 Recently, I came across an article in Marketing Daily that speaks to the question: during these down economic times, should you continue trying to innovate within your company/product, or should you set out to optimize your existing product? While the writer addresses "consumer products" in this blog post, I think his reasoning applies to "marketing programs" as well.
While both innovation and optimization have their place, in this market, rather than spending time, effort, and testing on something risky (i.e. a brand new marketing program that's highly innovative but not yet tested for success), why not take the time to work on making the existing program better? In email and online marketing there are inexpensive ways to improve on your current program that can generate significant returns quickly. Here are five things you can do:
1. Do a little research:
Testing allows you to really get a sense of what your readers respond to. You can read about optimization day in and day out, but nothing is going to tell you what works for your list better than actually trying it on them. Uncovering what elicits the best response from your readers will give you the upper hand and the ability to provide them with the relevant content that is most likely to drive them to convert and/or purchase.
2. Cut the fat:
Use the tools at hand to analyze your readership and search out dead weight that can be re-engaged or simply eliminated from your email list. Bloated, stale lists cost you more money than they return. You want to target your most active users. If you have a stale readership then it's time to look at your e-marketing and figure out why.
3. Stand in their shoes:
Taking the time to walk through your entire marketing process gives you a better feel for what your customers are experiencing. Try signing up for your own newsletter or marketing program and walk through the process. Put your consumer/reader hat on and take a critical eye to what you are sending to their inbox. Pull in outside help if necessary because sometimes being too close to the process makes one myopic.
4. Social networking is the way to go:
A big buzz word these days is social networking. Enabling users to share content with their friends in their network increases your viewing audience for free! A few email service providers offer plug-ins that allow a user to easily share the newsletter content with their network; Facebook alone has over 14 million users!
5. Explore integrations:
Some service providers offer integrations with other tools you may be using such as Web analytics and search marketing. These types of tools give you a better overall view of your customers' behavior, and as a result you can react with much more accuracy to their needs. Such integrations not only save you time, but they can save you money and help generate a higher ROI on your marketing programs as well.
Now, I'm not saying that we have to abandon innovation because there is some of that in optimization too. What I am saying is that we need to focus on doing more with less and finding ways to make our existing programs work better for us than they may have in the past. We're not always going to be in this economic state - in a few months hopefully we can go back to spending the time, effort, and resources to develop new and innovative marketing programs that will hopefully drive your numbers up even further. In the meantime, you will feel good knowing that you have an existing campaign that rocks!
For more information on optimizing your online marketing campaigns, check out these resources here on LyrisHQ.com:
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