Monitoring Email Marketing ROI 101 by lisafugere

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Monitoring Email Marketing ROI 101
by lisafugere

monitoring

If your sales reps engage in email marketing campaigns, they need to have reliable practices in place to track return on investments (ROI) and the worth of your campaigning tactics. Also, let's be honest: email marketing has earned a bad reputation in the past few years.  Most consumers see email marketing as purely spam and have incorporated ways to filter the unsolicited emails to their junk boxes. Sending out bulk emails to a client list isn't the best sales strategy anymore as those emails will likely find their way to the trash quicker than it took to reach an inbox.

According to research by Gartner, consumers stuck a fork in traditional email marketing a while ago, but that doesn't mean it is dead. Email marketing should just be approached differently, Gartner found. Email marketing is useless as a generic outbound sales tool, but it is relevant if used with outbound marketing to move leads through the funnel, according to Gartner.

So, how do you monitor your ROI with email marketing?

Email marketing is a cheap way to get your message to clients, but, as previously discussed, following traditional email marketing methods might not be your best strategy today. Once you've determined the best ways to roll out your email marketing as an element of outbound marketing, make sure you have some, if not all, of the following strategies in place to monitor ROI:

In-house tracking systems: Software programs that track where your clients are coming from are abundant and easily available. Make sure your company knows where your base is, so you can begin converting analytics into sales. The more targeted your approach, the more successful your campaign.

Google Analytics: The software program Google makes readily available is simple and easy to follow. For example, adding campaign tags to your email links will allow you to track which links were most successful in your email campaigns. Google Analytics also allows you to put tracking codes in each email, so you will be able to compare and contrast past email marketing methods when determining your next campaign and how much money you should put into it.

Integrate your online and offline marketing strategies: Studies have shown that integrating your online and offline marketing strategies strengthen your brand by making sure your campaigns compliment each other. This means integrating your marketing strategy with your sales strategy. For instance, if you target a number of leads you have generated from an event, your outreach process should involve sales and marketing follow up. This may look like a marketing email that offers a content piece followed by a sales call that discusses the piece. How does your email marketing campaign compliment your offline sales strategy?

Educate yourself: Often, ROI comes from an understanding between sales and marketing about the end goal of a campaign. If marketing builds a sophisticated email nurture campaign that requires follow up from the sales team, it stands to reason that the campaign will fail unless sales does their part. Before you roll out a campaign, make sure sales understands and will directly benefit from the campaign.

Research on the web about monitoring ROI with email marketing is plentiful. Take some time to plan your campaign before sending a bulk email that will never cross most of your clients' eyes.