Each quarter you should conduct a deep-dive introspection on your email program – a hard look at what is working, what needs to be improved and then focus on next steps to strengthen your program going forward. This is a review that should take place among the email marketing team, then presented to your management and (if applicable) incorporate a review with your direct marketing team.
The goal of this exercise is to seek continuous improvement and look to extend the support that email marketing can provide to the rest of your organization. A typical agenda should include:
1) Review of campaigns and statistics – Start by highlighting your numbers for the quarter. Look at opens, clicks and conversions for current quarter (how do they compare to the previous quarter, for the same quarter prior year?).
2) Net subscribes – List the number of new consumers that have opted-in, and remove the number of people that have unsubscribed.
3) Deliverability statistics – Check the bounce rate, your inbox rate, and the reputation of your IP’s. Make sure that your numbers add up.
4) Unsubscribe audit results – Unsubscribe from your email program through the multiple touch-points that you have and monitor how long it takes you to get off the list.
5) Email ROI – You should have quantitative measures of success for your program where you can actually put a value on your email messages.
6) Quarterly email champion – Highlight people and campaigns within your organization that have done a good job. Reward people for creativity on subject line suggestions or email capture. Highlight campaigns that have been top performers.
7) Observations, ideas, suggestions and challenges – Highlight key observations for your quarter, and list opportunities for improvement. I normally highlight the challenges that I am facing and I try to seek help from other groups.
Finally, always gather ideas from your team – present your challenges and seek their help, debut draft communiqués and or upcoming streams to them to get them onboard along with their feedback.
