Email Marketing By the Numbers: What’s it All About?

Marketers, it’s time to let go. Say goodbye to intangibles and opinions. Wave adios to feelings and gut instinct—you know, that reason your boss used when you asked him why the color green would work for your brochure.

Repeat this adage with me: “Half my marketing dollars are wasted. I just don’t know which half.” Okay, it’s the last time you’ll ever say those words. It’s the last time you’ll take a leap of faith or look into your crystal ball and make a wild prediction.

I know that making marketing decisions based on feelings and intuition seems natural. And that traditional marketing, branding activities, and expensive professional services can be alluring. They’re comfortable. So comfortable, in fact, that they seem right to a lot of organizations. Here is one of my favorite lines from Thomas Paine’s Common Sense: “A long habit of not thinking something wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.”

Yet, there is a new era of marketing unfolding. One based on data, analysis, and what people actually do rather than what they feel or say. It’s time to say “no” to what may feel comfortable and “yes” to the facts.

As humans, we like to think we are interesting. Complex. The reality is that we typically repeat the same behavior over and over again. Take me, for example. This morning, I read the paper. I drank Starbucks coffee. I listened to my iPod while doing both. And guess what? I’ll do the same thing tomorrow.

That’s why action and behavior are such great predictors of future behavior. As a coffee drinker today, I’m a lot more likely to drink coffee tomorrow. Or, at least a lot more likely than my neighbor who never drinks coffee.

I’m continually baffled as to why so many coffee companies waste their time and money talking to noncoffee drinkers. That’s the problem with traditional mass marketing advertisements. Every time you run one of these campaigns, you’re spending most your effort in the wrong places; hoping that if you expose yourself to a big enough audience, you’ll find a few new coffee drinkers to make it all worthwhile.

Successful marketing means compelling people to act. We don’t run ads for our health or to keep the publishing industry alive. We do it because, as marketers, we are responsible for making people do something.

Fortunately for us, this new era of marketing means lots of room for progress and improvement. It is based on the principles of relationships, metrics, and analysis. And tools like email marketing make it easy to embrace these principles.

The transition to this new marketing mindset will be a tough for many marketers. Just think—by reading this introduction to Email Marketing By the Numbers, you already have an advantage.

I hope you’re ready to learn and improve. No matter what size organization you come from, how big of a budget you have, or what your specialty is, all of the strategies and tactics in my book are 100 percent doable.

Ever followed those “Paint by Numbers” instructions? Even the worst artist can get awfully close to painting a Picasso. This book is the “Paint by Numbers” of email marketing. It contains the step-by-step instructions you need to accomplish your goals, create better relationships, and move your organization to a higher level.

Ready to begin? You can purchase the book here.

As you’re reading, I encourage you to let me know if you have questions or comments by using the comments section below. I look forward to starting a dynamic conversation on this site.