STRATEGY

First, the global targets and milestones you intend to achieve with email marketing have to be defined. Email marketing is not a sprint but a marathon, and the path and the goal must be defined clearly so the provider doesn’t drift off track. Our client kickoff meeting assists in this process.

TARGETING & DATA

Who do you send which email to? Should you merge your lists? Do some of these emails need to be removed? Do you have permission to email all these recipients?

People often ask us these questions, and we’re happy to help. We like to start by talking about what you’re trying to accomplish. Once the overall goals are determined, it should be clear which target group to address. Then email addresses for members of these target groups will be collected.

The data of the target groups, such as email addresses and any other information (e.g. first name, last name, gender, desired email format, etc.) must be stored in a database that will personalize the emails accordingly. If additional profile information from email recipients is asked, in order to be able to customize the content of the emails for instance, it’s stored in the database, too.

This allows us to target some or all of your audience. For example, you may want to send different emails to different subsets of the overall audience. Or, you may want to send an email to the entire audience. We can do both methods with the right data segmenting.

CREATIVE

In the next step the actual concept of the emailing campaigns is determined. We consider your goals and the deriving communication frequency—a single action, a regular newsletter, or a multi-stage campaign, for example. We also decide on the tonality of the message—from genuine style and discreet design, to uncouth language and hip layout, depending on your audience. During this process, we take into account your product or service, what we’ve learned about the target market, and what you want to communicate, in order to create the ideal messaging for your email.

CONTENT

For every email campaign appropriate content for the target group and concept has to be produced. These consist of editorial and / or advertising texts and emails in HTML format, in addition to photos, graphics, and any other visual elements.

PROGRAMMING

After defining the concept and the content for the message, the email finally has to be set up. Additionally, the order of the texts needs to be classified, and variable or optional text blocks should be specified. Next we’ll decide which audiences will receive the corresponding text block. Finally, there are the headers and footers, as well as the information for the email headers (e.g. sender address, subject line).

SENDING

The appropriate email format has to be taken into consideration based on the recipient’s preferences (e.g. text, HTML, PDF), the appropriate salutation, and possibly variable or optional text blocks. Emails that bounce back as undeliverable are processed accordingly, depending on the reason for non-deliverability. We set up a test account with the major providers to figure out if the emails have been delivered properly, or which ones are filtered out as spam mail.

EVALUATION

Finally, we review the results of the email campaign, such as the rate of undeliverable or opened email, the quantity and distribution of link clicks, the number and revenue of orders and sales, as well as other responses. This shows us what works and what doesn’t, so we can better focus our future efforts and optimize your results.