How can I effectively measure the results of a consumer product email marketing campaign?
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By Jennifer Manocchio
Prior to starting your email marketing campaign, set specific and measurable objectives. For most consumer packaged goods companies, email marketing objectives often include: increasing company/product awareness, increasing web site traffic, and increasing product trial and sales among current and prospective customers.
Once you set specific objectives, determine the most effective methods for tracking the results. Ideally, you want to accomplish this prior to beginning your campaign so measurement opportunities are not overlooked. Below are some key methods for tracking results.
1. Email distribution service: Using an email distribution service like iContact, Constant Contact, JangoMail, etc. will not only help you follow spam laws and protect your ISP, but it will also help track results. Typically, email distribution services will track the delivery rate, open rate, bounce rate and click through rate.
2. Google Analytics or another web site tracking tool: While this might seem obvious, we find this measurement tool is often overlooked. Google Analytics is free and easy to use and install if you don’t already have it. It can help track the number of people who came to your web site directly from the email, as well as how long they stayed on the site, what pages they visited, where they exited the site, if they converted to a sale and how much money they spent.
3. Unique phone number: If you can accept phone orders, it is beneficial to use a unique toll-free number in the email. This will allow you can track the number of phone calls the email is generating. Be sure to contact your phone company to determine if they have an online system that tracks the number of incoming calls. Reviewing phone bills can be tedious.
4. Unique promotional code: If you are offering a promotion, use a unique promotional code for web and phone orders. This will help you track what sales were specifically generated from the email.
After you establish your measurement methods, create a master database to record all the results in one location, including: open rates, click through rates, bounce rates, web site traffic, number of sales and total revenue generated by the email. This will help you to evaluate each email distribution and the campaign collectively and make adjustments when necessary.
Have questions about tracking the results and increasing the ROI of your email marketing campaign or want to learn more about how to develop and execute an effective campaign, contact me at jennifer at sweeneypr.com or 910.772.1688.
