Email Marketing can be a great strategy for getting content directly to your customers, and there are a lot of robust email campaign packages available for for very little cost. Current email marketing systems have made design, structure and delivery a snap, but getting the most value from your campaigns requires some diligent assessment to identify the best content strategy for your target demographic. The more difficult question is often deciding what types of content to put together for your readers.

Implementing a varied approach to campaign content and paying close attention to the results can help you better understand your customers. Look for differences in customer interactions across campaigns: what are your readers doing with the information you send them? Are they clicking in to links you provide to your website? How often? Are they sharing the newsletter with others? Understanding these metrics and how to grow them can help you provide your readers with an increasingly valuable resource. Here are some other ideas for making your newsletter content more valuable:

A/B Testing

Have questions about which types of content to share? Why decide? Send two tests and let the numbers do the talking. Divide your mailing list into two segments, and send one letter to each group.  For example, send free shipping coupons to one segment and 20% off coupons to the other. Your email system should allow you to track click-through from the source letter and your e-commerce system should allow you to track coupon redemption codes. This gives you an effective base from which to compare your success rates. If you find one performs better than the other, you now have a new insight to your customer base.

Campaign Tracking

Most evolved email systems allow you to embed your website’s analytics package identifying code into the campaign. This allows you to see the traffic coming to your website in analytics as its own group of visitors over time. This allows you to track email clients by first time and repeat visits, letting you know the type of relationship they have developed with you.

Social Media Shares

A good email newsletter package will allow you to see shares on social media platforms and emails. This lets you know how many of your audience find your information valuable enough to share with their friends, family and loved ones. Grow this number and you will effectively grow your fan base.

Kimberly Clark is a Content Strategist who loves helping clients navigate through web development projects.  From pre-development goal specification to ongoing content strategies, she has a deep understanding of the tools of the trade like social media and SEO.  Kimberly loves data and uses it to develop unique, original and interesting web content that keeps visitors engaged and interacting. She holds a Master’s degree from the University of Louisville and works at: www.VIAStudio.com