I have always tended to believe that
I sent an email out to my lists, and people either read it or
deleted it right away. Those that read it either acted on my
recommendations and clicked through to a link or they did not. But
through a new email management tool, I am learning that an email
campaign has a much longer life than I ever expected.
In the world of print collateral or publishing, we talk about
"shelf life." This term refers to how long a printed piece
will have an impact. For instance, an article in a magazine makes a
particularly compelling argument for a new product or service or
methodology for marketing. Readers retain this article for future
reference -- in fact, they may reread it many times. Or they may
even pass it on to their peers. And while they may not act on the
recommendations within the article and make a purchase immediately,
they may actually make a purchase at some future day.
In a recent email campaign I was able to track the number of times
the email was opened, clicked through and forwarded. How valuable
this was. I could see the status of every email right down to the
individual contact on my email list. Amazing. And very insightful.
Not just because I had a real-time view of the activity, but because
I was finally able to see that the life of an email campaign
extends much further than the initial blast.
Many people did not open the email upon first receipt. Either
because the day of the week was busy, or they were out of the
office, or they simply did not have the time. The campaign is
already one week old, and people are still opening the email. I can
also see that many people tend to save emails and reread them. If
they are very interested in my message, they clickthrough the
embedded link and read the respective web page. And if they are
truly interested in my message, they forward it to their friends for
further investigation and discussion.
I've seen evidence of this myself. I may receive an email about a
product I mentioned months ago, or suddenly an affiliate commission
pops up for a product that I have not mentioned in weeks. This is
all related to the life of an email campaign.
Now you can manage your
email campaigns better than before and gain insight into their
success or failure at a very granular level. Armed with this new
marketing data, you can position your future email marketing
campaigns for higher penetration and conversion. Once you
create a FREE trial account with Constant Contact, you
upload your email addresses, and select the look and feel of your
newsletter. It creates both HTML and text versions without
you having to know a thing about HTML programming or web page
design!.
After you setup your
newsletters, you enter the contents of your various articles, ads,
and you can pick the fonts, size, colors, etc. You have a lot of
control over the look and feel. You can even upload and add your own
logo to give it a branded look and feel.
After the campaign is sent, you can
check the ongoing results through Constant Contact's
real-time statistics. You can see the quantity of emails sent,
opened, bounced, and the click-throughs, and you can even compare
the results of the campaign to others.
Click the banner below for more
information about Constant Contact.
