When was the last time you did an email audit? If you’ve never done one or if it’s been awhile, now’s a good time to add it to your email marketing plan. The importance of creating an email list of potential customers is well known and you’ve probably heard it again and again in the online marketing community, but do you know why it’s so important? They generate interest in your products or services and help you build a better relationship with potential customers. In many cases, this is your one direct line to your customers or potential customers. Your email list can help increase both site traffic and sales. It also builds relationships, which is the key to building a brand people trust.
Many people underestimate the benefits of conducting an email audit. You know your email list is important, so why aren’t you checking in on that list and making sure it is the best it can be? The benefits are greater than you might think and when done correctly, it can enhance your overall email marketing strategies. Below are a few good reasons why you should put doing an email audit at the top of your to-do-list.
How Doing an Email Audit Can Benefit You
Email marketing is a great way to reach consumers that have a real interest in your products or services. However, if your emails are ending up in the Spam box or if they get deleted before anyone even reads them, they’re not going to be very effective. An email audit will help you examine your marketing plan in such a way as to identify problems so you can create a plan that will improve customer response rates. Tired of low open rates? Tired of ending up in spam? Tired of people unsubscribing right after they get your freebie? You need to get into the minds of your email readers and figure out what the problem is.
Here are some of the benefits of doing an email audit:
- Build a better, more effective email list – The audit will help you determine how the people on your list respond to your emails so you can build a better, more focused list. You can see if you’re actually reaching your target audience or if you need to do some re-evaluating.
- Discover how well you are communicating your messages – If your emails are reaching their target audience but very few people are responding to them, you may not be communicating your messages as well as you could. You may need to try a new approach to help generate more interest.
- Improve sign-up strategies and confirmation process – Email audits will help you monitor how effective your sign-up strategies are so you know what is working and where improvements are needed. It will also help you discover the optimal location for your opt-in box and best confirmation strategy.
- Discover which type of content gets the most attention – You can see which content has the highest open rate along with which topics and subject lines get the most attention so you can achieve the best results.
- Put things in perspective – Knowing where you are now will help you create a realistic email marketing plan for the future that will make it easier to reach your goals and achieve success.
Now that you know the main benefits associated with doing an email audit you can see how it could enhance your marketing campaign. Conducting the audit can be a daunting task but knowing where to start and what to include in your audit will make the process go a lot smoother. The following tips can help.
What to Cover in Your Email Audit
Doing an email audit doesn’t have to be a difficult process when you know what you’re looking for. The audit is designed to help you discover areas of success and weakness. This way, you can make changes where needed to ensure you’re getting the most from your email marketing efforts.
The following questions will help you stay on track as you conduct your audit:
- Are your emails reaching your audience? – Sending the emails at a time when your target audience is most likely to be online will help to ensure they are seeing them. Otherwise, they could easily get lost in the sea of emails many people receive daily.
- Is your brand clearly visible? – Your business name should appear as the sender and your logo should be in the header of all emails so the target audience knows exactly who sent it. This is one of the leading reasons why emails end up in the spam folder or trashed without being read.
- Are you providing new ways for consumers to learn about you? – Your emails should always be directly associated with your business and provide useful information that will benefit consumers. They should also contain links to your social platforms or any other relevant content that will help your audience learn more about you and what you have to offer.
- Do you have a lot of people unsubscribing to your emails? – The audit can help you discover why this is happening so you can make the necessary changes. For example, some reasons people unsubscribe is because your emails don’t match the topic they signed up for or because you’re sending out too many emails per week/month.
- How many consumers confirm the subscription process after completing it? – This will help you determine if subscribers are truly interested in becoming a subscriber. If they’re not confirming it, you may need to update your email list to ensure you’re reaching your target audience.
- Are you making it easy for users to subscribe to your newsletters and other available content? – If the audit reveals a low sign-up rate, check to make sure your subscription forms are located in the sidebar, post footer and in a pop-up box. Also, check your forms to ensure they are active and contain correct information.
- Do your emails contain a clear call to action plan? – A clear and simple CTA always works best because it eliminates confusion. If the audit shows you’re not getting the results you expected, try different options and placements to improve your results.
- Are you complying with the CAN-SPAM laws governing email practices? – All emails should contain a physical address and have a clearly visible unsubscribe link. You must also be careful to not send out too many emails per week/month or you may appear to be a spammer and your emails may not be reaching the target audience. A bigger list can usually get away with more emails than a smaller list, but it also depends on your topic and your audience.
Using these questions as a guide will help make doing an email audit a little easier because it gives you an idea of where to start and what to look for during the audit. As you conduct the audit, you will discover strong and weak points in your email marketing plan. If you need help, just let me know. I’m happy to provide this service for you! Use this information from the audit to keep track of your successes and to make changes where needed to improve your overall email marketing strategies so you can reach your goals faster and easier. Let me know if you need help!