OUR APPROACH

HOW WE MAKE EMAIL A DRIVER OF DEMAND FOR YOUR FIRM

How We Deliver This Service

Our approach to Email Marketing includes these key phases:

• Definition of your goals for email marketing
• Review of you Ideal Client Profile (ICP) from our Positioning service
• Preparation of your email marketing technical infrastructure
• Preparation of your email marketing templates
• Migration, cleansing & integration of your existing email lists
• Acquisition, cleansing & integration of new email lists
• Development of a warm-up plan for new email lists
• Review of your editorial calendar & development of an email calendar
• Ongoing management of your email marketing campaigns
• Success metrics definition & timing for milestone reporting

Definition Of Your Goals For Email Marketing

In this phase, we ask you a series of questions to establish a baseline of your goals for email marketing. We want to understand what you’ve tried in email marketing, what’s worked and what has not worked. We also want to understand the role that you believe email marketing should play in your business.

Out of this, we help you develop a strategic plan for email marketing that includes the number of broadcasts you should do every month, the number of lists and contacts you’ll need, the brands you’ll use and the technology infrastructure that we recommend.

The result of this phase is that you will have a clear understanding of the goals you want to achieve from email marketing and the resources that are necessary to achieve these goals.

Review Of Your ICP From Our Positioning Service

In this phase, we review your ICP from our Positioning service to develop a clear understanding of the demographics of your ideal client: age, race, education, industry, title, job responsibility, annual household income and other factors. If you have not completed our Positioning service, we strongly recommend this before launching email marketing.

We also seek to understand what percentage of the contacts in your existing database conform to your ICP demographics. If a high percentage of current contacts match your ICP and there are enough of them in the database, then you might not need to acquire additional email marketing lists. If you do not have enough contacts or if they are not a good match to your ICP, you likely need to acquire email marketing lists.

The result of this phase is that you will know if you need to acquire additional email marketing lists.

Preparation Of Your Email Marketing Technical Infrastructure

In this phase, we prepare for email marketing by tuning your marketing automation platform. If you have not yet acquired our marketing automation service, it is important to do so before launching email marketing.

We deploy a dedicated IP for your email marketing infrastructure and run a test against that IP to ensure it starts with a clear history. We integrate DKIM and SPF records, deploy a new domain for mailing and configure a sub-domain. We also configure send and reply email addresses to ensure your corporate email marketing system is not hampered. We prefer to manage responses, such as out of office, email address changes and other requests via our marketing automation administrator. We also configure the marketing automation platform to handle opt-outs.

The result of this phase is that you will have a technical infrastructure that is ready for email broadcasts.

Preparation Of Your Email Marketing Templates

In this phase, we build email marketing templates using your visual brand standards. We also help you identify the kinds of emails you want to send. For instance, many of our clients send at least two types of newsletters and mailings from thought leaders at their firm. We ask you to approve visual templates before we build them as functioning drafts in the marketing automation platform.

The result of this phase is that you will have the email marketing templates you need to deploy at least 12 months of email campaigns.

Migration, Cleansing & Integration Of Your Existing Email Lists

In this phase, we migrate your existing lists from standard email platforms, such as MailChimp, ExactTarget, Constant Contact or similar. If your email lists are in non-standard forms, this will be handled via a separate project. We also run your existing email lists through a cleansing process to filter out spam-traps and other email addresses of a suspicious nature. We also perform list segmentation in this phase to make sure your lists are ready your differing email templates.

The result of this phase is that your existing email lists will be cleansed, integrated into the marketing automation platform, properly segmented and ready for broadcasts.

Acquisition, Cleansing & Integration Of New Email Lists

In this phase, we analyze options for acquiring additional email lists from legitimate sources. There are many such sources to be considered and each of them have various strengths and weaknesses. We help you negotiation licensing fees for the lists and then run them through email cleansing to remove spam-traps and other email addresses of a suspicious nature. We also perform list segmentation in this phase to make sure your lists are ready your differing email templates.

The result of this phase is that your acquired email lists will be cleansed, integrated into the marketing automation platform, properly segmented and ready for broadcasts.

Development Of A Warm-Up Plan For New Email Lists

In this phase, we develop a plan to slowly warm-up your acquired email lists. We pay particular attention to CANSPAM requirements to ensure your email marketing campaigns are compliant with the law. We then execute the warm-up campaigns and carefully track the health of your dedicated IP, opt-out rates and spam complaints.

The result of this phase is that you will have compliant email campaigns for acquired lists.

Review Of Your Editorial Calendar & Development Of An Email Calendar

In this phase, we review the editorial calendar that was created from our Content Marketing service. We believe it is wise to unite your email marketing campaign with short-form and long-form content assets to give your content the greatest possible exposure. Based on this review, we will create an email marketing campaign that aligns with your content marketing plan.

The result of this phase is that you will have an email marketing campaign that gives power and punch to your content marketing plans.

Ongoing Management Of Your Email Marketing Campaigns

In this phase, we deploy email marketing campaigns on your behalf in accordance with your email marketing schedule. We maintain your lists and keep a close eye on your technical infrastructure including the ranking of your dedicated IP, spam-complaints, opt-outs and registrations. We keep you in the loop on the health of your email marketing infrastructure.

The result of this phase is that you will have a full-blown email marketing campaign that aligns with your content marketing and strategic business plans.

Success Metrics Definition & Timing For Milestone Reporting

In this phase, we define success metrics and setup a schedule for building milestone reports. Most of our clients prefer to see two reports a year. These reports can be in-depth on a number of analytics including behavior scores, email data, website data, content marketing conversions, social media data and other sources. These reports have been the source of some of our greatest and most collaborative wins with clients. We believe they are critical to continual benchmarking and improvements.

The result of this phase is that you will know what is working well and what needs to be improved to help you achieve your business goals.

See What Can You Expect for details about the outcomes of this service.

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