Targeted Email Messages Equal Success

Email marketing is one of the most powerful marketing tools available today, and because it’s incredibly cost effective, it has one of the highest returns on investment. But the key to successful email marketing is making sure each message you send is personal and relevant. Do you use your prospect’s behavior to target your messages to them? If not, you're missing a great opportunity to stand out from the crowd.

Your sales staff doesn’t talk to each prospect in exactly the same way. They assess a potential customer, based on a number of factors, and then tailor their presentation accordingly. They also generally use a prospect ranking system to determine their purchase “readiness.” Your email marketing program should do the same thing.

The key to creating a behaviorally based email program is segmentation. Segmented email marketing messages are proven to have a higher conversion rate, and focus on quality versus quantity.

Successful segmenting means understanding the different types of customers you attract, and why. If you don’t have this information, start finding out, so the email marketing messages you send will help your customers achieve their goals. It may take time to pull all this information together, but it will be worth it.

Here are some key questions to get you started:

1. Do you have a segmentation strategy at a top level to find the areas of greatest opportunity? Are you sending the same message to someone who only gave you an email address as opposed to a prospect that asked specific questions, and filled out your entire contact form, including their phone number?

2. Do you segment your prospect list by potential value? Are you paying attention to when their purchase time frame? Have they expressed interest in a specific item? Do they need financial information?

3. Do you know what content motivated your recipients to click through? In order to gather information on your prospect’s behavior, you have to have link tracking in each of your email messages. Then you can refine future messages, providing content that is most relevant to each of your prospects.

4. Do you allow recipients options for frequency and targeting? Internet customers are increasingly selective about what they choose to receive in their Inbox. Let them tell you how often they want to hear from you, and what interests them. This provides essential information for targeting future email marketing messages.

A behaviorally targeted email marketing program is sophisticated, but remember, so are your customers. Stand out from your competition by sending prospects the information that means the most to them. They’ll love you for it in the end

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Welcome to LM Marketing Online. The world of online marketing can be pretty overwhelming, but it's a critical part of our world. My goal is to provide commentary, ideas and resources to help you do your job better, save money, and generally make your life easier. I hope you'll share your thoughts and ideas as well. Thanks for reading!