An email creation strategy and process can bring several benefits to a company. To communicate with customers and achieve business objectives, CommonBond, a financial technology company that provides student loan refinancing, needed to develop a robust email creation process.
One of the primary advantages of developing an email creation strategy is that it aids in brand messaging and visual design consistency. A firm can ensure that its emails are easily recognizable and create a cohesive customer experience by establishing email guidelines and templates. This consistency can aid in the growth of brand awareness and customer loyalty.
Another advantage of having an email creation strategy is that it can help to streamline the process, making it more efficient and effective (Hartemo, 2019). This can result in cost savings as well as increased productivity. Team members can easily cooperate and ensure that emails are delivered on time and to an excellent standard if a clear process exists.
An email creation strategy was essential for CommonBond in communicating with customers and building brand awareness. The email was a key channel for the company to enlighten its customers about student loan refinancing and provide them with personalized loan options. CommonBond created a consistent and efficient email campaign that drove engagement and conversions by implementing a clear strategy and process.
There are some risks to creating a 3-month forward-looking email calendar. One of the main risks is that it may need more flexibility in responding to market or customer needs changes. For example, suppose a company has a quarterly email calendar and a sudden change in the market or customer preferences occurs. In that case, it may take time to pivot quickly and adjust the email content to reflect these changes.
Another risk is that the email content will become outdated or irrelevant. Customers may become disengaged if they receive similar content regularly, resulting in lower open and click-through rates (Hartemo, 2019). Companies can mitigate these risks by incorporating contingency plans into their email calendars and regularly reviewing and updating their email content. This ensures that the emails remain relevant and engaging for customers even if the market or their preferences change.
To measure the success of the new email strategy and process, the CommonBond team can use several metrics, including open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, and revenue generated from email campaigns. These metrics can provide data about how well the emails worked and how the planning effort affected its operation.
In addition to these metrics, the team can track success using customer feedback. This can include tools like surveys, feedback forms, and social media monitoring (Sinicki, 2019). By collecting customer feedback, the team can gain insights into how the emails are received and make changes to improve the customer experience.
Finally, by tracking the productivity and efficiency of the email creation process, the team can assess the impact of the planning effort. The team can identify areas for improvement and optimize the process over time by monitoring the time and resources required to create and deliver emails. This can result in cost savings and increased productivity, demonstrating the planning effort’s importance.
To improve the strategy or process, the team could incorporate more personalized and segmented content, optimize email subject lines and timing, experiment with different types of content or messaging, and use automation tools to streamline and improve efficiency (Sinicki, 2019). They could also review and analyze performance metrics regularly to identify areas for improvement and refine their approach accordingly.
Yes, CommonBond should consider launching a new thread of emails to promote new products. This would allow them to effectively target and inform their audience of new offerings while allowing cross-selling and upselling opportunities (Malkani, 2022). They can create a more engaging and relevant experience for their customers by tailoring their email content to their audience’s specific needs and interests.
Email should continue to be a key channel for targeting customers as CommonBond expands, but the approach should change over time to consider shifting customer needs and preferences. Personalization, segmentation, channel integration, and metrics are all potential areas for advancement. Personalizing emails individually may become more difficult as the email list grows (Malkani, 2022). However, using data and technology to automate personalization can ensure that emails remain relevant to the target audience.
As the customer base expands, there may be opportunities to segment the email list further to tailor content and messaging to specific customer groups. To create a consistent customer experience across all touchpoints, email should be integrated with other communication channels, such as social media and chatbots. Finally, as the email program becomes more complex, additional metrics may be required to ensure the strategy remains effective. This could include engagement, conversion, and revenue metrics.
References
Hartemo, M. (2019). Email marketing in the era of the empowered consumer. Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, 10(3), 212–230. https://doi.org/10.1108/jrim-06-2015-0040
Sinicki, A. (2019). Why email marketing? Successful Email Marketing for Businesses. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-5659-6_1
Malkani, A. (2022). Reinventing email marketing through a personalization strategy. The SAGE Handbook of Digital Marketing, pp. 181–197. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781529782509.n11