Is your email program strategic or tactical?

I guarantee - if you have a quality house-built list, and you are not receiving the results you expect from your email - you’re probably taking a tactical approach to email.

What’s the difference?

Strategic - you have a content plan, editorial calendar, a mailing schedule, a segmentation strategy. You research who your audience is and give them what they want. Your email plan revolves around other company marketing initiatives. You carefully examine results and constantly work to improve. When needed, you consult experts and stay up-to-date on industry best practices.

Tactical - You fire out emails to your list. Your content for each email is hastily planned just before sending. Although the finished product may look professional and complete, behind the scenes is a fury of disorganization and chaos. You occasionally look at results, but don’t analyze.

Those are the two extremes - I imagine 95% of all email marketers are somewhere in the middle. But which side are you on? I’m sure most of us want to be on the strategic side, but actually sit more on the tactical side.

For example, before being acquired earlier this year, cardcommunications published a monthly e-bulletin called Expresso. In January 2006, back when I started with the company, it went through a major re-branding and so we refined our email strategy. We sat down, did a 12-month planning calendar - looked at what links were popular with our subscribers in past issues etc., and planned the whole thing out - it was fantastic.

But of course, being a small and very busy services firm… We didn’t follow the plan exactly to a T, or very much at all really - and guess what happened? Like our enthusiasm for the plan, the results started on a downward spiral. It was pretty disheartening - especially us being an email marketing services company! Luckily we have a second chance - we are launching the Sitebrand Snippet in about a month’s time, and this time, with far more resources on our side, we plan to do it right. (And follow the plan of course).

The million dollar question…

How do we take our tactical email program and turn it into a strategic one?

Baby steps. You can’t turn it around in a day, and you can’t stop your program to figure it out. Identify the areas that most need attention. Carefully plan before taking any action–this is key to make your strategy work. For example, after creating your plan, build in a process. Be aware you will probably have to allocate more resources to your email marketing, but you will be rewarded in the end.

So is your email strategic or tactical? What measures do you take to make it strategic or keep it strategic?

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Posted in Email marketing, Kelly Rusk