What an Email Marketer should do on 1st April’2014

India, Mumbai 30^th March’2014– 1600 hours and 34 degrees, it’s quite hot. In fact, it is Sunday and I’m thinking about my goals for coming financial year. I’m an Email Marketing Consultant by profession and passion, and while I was laying down plans for the coming year, I felt a cold silence for a min, thinking what do Email Marketers do on 1^st April when a financial year ends?

Every Business Soldier thinks that this year I’m gonna change the world. It’s like an average student who gets promoted to the next class by chance than effort and earnestly thanks God for saving him and makes a sincere promise to himself that this year is going to be different and he would work hard. All this fervour to outperform lasts for a week perhaps and its back to good old ways. For making headway in your plans, it is important to know what really will matter to make a good start for the coming year.

So here I’m stepping into Email Marketers shoe. I feel like I am taken back to the wintery darkness with cold air in my lungs, but my mind is steady and here it is – my plan for the coming year. It’s not easy, but it is doable.

5 things which every email marketer must do on 1^st April’2014

1. Tag your last year campaigns – Tag your campaigns and categorize them into marketing/branding campaigns, 3^rd party campaigns, for-your-information campaigns. Check which ones outperformed and underperformed and take a call which ones to continue and which ones to hold.
2. How many segments did you make last year – Most popular segments are Active, Inactive and Transacting. Did your story end there? My friend that’s just the beginning and you must look deeper to make more meaningful campaigns. Find out what keeps people inactive and active, look what is being bought and understand patterns. Prediction is not so easy, but reading data could help.
   
3. Did you lose subscribers who once transacted? – Unsubscription of user from email list is inevitable and thus marketers really don’t see who goes out and who stays. Importance is given for who is coming now. It will be good to notice the ones that left your mailing list. Let me give you an example of a local grocery store near my house. I buy eggs and milk from his store usually. The guy from the store one day inquired me that it’s been 3 days and I haven’t bought. Then is when I realised – Oops, I have been missing my morning meal! What I also noticed was that the store guy seemed to be mindful whether I’m buying or not buying. He cares enough for needs and respects me as his customer. I started buying again. Are people who have unsubscribed treated like that? Do you know them as people or merely as email ids?
4. Check your current Email Marketing Reputation – What do I really do here? You really want to know how you have been doing on Email Marketing. I suggest do the following to test your reputation:
   1. Create test ids of all possible MSPs and see where your campaigns land on   them; do this regularly.
   2. Check your average ‘Unsubscribe’ and ‘Abuse’ Rate. I hope the average is not increasing and if it is, it calls for a change of your communication frequency and content.
   3. This is revolutionary idea and not mandatory to try. If you have been periodically sending newsletter then try and miss one, see how many users seek for it?
5. Is my List REALLY growing – Did your list really grow? To determine that, check every month how many users left (bounced + unsubscribe + abuse) and became inactive. Now, see and fetch the real stats. To really grow the list, you just don’t add, you also retain.

Story doesn’t end here. I see that as email marketers or entrepreneurs, we overlook a lot of things. It’s not fear that grips me, but, just the heightened sense of things. Let’s add more value to our strategies by using the above 5 points. I wait to hear from you on what all did you measure from 2013-14.