Small and medium sized business owners need to focus their marketing budget on methods that work. Unlike giant corporations, smaller businesses can’t spend precious dollars on marketing R&D. Before you spend marketing dollars on an email campaign, you want to make sure it will actually work. Here are some ways to ensure an effective email campaign.

Use Existing Research to Evaluate the Effectiveness

There’s plenty of existing data to help smaller business owners to figure out if an email campaign might work for their needs. Existing research has centered on:

• ROI
• Personalization
• Response rates
• Sales comparisons

The consensus is that email campaigns can be very effective, given the right conditions. However, you will need to sift through the research independently to figure out whether an email campaign will work for your unique goals.

Personalization versus Customization

A recent research project led by Temple University Assistant Professor Sunil Wattal unearthed evidence that customers viewed companies in a negative or neutral light when they received emails that were personalized with their names. The exception to that rule was when the emails contained information or deals that were customized to the consumers’ needs. In those instances, the email recipient viewed the company much more positively, and the click through rates soared. In other words, personalization without customization in email campaigns doesn’t work. However, when the two go hand in hand, an email campaign can be very effective.

Providing Value

An effective email campaign provides value to the recipient. People receive hundreds of emails each day. To make your business’s email stand out, you need to provide:

• Some kind of value to the recipient
• Something they can’t get elsewhere
• Something they don’t have time to find

Value doesn’t necessarily equate to unique content. You can provide value to your recipients in other ways, including:

• Exclusive coupons on your merchandise
• Curated content that speaks to their interests
• Insightful content that will help them reach their goals

Monitoring Results

Finally, an effective email campaign isn’t just a slew of drip emails, sent out over weeks and months. The most important element of an effective email campaign has to do with the information you can get from the campaign. Any email campaign provider you choose should be able to provide you with data that you can use to streamline and focus your campaign. This is the one single element that will:

• Keep you from wasting marketing dollars
• Help you reach and retain more customers
• Help you plan strategically for the future

An email campaign can be very effective as long as you keep these points in mind:

• Use existing research
• Personalize and customize
• Add value
• Keep tabs on the data surrounding the campaign

If you do this, you may find that email marketing is one of the most cost effective marketing method you’ve ever used.