In order to define anything as a success, you first have to decide what your objective is. Knowing the outcome you want to achieve (ie: an open, a click, a view, a purchase, a reply) is, and should be, the very first thing you decide when creating an email marketing campaign. Without a chosen outcome or objective, you can’t measure success, it makes it harder to write content, and there isn’t a focus.

The basic components of a successful email marketing campaign are:

• Well-defined outcome
• Catchy and topic-relevant email subjects
• An obvious Call To Action
• Follow-up emails for the non-action-takers

Let’s talk a bit more about each of these core elements. 

Well-defined outcome: Like I said before, if you don’t know why you’re sending the emails, if your campaign isn’t driving the customer to some action, then it makes everything else that much harder. Writing the content is harder because you don’t have a clear objective. There’s no amount of clever copywriting, Emojis, GIFs, images, buttons, or font changes that can replace an obvious objective. If you miss this step, your email campaign will not be successful.

Catchy and topic-relevant email subjects: “Free Tickets to the BTS Concert” might be a great email subject (for the right audience) but if it’s not relevant to your email content, don’t use it. Your email subject should give them a hint of what’s to come, it’s the coming attractions of your email content. The subject needs to be catchy enough that it gets their attention, but it also needs to be relevant enough that your reader doesn’t open the email expecting free concert tickets only to have the body of your email ask them for money or tell them their credit card is expiring.

An obvious Call to Action: A confused mind will never buy, a confused mind will never click, and if the next step is not obvious, the person reading your email will not take the next step. Define it. What do you want them to do? Click to watch the video, click the button to register, click to purchase, download the PDF…. Whatever you’re trying to get someone to do, make it clear, make it obvious, and take the work and any guessing out of the equation. 

Follow-up emails: sometimes even the best offer or the most obvious Call to Action isn’t taken by your leads. So give them a little grace (we’re all human) and build in a few follow-up emails as gentle nudges and reminders that you’re still there waiting for them. Let them know the offer is still good, or the offer is going away, the PDF is still available to download, or here’s the webinar replay, the cart is closing in 2 hours. Whatever it is, don’t assume they’re only thinking of you in the middle of their busy lives, so remind them and follow-up until they take action. And don’t forget, you should automate all of this if you aren’t already.