Setting Email Marketing Goals

List building email marketing goals

If you are a service-based business, your email marketing goals will probably be to grow a smaller list than if you are selling a product. This is because service-based businesses typically only have a certain amount of people they can serve on a given day, week, or month.

If you are promoting a product or a service that is consumed in a group format, meaning many people consume the same thing at the same time and you are not one-on-one, you will likely want a much larger list because you can handle serving a larger amount of people at one time in comparison to one-on-one services.

If your products or services are a higher price point you will want a larger list as well because the higher the price of your product, the longer it typically takes for someone to buy your product or service. You’ll want a large list of prospects that can be nurtured over time and can slowly convert when the timing is right and the trust has been built with you.

Here’s how to measure your list growth over time in MailChimp.

Brand experience email marketing goals

If part of why people choose YOU over other products or services is due to the experience or the way you make them feel, you will likely want to promote through emails in a way that reinforces that feeling or experience. So maybe not all of your emails are directly selling. Maybe some of them are sending guidance or something fun that you’ll know they love. Your main goal in this scenario might be just to get people to open the emails you send. Maybe you would also like to know if they click on the articles or videos you send.

Here’s how to measure how engaged your readers are in your email marketing using MailChimp.

Sales-based email marketing goals

Do people order products from you but you want them to order more? Do you have products or services related to something that your customers already have from you? Then you’ll want to measure sales as a result of your emails. You’ll want an email marketing provider that can measure sales on your site automatically, like MailChimp.

How to establish your email marketing goals

• Write down anything quantifiable.

  • Are you trying to grow your list? If so, by how many specifically?
  • Is this a time-sensitive goal, such as, “I will have 320 email subscribers by mid-August, 2017.”
  • Is this a sales-based goal, such as, “I will sell 10% more over the next six months due to my email marketing efforts.”
  • I’d like to increase my online product sales to $7,000 a month on average from $4,250.

• Write down the demographic that you are targeting in order to reach the goal.

  • I am hoping to see more females added to my email list.
  • I am hoping to re-engage customers that haven’t purchased from me in the past six months.
  • I am hoping to increase the order quantities of people who order X brand of product.
  • I am hoping to increase the number of additional services used by the group of clients who already use X service.

• Write down why are you going after this goal.

  • Our client base isn’t aware of our broad range of offerings.
  • We need more sales so we can pay for one additional staff member so we can develop and launch an additional product.
  • We are doing this to stabilize our business. We’re tired of being in a feast or famine mode and would rather have a steady, reliable client load.

• Choose a goal that is based on historical performance rather than just guessing, if at all possible.

  • If you have no history trying to reach a similar goal in the past, you will likely be taking a stab in the dark when you set your goal.
  • If you do have a track record, use it as a basis for establishing your goal. For instance, if you know you have successfully doubled your email list each year for the past three years, you might feel confident that in the next 12 months you can double again.

• Set milestones. Shorter milestones are better than a huge goal off in the far distance.

  • Say your goal is to grow your email list by 144 people in the next 12 months. It’s a good idea to set a milestone of 20 new people on your list by the end of the first month. At the end of the first 30 days, assess what happened. Did you reach the goal? Why or why not? What can you do to improve the next 30 days?
  • I used to set goals that were evenly-paced goals. So say I wanted to grow my email list by 144 people in 12 months. I used to divide that goal up evenly over the time frame, so 12 people per month over 12 months. This set me up for failure. Why? Because stuff would get in the way along the path. But when I set aggressive early goals, I take down the odds of something getting in the way to the point where I don’t meet the goal. As an example, instead of 12 people per month, every month, I would aim to get the majority of subscribers during the first nine months. That way, if something slows me down along the way I still have a cushion to “catch up” on my goal. Example: If I attempt to get all of my new subscribers in the first nine months and don’t meet my goal by the end of the ninth month, I still have three months to finish the goal. But if I set a goal to get 12 new people each month for 12 months, and something gets in the way in month 11, I have to suddenly double my monthly growth in month 12, which would be really hard to do on super short notice.

• Try not to set your goal in a vacuum.

  • If at all possible, set a goal with other people involved. Tell other people what your goal is specifically.
  • If the efforts to reach the goal can be shared by many, involve others. Working with many to reach a goal is much more motivating than doing it all on your own.