in line with industry standards? How do email security tool clicks impact your strategy? Are you measuring clicks and opens, and if so, what's the impact of Apple's Mail Privacy on your recipient list?
Deliverability is another crucial aspect to review. While this may not be an area of expertise for many email strategists, it's important to understand what tools are available to monitor your sender reputation and if anyone at your organization is doing so. Additionally, consider if you're on a dedicated or shared IP, if there are other sending systems in play, and if there are any practices outside of marketing that could damage your sender reputation.
Data is also a vital component of your email strategy assessment. How are records created in your marketing automation platform? Are you personalizing your emails beyond just using the recipient's first name? Have you considered a data landscape audit? Are there records that can be safely removed from your platform, and if so, how? These are all important questions to ask when evaluating the data aspect of your email program.
Segmentation, subscriptions, and types of sends are also crucial to review. How are people getting onto your lists, and do you have enough options for subscribers to opt in? Is your subscription process in line with recent legislation like GDPR or CPRA? Are your public lists attractive enough for people to opt in, and do you have opt-in captures in opportune spots? These are all important factors to consider when evaluating your segmentation, subscriptions, and types of sends.
Compliance and legal considerations should also be taken into account during an email strategy assessment. With changes in tracking technologies and legislation, it's important to ensure that your email program is compliant and that you're aware of any industry-specific regulations. This may involve updating language and storage requirements, as well as considering any other legal considerations that could impact your email strategy.
Once you've compiled your findings, it's time to plan out the next steps. Prioritize the most impactful projects and create a plan to tackle them over the coming months or years. These may include running an opt-in campaign, revamping newsletters and subscription options, creating triggered emails, cleaning up data, and creating an email design and best practice guide. It may also involve running A/B tests and implementing effective marketing automation strategies.
In conclusion, an email strategy assessment is a valuable exercise for any organization looking to improve its email program. By evaluating every aspect of your email strategy, you can identify areas for improvement and develop a plan to maximize the effectiveness of your email marketing efforts. With email remaining a top-performing revenue channel, it's crucial to regularly assess and adapt your strategy to stay ahead in the ever-changing landscape of email marketing.
Originally reported by Martech: https://martech.org/the-art-of-running-an-email-strategy-assessment/
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