How do you keep email fresh for the years to come?

Email has come a long way since it was first used in 1970, and widely adopted in 1993/1994. So it's fair to say that email marketing has been around about 20 years, growing from a spray & pray tactic, to a key online performer. But how do we keep email fresh for the years to come? At RAAK we have been working on some interesting insights the past few months. You will hear more about them at upcoming events. But if you'd like a first teaser, mark October 16 in your diary and head over to Digital First, where we'll be sharing some cool insights for your future email marketing strategy

An email marketing strategy is not to be confused with selecting a new tool, setting up a campaign or defining a content plan. It's all about asking yourself how email marketing can help you achieve business or marketing goals.

Email has become a commodity — or maybe even worse — a habit. If you've gotten to the point that you're sending out an email marketing campaign because it's a logical thing to do (or because it has always been done like that), then it's a good time to take step back and re-evaluate your efforts.

“What exactly is the purpose of sending emails for my brand?”
“What are my goals again? And can I define the right KPI's?”
“What is the USP that has to stand out in any email?”
“Which content types should I use for the different personas?”
…
An email strategy is all about asking the right questions to get an insight on why you are using email marketing, and how you will track and implement it.

In a next step, the challenge is to convert these business or marketing objectives into an actionable email marketing plan. If your business target is to increase online revenue with 3%, how do you translate this into an email campaign? Which email types should you use? And where does automation and triggered email marketing come in?

Once you have defined your email types, it's time to set up a reporting tool. We are not talking about campaign metrics, but a report tool that measures exactly how you are doing on campaign level, and on client level.

And last but not least, when you break this email marketing plan into single emails, which best practices should you use to get the most out of every single email? How do you use email tests to get better results? In fact, you should be constantly looking for the best ways to reach your target audience.

And if you put all these elements together, your email campaigns will re-enforce your different email types, and your email types will re-enforce your targets. That's what we call an integrated email marketing strategy.

Conclusion

We'll be happy to tell you more at Digital Marketing First, on October 16 at Tour & Taxis in Brussels. Can't make it? No worries: RAAK will be addressing these issues at other events too, just keep an eye on our blog and weekly tipmail.

How do you keep email fresh for the years to come?

Conclusion

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