Marketing Rule: A.B.M.
One of my favorite films is Glenngary Glen Ross. In this film, there’s a classic acronym pounded into the skulls of salesmen – A.B.C. – Always Be Closing. In other words, always be closing the sale. Well, I’m going to take A.B.C. to the next level, and adjust this mantra for marketers. The new rule of marketing is A.B.M. – Always Be Measuring. Measurement is perhaps one of the most critical tasks for a marketer today.
Marketers have always needed to measure their efforts. We set goals. How do we know if we’ve reached them unless we measure? We spend money to reach people and influence them. How do we know if we’ve done either one? Measure.
This especially rings true in e-mail marketing. And oh what an opportunity we have to measure, adjust and repeat. However, more often than not, we get into cruise control with our e-mail efforts. We create a template and we get in the habit of the using the same kind of content or the same type of offer. And as a result, our audience becomes numb to our e-mail marketing. Don’t think it’s happening to you? Can you be sure? Take a look at your statistics, they can tell you a lot. Most marketers will be able to benefit from stopping, looking at the measurement tools of their e-mail campaign, and re-considering what they’re doing.
Look at your e-mail open rates, your click-throughs, and your unsubscribes. What do they tell you? Is every e-mail you’ve sent been essentially the same? What’s been different from e-mail to e-mail? Anything? If you have been making small changes from e-mail to e-mail, you should be able to tell what your audience is responding to. Switching things up also helps prevent your audience from building mental and visual calluses.
If you haven’t been changing things up, here are a few things you can consider doing (just make sure you measure the effect):
- Change your promotional offer
- Try promotional offers for other products/services and see if people respond
- Offer valuable information instead of a promotional offer
- Change the look of the e-mail design just a little bit (it will help prevent mental calluses)
- Try sending on a different day or a different time to see how it affects your campaign
Of course, as you decide to try new things, remember ABM… ALWAYS BE MEASURING. And adjust accordingly to give yourself the best results.
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A really good reminder. One other rule of thumb I believe impacts all the changes you mentioned is “less is more”. Too often marketers and clients try to stuff too much content in each email blast. The email should be the highlight of your content and the full content itself should be on your website (where you can do even more tracking).