Targeted Email Marketing Campaigns

Email marketing does show results but for the kind of results that marketers boast about it is vital to develop targeted email-marketing campaigns - campaigns that are focussed on people identified as most likely to respond.

Without proper targeting, your email marketing campaign or any marketing campaign, for that matter - will be a waste of time resulting in low response rates and wasted marketing dollars. It will also be an absolute waste of the main strength of email marketing, which is, email marketing can be targeted more effectively than any other mode of marketing.

It actually makes no sense to broadcast to the masses when you can select and focus your efforts - and your dollars - on the people are most likely to buy.

Identify your target markets

Before you go about sending those email marketing brochures you must find out who would most likely look at your emails. This is identifying your target market. To identify your target market you first have to segment your market into groups of people likely to have similar needs and wants. You can do the segmentation along any lines you like. Some of the main categories of segmentation can be by age group, gender, employment status, location, lifestyle, attitudes, concerns, ethnicity, skill level, and so on.

The idea here is to identify the fact that there is no such thing as an "average" Customer. People are of different types with different needs and wants. Hence some groups of people will find the particular (and ideally, unique) benefits of your products and services more attractive than others. This is your email marketing campaign’s target audience.

Because email marketing is a highly personalized method of getting the message across, you can use this opportunity to carryout a highly targeted email marketing campaign. There will almost always be another email list or a newsletter to match.

However, there should always be a large enough target market to justify the time and effort if not the money spent (targeted email marketing is cheap) of a dedicated email marketing campaign.

Ideally, you will strike on a niche marketing opportunity with large enough segments yet to be found by competitors. This is why it is worthwhile spending some time on segmentation.

Create a targeted email marketing message

Having identified the target audience of your email marketing campaign, sabotage your opportunity with the wrong message.

You will need to develop a unique message for each target market addressing the particular needs and wants of the individual segment. You should explain how your particular products or services could be of use to them. You can also emphasize the uniqueness of your products or service and how you your product is superior to your competitors.

In the message of your email marketing campaign it is important that you speak the same language used by your target market audience. Identify the most fitting style and tone, and words that have the greatest impact with that market. In short your email-marketing message should be seen as highly relevant and therefore highly interesting to your target market.

Write an effective subject line

Your email-marketing document should have a subject line that is straightforward, include your business name, be informative and relevant, and be as short as possible. The subject line should capture the essence of your email and is best written after the message. Targeted email should be written with specific types of people (the types of people in your target audience) in mind rather than for mass audiences.

Select targeted email marketing lists

Finding email lists that reach your target market is the next stage in your targeted email marketing campaign. The most inexpensive option for small and home businesses will be email newsletters (ezines) with a subscriber profile that matches your target market. Email marketing mails with single ads sent to subscribers separately from the newsletter are not expensive. 

You can find a majority of email newsletters listed in directories, similar to the Directory of Ezines, FindEzines, Zinester and EzineHub.

Target the right time

 With the core essentials of your targeted email marketing campaign in place, there is one more factor left to consider before you send: timing.

One benefit of email marketing is that campaigns can be timed to the minute. Think about your target market's lifestyle and decide the best time to launch your email marketing campaign. Actually the most ideal time would be when they not only check their email but also have time to give it their attention.

The best way forward with this one is to trust your common sense. Accurate statistics on most popular email opening times is almost impossible to find.

Test your targeted email marketing campaign

Before you go all out and launch your targeted email marketing make sure to test your campaign. Ad testing is standard practice for large companies. The low cost of emails has made it an affordable option for small businesses as well.