Email marketing is said to be one of the strongest marketing channels . And it can be, if backed by an effective email marketing strategy. Sometimes you run into email programs, where it is like:

“What were they thinking?” This could be so much better! Your email marketing strategy, you could say, is the foundation that your email marketing program is built around so it is worth spending time on.

Why is an effective email marketing strategy so important?

An email marketing strategy is part of your overall marketing strategy and business plan. It helps you market your products and services via email with the best chances for making a profit and reaching your goals. That is because an effective email strategy takes into consideration what your target customers are, their preferences and benefits they are looking for as well as your products services and industry and which email marketing messages are most effective.

An effective email marketing strategy transforms ideas into actions

First set your business goals and ambitions with regards to email marketing, then take these 3 steps:
1. Email marketing strategy: How you are going to achieve those goals.
2. Email marketing tactics: How you are going to achieving them in more detail. Part of the strategy.
3. Actions: How you going to deliver on your tactics. Even more detail, the fulfillment of your marketing strategy.

By doing so your email marketing program is sure to have a strong bond between your strategy and the actions required. Which is one of the most important parts.

But why an email marketing strategy?

With email marketing as a channel you are holding all the cards for potential success.

• Email marketing can have a big reach and put your message in front of a lot of people
• The marketer has great flexibility in how they handle their email program
• It is quite easy to start and you can start small
• email marketing scales, the effort to send one or 100.000 messages is nearly the same.
• Email allows you to target and segment your messages on individual level
• There are little risks, the costs are relatively low and potential for upside is big.

So for each marketer, the development of an effective email marketing strategy should be on top of your agenda.