Companies that have been in business for some time have experienced email marketing success and failure. This is why it can come as a surprise when even with experience, email campaigns fail to live up to expectations. This failure happens for a number of reasons, the primary being that the strategy with the tactics aren’t in sync, or the marketing (and sales) process isn’t aligned. So who’s to blame when campaigns fail?
Above all else, when email marketing campaigns fail, the onus is on the CMO and the sales exec and their inability to align their efforts to create a seamless customer experience. Below are two primary causes of email marketing failure, and ways you can turn them into successes.
Confusing tactics with the big picture
The email strategy is your plan for achieving a pre-determined goal. Having an email marketing strategy in place means that you are beginning with the end in mind by focusing on the big picture. For instance, if you have a goal of generating 30% of business from email, your big picture solution is to execute a drip campaign that leads audiences seamlessly through their buying journey.
Once the strategy is determined, you need to implement appropriate tactics. This may include the following:
- Determine how often you will be sending out emails: once a week, 3 times in a month, 20 times a year
- Determine the sequence you will send out your emails and the offers you will make
- Include discounts on the product
- Provide call-to-actions in the form of expiration dates
- Create catchy subject lines to get higher open rates
- Spruce up emails with strategically placed design
We have just 3-4 seconds to grab a readers’ attention and interest them enough to open and read our emails. This is why you need to have email tactics in place to achieve this every time.
Don’t confuse tactics for strategy. What you need is a content roadmap to ensure that you are consistently planting seeds to stay top-of-mind with your audiences. Your tactics are those seeds, your big picture solution is the goal.
Marketing (and sales) are focused on the wrong things
When managing an email campaign, the successful execution hinges on the ability to stay focused on the goal and the ways to reach that goal.
This is why the onus is on the email marketer and sales exec. These are the two leaders that are responsible for aligning the sales and marketing process to ensure there is a seamless experience for the customer – from initial touch-point to final sale.
The sales and marketing process breaks down when the journey of a prospect doesn’t have a set path. From suspects, to prospects, opportunities and won business, it is the job of both marketing and sales to ensure that leads are going through the sales funnel quickly and seamlessly for a faster turnaround rate and more conversions.
According to research, using marketing automation can increase email conversion rates by over 50%. That means that beyond using strategy, tactics, and marketing and sales alignment, there must be a platform in place that can be rid of the tedious, repetitive tasks of email marketing. How effective have you been at executing email marketing campaigns? Do you need a strategy in place to get your customers saying “Yes, I am interested”?