I love this time of year. We’re all feeling refreshed following the Christmas holidays and a whole year worth of opportunity lay ahead of us.

It’s the perfect time to reflect on what we should be focusing on, what to stop doing and what to start doing more of.

As you ponder these ideas and consider ways to grow your business in the year ahead, remember that email marketing continues to deliver value with a whopping ROI of $40.56 for every dollar spent.

So how do you plan to utilise the power of email marketing to achieve your business goals for the year ahead?

Here are some quick ideas to help get you started.

1. Master the basics before jumping into more advanced, complex areas.

Even if you’re a seasoned email marketer, it’s a good idea to review your current practices to ensure you’re doing all the basic things right and avoiding common mistakes. I highly recommend you take a look at our check lists for healthy email marketing as these provide a quick and easy way for you to review your current practices.

Or if you’re a beginner, I recommend this list of 20 email marketing do’s and don’ts as an excellent place to start.

2. Relevancy continues to matter.

Some of the techniques might change, but one thing will always remain true. Messages that are relevant to your readers will perform better than messages that aren’t. So test different techniques like video, postcard layouts and conditional content. Maybe even test out some new variations with your subject lines. Just make sure everything you do enhances the experience for readers and is relevant to the things they care about most.

3. Successful email marketers do more than just send an email newsletter.

Whilst your email newsletter tends to be the cornerstone communication within your email mix, it’s not the only type of campaign you should be doing. There are many other types of email campaigns that help to achieve your business goals. For example, a well planned lead nurturing campaign can be very effective at helping to convert prospects to customers. Plus shopping cart abandonment campaigns are a cost effective way to re-capture potential lost sales.

Other common activities that are enhanced with a timely, compelling email include competitions, surveys, event invitations and customer reminders. So when mapping out your marketing activities for the year ahead, also consider how they can be optimised with the use of email marketing.

So over to you now. How do you plan on growing your business this year with email marketing? If you’d like someone to bounce ideas with, feel free to connect with me using the comments section below.

P.S Oh I almost forgot… happy New Year!

P.P.S If you haven’t already heard, we’ve recently released some major upgrades to our e-messaging platform. It’s now easier than ever to grow your business and connect with customers using email, sms and social media. To see what all the fuss is about, login to your account or sign up for a free 30 day trial.

Posted by:
Matthew Johnson
EDM Specialist

•