Techniques for performing an email strategy assessment

Email strategies are facing a whirlwind of change, from legal pressures to announcements from companies like Yahoo! And Google, now is the perfect time to overhaul your email strategy.

Additionally, email still ranks as one of the most lucrative revenue channels for marketers, potentially missing out on money in the pipeline.

Participate in evaluating your email strategy. This is the perfect cross-functional exercise to evaluate the successes and weaknesses of email programs across your organization.

What is an email strategy assessment?

The purpose of an email strategy assessment is to evaluate, understand, and improve all components of your organization's email program. Many companies run evaluations to identify how email can drive more revenue into their sales funnel. Still, some people run an evaluation if they suspect that their email program is underperforming or at risk.

Unlike a design audit, an email strategy assessment is designed to review your entire email program, including elements such as design and click-through performance that are typically covered in a design audit. However, evaluating your email strategy also looks at things like subscription acquisition, external factors, customer journey, and deliverability. Because of this scope, you may consider including your IT partner and several members of your marketing team in the evaluation process.

Learn more: 10 questions to ask when auditing your email program

What does an email strategy evaluation include?

Please remember. Your goal is to identify trends, opportunities, weaknesses, and threats across your organization. At the end of this evaluation, you should be able to summarize your findings in the following presentation.

• What is going well?
• What needs to change?
• Something you can work on in subsequent steps.

Keep your research focused on the big picture. But also track down concrete examples to support your findings. Your email strategy evaluation should include the following reviews as a starting point:

design and copy

• Evaluate design best practices.
  • Does the design “guide” your eye to a call to action?
  • Are there too many calls to action? (Too many can reduce click-through rates)
• copy
  • Do you have enough text to explain your CTA, but not enough to send a novel?
  • Do you utilize custom subject lines or preheaders?
  • Is your call-to-action text persuasive? (Tip: Try answering the question “I want to…” in your CTA text)
  • Who is the “sender” of your email? Is it a recognizable sender to the recipient?
• accessibility
  • Does the design follow accessibility best practices (font, size, color contrast, layout, etc.)?
• Relevance to message
  • Are you using the layout that best suits the type of email you send (e.g. long scrolling for newsletters, short versions for nurture or cart reminders?)
• Is the design consistent across all messages? Is there an email style guide?
• How does your design compare to your competitors and peers? Use tools like Really Good Emails to assess what others are doing.

conversion

• Does the average click-through rate comply with industry and email type standards?
• How do clicks on email security tools impact your strategy?
• Are you measuring clicks and opens? If so, what are the implications of Apple's email privacy for your recipient list?
• Click-through rates can drop for a variety of reasons, many of which require testing to confirm. Make note of the following variables that you may need to test in the future.
  • Number of CTA buttons
  • Interest or relevance of content
  • Not enough intro text – or too much intro text
  • Button placement
  • Repetitive content (e.g. Has the viewer already seen this content elsewhere?)
  • Bulk emails from a single sender

reachability

This isn't an area of ​​expertise for many email strategists, and that's okay. That's why we have reachability experts. This section will help you find out what you know and what you don't know.

• What tools do I have access to that can help me better understand deliverability?
• Does anyone in your organization monitor sender reputation?
• Are you using a dedicated or shared IP?
• Do your organization have other transmission systems in operation? Are they monitored?
• Are there any practices other than marketing that could damage a sender's reputation?
• Are your spam complaint rates below Gmail and Yahoo's new guidance?
• What percentage of your list is inactive? Do you have a plan to deal with inactive emails?

data

• How are records created in a marketing automation platform? If I'm auto-syncing with a CRM, can I see if my synced records are eligible for marketing emails?
• Do you personalize your emails beyond just your name? How confident are you in your CRM data as the basis for email personalization?
• Have you considered auditing your data landscape?
• Are there records in your marketing automation platform that can be safely deleted?
  • By activity/hour
  • by an employer (like you)

Segmentation, subscriptions, and sending types

• How are people joining your list today?
• How many options do your subscribers have to opt-in to? Can you properly support them with your content?
• Is your subscription process compliant with recent legislation such as GDPR and CPRA? Should it be?
• Is your public list persuasive enough for people to opt in?
• Do you have an opt-in captcha in the right place?
• Do you do different types of sending or do you only focus on newsletters?
• How many people unsubscribed from your list last year?

compliance and law

• How will changes in tracking technology or legislation affect my email program?
• Are there language or industry-specific storage requirements?
• Are there other legal considerations that may impact your email strategy?

Learn more: Email Marketing 101: The 5 Basics

What happens after you evaluate your email strategy?

Putting the results together will probably leave you with a series of projects. Plan your next steps over the coming months or years by sorting them from most impactful to least impactful. Project ideas include:

• Running opt-in campaigns and ongoing opt-in strategies
• New newsletter and subscription options
• Create triggered emails and minimize your reliance on newsletters
• Data cleanup
• Create email design and best practice guides
• Click-Through Rate A/B Test Project Execution

Learn more: The email marketer's guide to effective marketing automation