What we often see are email marketing campaigns being sent, week after week with no understanding of the impact, no attempt to measure ROI. Email Marketing Management is on the science side of marketing. Of course there is finesse and message creativity, that's a given. But the opportunity is studying the reaction of the recipients to each email marketing campaign. Here is a high-level review of our process:

When a campaign is sent, the recipients are quickly divided into three groups:

1. Responders - the people who take action
2. Openers - the people who have enough interest to open your email
3. Non-Openers - the people the delete or ignore your email

If you've done it right - your initial message was split into two parts, typically starting at the subject line. So you send an email with Subject A to 5% of your list, and the same email with Subject B to another 5%. Then, based on opens, clicks or conversions (people buying) you determine which subject to use for the remaining 90% of the list. Once the email has been sent and the groups separate, you have new knowledge and opportunity.

Like panning for gold, it's time to sift the openers and non-responders to find additional responders.With the original non-responders, we keep the original body copy, but try a new set of Subjects (typically waiting a few days before launching this secondary campaign). With the openers, what we learned is that the Subject was compelling, but the body of the email did not resonate. So, a new campaign is launched with a new, but similar subject. This time, however, we test different body copy: Body A and Body B (in the same way we tested Subjects above). The list of openers will now break into responders, openers and non-openers.

This process continues until the original list has been emailed three times in the course of a week or so. The result is that we will ultimately yield significantly more response than the typical 2%. The real trick is keeping track of each list throughout the process. Aidan Taylor has strong Email Marketing Management expertise, and we would love to help you get more out of your email marketing campaigns!