As March Madness gets underway, there are lessons email marketers should take away from the program.
This March, college athletes will hope that their hard work and preparation will pay off with an NCAA championship title.
Marketers, as well as teams, can use these five winning strategies to improve their email marketing battle.
Research your competition.
Research the email activity of other organizations in your industry. Some may use email, which gives you a particularly competitive advantage.
If they have an email marketing program, what are they doing that you can apply to your efforts? Alternatively, what aspect of their game could be improved that you could take advantage of? Maybe the sign-up section on their website is hard to find, or perhaps their opt-in form is too long. Is their content good?
What makes your email offer valuable to your readers? Make sure you're offering better value and communicating it clearly.
Make sure your uniform is clean and neatly folded.
You don’t want to look sloppy to your readers. Make sure you test your emails against other client emails to make sure they look flawless to everyone. If you use images, make sure your message is still clear and accurate in the email even if the client can’t see the images.
Beware of over-the-top swipes and hooks. If you use Flash, video, forms, or other types of media, make sure it works in all your emails. If it doesn’t, you may have to do a little one-handed shooting near the basket: include a link in the email that takes customers to the right page where they can view the media.
You have to make free throws
In every game there are shots that you have to make because they are easy and can make a huge difference to the overall outcome of the game. The welcome message is an easy shot, but it is equally important to the future success of your email campaign.
This message should set the tone for your entire email marketing strategy: What emails do readers expect to receive from you, and how often do they want to receive them? You should confirm that you don't share personal information (provide a link to your privacy story) and give recipients an easy way to manage their email preferences.
Practice new plays before each match
Keep your strategy fresh by testing different elements of your message. This could be subject lines, content pages, offers, calls to action, long vs. short copy, all-image designs vs. a combination of images and text, etc.
Don’t blindly accept another agency’s latest email results report. Test it yourself to make sure your recipients respond in the same way. Testing can be done as a simple A/B split or on an indefinite scale if your list is large enough to create a numerical split test.
Stay out of trouble for foul play.
Violating CAN-SPAM laws (which make it illegal to spoof the “FROM” address and “Subject” line in emails to trick users into clicking), such as not having a functioning opt-out panel or a physical postal address, can land you in court or a financial penalty panel, or it can result in you being kicked out of the game. Simple measures can pay off in many ways: make sure the recipient acknowledges that they will receive emails from your organization and respond to make sure you haven’t wasted your welcome – so send the necessary content and keep an eye on it regularly.
According to Nguyen Thi Thanh Phuong – Lantabrand
