Data, Data, Data
Your data is important. I want to emphasise this simple fact because I don’t think everyone fully understands its significance. If your data isn't clean and up-to-date, any AI initiatives your business has are going to suffer, and your marketing has been suffering.
Poor performing marketing campaigns and the marketing team is getting the brunt of the failures? While they should have some accountability, it's important to recognise that one of the most crucial factors for your business's success is your data.
The cadence at which you engage with your data, the contents relevance to your data segments and the metrics you use for evaluation must all be carefully considered across all your channels, with your data being at the centre of it all —this includes social media, phone calls, SMS, direct mail, and email marketing.
Since as a freelancer, I am currently focused on email marketing, these data blogs will specifically address cadence, contents relevance, and measurement in relation to email marketing data. Many of these principles can be applied across various channels.
Email Cadence
Email cadence is the frequency, timing, and sequence of emails sent to an audience. It's a strategic way to increase engagement and reduce unsubscribes.
Based on your email cadence, your audience will know when to expect to hear from you. If your content is relevant and engaging to them, they will look for your email, so when pesky email service providers mark your email as promotional or even junk, your audience will be more inclined to look in these places.
Your content should be planned out ahead of time you shouldn't be wondering what to email next week, yes leave a little wiggle room but your marketing strategy should go with your business strategy for the year and your content plans should align on a quarterly/monthly/weekly basis.
Avoid the "just one more email this week" conversation with management/sales. Have a monthly cadence plan and stick to it.
How to find email cadence
Test different cadences. Try sending emails at different times or frequencies to see what works best.
Email cadence examples for different types of Email;
Brand awareness. Typically in welcome emails, re-engagement campaigns.
Email cadence over 1-2 weeks.News.
Email cadence Fortnightly/Monthly. For some industries Monthly/Quarterly might play better.Events/Webinars.
Email cadence 3 weeks out from ‘event’, with a further email 1 week before the event and on the week of the event.What to look for - unsubscribes, engagement.
Set up an email preferences center. Enable your database to specify a timeframe in which they would like to hear from you, keep it simple suggest every week, once or twice a week, monthly.
Why your data matters to the email cadence
Different cadences might be relevant based on where your data is in the funnel, i.e. you might want to reach out to Leads at a different cadence than your Contacts.
