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According to the Direct Marketing Association as of 2009, email marketing delivers $43.62 for every dollar spent. Whether this number is true or not (after all, the DMA is not the most unbiased of sources), the consensus of experts is that email works. And what makes email marketing so effective? Fundamentally, it's about getting people to give you permission to send them information; the mechanics of email campaigns; and your ability to send interesting, relevant content.
Four Course Modules
Module 1: Email Marketing Campaigns: Understanding The Rules of the Game
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Every game has its rules, and email marketing has a set of rules one must learn to do it well. Of course, one can just buy a list and sent out 50,000 and hope for the best. However, a wiser person (or a person with not a lot of money) will tend to figure out out to make best use of limited resources, which in most cases include both time and money.
Module 2. List Building: Creative Ways to Get People to Sign-up For Your List
"Creation of the Man" by Prometheus, 4th-c.CE roman sarcophagus. Marble. Naples National Archaeological Museum
Key aspects of list-building expertise include list rental, POP displays, co-registration, Web site, landing page and form optimization and more. Some of these activities are unique to email and others not. Regardless, the marketer that can build a growing, high-quality list that produces will have a distinct advantage over competitors.
Module 3. Writing Knock Your Socks Off Content
Book of Hours illuminated by Vante di Gabriello di Vante Attavanti, c. 1480-1485, Florence, Fitzwilliam Museum
The story goes, "Content is king." And even in email, good content still rules. In this module, you will learn the copyrighting technique to make content interesting and motivational. To do so, you have to understand the nature of who to write. For example, if you write like a professor wants you to, you will fail.
You will learn about to major forms of email marketing. The first is the promotional email. This is normally a stand alone that goes out to promote a particular offer or announce an event. For example, a monthly meeting of an association has this structure if the organization changes topics or has a featured speaker. The other form is the email based newsletter.
Module 4. and 5. Putting Together and Optimizing The Email Campaign
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This module focuses on the campaign—how to put things together to create a program that gets better and better. For example, one should not assume that the first promotional email or the first issue of the newsletter is going to work as planned. I fact, you might find out it doesn't work well at all. That's why it's important to have indicators set-up that you can monitor. Also, you can find the one didn't execute that well in time. However, to make changes, one has to have defined a strategy and and tactics.
Module 6: Lessons Learned and Application Time
This is an applied course. You will:
Develop Interesting headers
Devise compelling paragraphs
Design a newsletter or email promotion
Put together an email campaign.
Evaluate results and suggest improvements
