John W Hayes
When I’m not sitting at my desk thinking about email marketing, I can often be found on my bike and thinking about email marketing. It’s not that I’m obsessive or anything, I just seem to have my best, most creative email marketing ideas when the sun is in my face and the wind is on my back.
Call me an email marketing/bicycle geek if you like – but I also revel in the fact that both of my passions are just so damned efficient.
However, on my usual 10-mile cycle commute to the office (April 20, 2015) morning, my mind couldn’t be further away from email marketing. My bike seemed to be suffering some mechanical problems. My chain kept slipping, my gears kept crunching and my misery was compounded by a sudden downpour of rain. On days like this, I don’t like cycling and as a result, my creative ideas don’t flow so easily.
A quick Google search helped me solve my problems. I stopped by my local bike shop, purchased some chain degreaser (special cleaning fluid) and a little machine that restored my chain and gears to their former glory in a matter of seconds. It’s amazing how such a simple fix can solve so many problems, including helping me to find the inspiration for today’s blog post.
“Degreasing” Your Email Marketing Strategy
Like the bicycle, an email marketing strategy can be a fairly simple mechanism (although both can be upgraded depending on your requirements). For most small business there are only a few moving parts – your lists, your campaigns, your subject lines, your content and your call-to-actions (CTAs) and your landing pages.
Your email marketing will work better if you take the time to make sure everything is clean and working efficiently. This means taking time to clean up your lists, digging into your email marketing analytics to learn what works and testing new ideas.
Many marketers are reluctant to take the time to make sure their campaigns are running smoothly because, well let’s face facts, it can be fiddly, it can be laborious, it can be a chore.
But be warned, issues like list fatigue can be as damaging to your email marketing as a rusty chain is to my cycling pleasure and if you are hitting your subscribers with dull, boring and uninspiring campaigns, you will eventually come to a grinding halt.
Sometimes even the smallest tweaks will have amazing results, so be prepared to get your hands a little dirty and start inspiring your subscribers to become even more engaged with your brand.
Too many bikes languish in garages and garden sheds and similarly, too many email marketing opportunities go unsent. As Spring banishes the cold months of winter, I’ll be joined soon by a number of fair-weather cyclists on my daily commute. I wonder how many of them will be thinking of re-engaging their email marketing activities at the same time.
This post first appeared on the iContact Email Marketing Blog.
Photo credit: Graham Ballantyne
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