New Year’s resolutions are always easy to make, but always really hard to keep.
2011 is completely in our rearview mirrors. It’s almost weeks into 2012, and all those well-intended resolutions which seemed so reasonable at the end of last year may have already been abandoned.
While some of your master plans may have encountered some delays, you can still score points on your self-assessment by deciding to adopt some healthy bulk email marketing habits to improve your campaign performance for the year to come:
1) I resolve to begin my year's communications with an email marketing plan
Don’t dawdle for months before you figure out what you want to communicate and promote this year. Do yourself a favor and start setting specific goals. Now.
Why not set one big direct email marketing objective for the year? Or at least one for each quarter or month? You could, for example, consider goals for the amount of subscribers you want to add to your list in 2012 or get brainstorming in advance for specific commercial dates such as Valentine’s Day; which is just around the corner.
Keep your plans simple and make sure they’re realistic and reachable. Don’t waste time in 2012 on things that won’t help you. After all, it’s a lot more rewarding when you know your goals are within your grasp.
2) I resolve to make 2012 a year of measurement
With the statistical tracking features provided by most email service providers (ESPs) there’s no reason to practice guess-marketing. But if that’s what you’ve been doing, then there’s no better time than the present to become a monster of metrics.
Record all your benchmarks and measure your successes this year. If you're not sure about what kind of stats you should be looking at, download our 2011 Email Industry metrics white paper to learn about all the key figures and what they mean.
Before you can set real goals you need an accurate baseline of figures and trends to project your annual performance from. Focus on what’s important to your business as you gather stats and set your goals accordingly. Whether that’s new sign-ups, higher open or click-through rates, more fans or followers, better campaign ROI or any other key metric improvement.
Comparing your current figures against last year’s numbers, if you have them, will give you a better idea of how you are growing, what to expect, and let you anticipate high and low business periods before they happen; which also makes it easier to budget.
3) I resolve to make my emails mobile friendly
Mobile and bulk SMS marketing will go from buzz to biz in 2012. With the growing popularity of smartphones and the increasing dependence on mobile devices, marketers will have to consider adding mobile to their communications mix and take their marketing strategies to the next level. This will be the year to catch consumers where they are, wherever they are; on mobile.
An increasing amount of people started reading their emails on a mobile device in 2011. As we move closer to the time when mobile web access eclipses PC web access, brands will realise they need a web offering optimised for the mobile environment. This has not yet happened within all businesses, but soon the time will come when consumers will be demanding it.
In 2012, give serious consideration to making your digital communications mobile friendly. Ensuring that you have mobile sign up forms and that both your emails and website landing pages render properly on popular mobile devices are top priorities.
For more email marketing New Year's resolutions, read our original article published on Memeburn.