Mid-Year Email Marketing Review

Here we are, it's June already and the year is half way over. The time couldn't be better to take an objective look at your email marketing campaign and assess any changes or fixes that need to be made.

What kinds of things should you look for? Here are a few pointers to get you started:

Take a look at your subscription process. Are all of the forms on every page working? Where is the reader taken after registering? Are there any unnecessary clicks included in the opt-in route? If you have four or more clicks, you're probably losing subscribers.

Take a look at your unmonitored email boxes. Where are your opt-ins, unsubscribe requests, bounce reports, and spam complaints being sent? Chances are, they're getting delivered to an email box that doesn't get checked very often. But these messages provide valuable information and insight that can be used to improve your email marketing program. Create a schedule to check these boxes at least once a week.

Take a look at your message in various platforms. There's a good possibility that a new browser/operating system combination has sprung up since your email template has been designed. Is your template up to date? Does it render properly in every new email client? Are you taking into account PDAs and other handheld devices?

Take a look at your list. Over time, it's not unusual for your list to get "messy". Subscribers may re-subscribe, even though they're already on your list. Formatting might be wrong. Names might be written in all capital letters. Or they might be written in all lower case. This can all reduce the effectiveness of your personalization techniques. Spend a few minutes ensuring the cleanliness of your list. If your list is large, consider using macros of field formatting so you won't need to manually review each and every record.

Take a look at your subscription sources. Where exactly are your subscribers coming from? Does a particular page seem to result in more registrations? Is a certain affiliate responsible for the majority of your subscribers? Rather than trying to fix the problem spots elsewhere on your site, concentrate on nurturing these above-average lead sources. If one page leads to lots of subscribers, maybe it deserves a higher PPC budget. If one affiliate brings you many registrants, consider increasing his commission or providing more marketing support.

Take a look at your can-spam compliance. When did you begin your email marketing program? The federal Can-spam laws have been updated since they were first published (the most recent update was about a year ago), and a few states have even instituted their own laws. Make sure you're still legal.

Take a look at your sending schedule. Have you gotten into a rut with your email campaign and you're now sending messages when you have nothing to say? Or worse yet, you don't send a message for such a long time that your readers forget who you are. Make sure your original sending schedule still works for you and your readers.

Email marketing seems so passe to us now, it's easy to "set it and forget it". But as technology changes, new email clients are introduced to the marketplace, and spam laws are added and updated, it's important that we review our email marketing program to ensure it's still the best it can be. Set aside an hour or so to complete the tasks laid out here. It will definitely be time well spent.