Email is one of the easiest and least expensive ways to generate additional income from existing customers. Regular emails remind your customers that you’re out there, ready to meet their needs as they arise. This month, we lead you step-by-step through the process of reviewing your current email strategy and creating a fool-proof plan for the next six months.

First things first
Any evaluation of email strategy has to start with your mailing list. After all, you could be sending out the best-looking and most relevant emails with the greatest offers ever, but if you’re sending them to a bad list, the effort is wasted.

So the first thing you should do is look at your list. Did it grow this year? Did it shrink? Did you lose names through un-subscriptions or bounces? Go over your email list with a fine-tooth comb, deleting outdated or undeliverable addresses and adding any new ones you’ve gathered through approved opt-in processes. To learn more about how to get customers to sign up for your emails, click here.

Next, check Campaign Performance
The next thing to look at is how individual emails performed. If you’re using your free Express Email Marketing® account or another solution to manage your email campaigns, you should be able to get the open and click-through rates (ie: the number of people who clicked through to your Web site) for every email you’ve sent. Depending on your audience, an open rate of 3% - 25% is great. Click-through depends on the strength of your offer and will be a percentage of overall open rate.

When you open Express Email Marketing, the stats for your latest emails will be right in front of you in the “Sent Campaigns” dashboard. To review all of your campaigns, choose “Response Analyzer” and “Campaign Response” from the left side menu – you can pick a specific email or “Select All” to see the results of all of your past emails.

To calculate your Open Rate, divide the number “Opened” by the number shown under “Mailings.” Your click-through rate should omit any bounced emails, so figure it as ”Clicked” divided by “Opened.” Now use these measures to determine which emails are interesting enough for your customers to open and which ones actually drive them to your site. You may be surprised by the results.

Review frequency
Another factor worth evaluating is how often you’ve sent emails in the last year. Once every two weeks. . .once every six months? Did your open rates increase or decrease based on the length of time between emails? What about your unsubscribe rates – if they’re up, it might mean you’re mailing too often.

Opinions on how often to email customers vary widely. But ask anyone: Finding that sweet spot of “just often enough” is worth its weight in gold. How often is too often?

Identify your best-sellers
The Holy Grail of email marketing is effectiveness so look at what worked this year. Which emails/offers brought in the most revenue? Mark those for reuse. Which emails got little or no response? Mark those to discontinue for now.

If you used Marketing Source Codes to track revenue generated by individual email offers, look at:

• Subject lines – Which ones got opened most often
• Offers – Which ones generated the most revenue
• Tone of your text – Does serious work better than humor?

Don’t forget to check the effectiveness of any marketing emails you opted in to have us send to your customers. Steal any particularly good pieces (subject lines, offers, tone) and incorporate them into your emails going forward.

The next 6 months
Now for the fun part. Sketch out a plan for the next 6 months that includes the following:

• How often you’ll email customers;
• Two actions you’ll take to enlarge your email list; Grow your email list
• What you’ll test -- frequency, offers, subject lines (remember to give any emails you test against each other different source codes so you can compare results);
• How often you’ll review results.

Once you’ve done this, put deadlines on your calendar, allowing a week to edit and prepare each email before sending it. Also be sure to schedule a day every two months to review your results and refine your email plan.

All it takes is time, all it makes is money.