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Week 5

Run your own email marketing campaign

You will create, manage, track, and complete a mock email marketing campaign. You’ll be given a fictional business to build the email campaign around, and you’ll employ all the strategies, tools, and tricks you’ve learned during this course to complete the campaign. First, you’ll set SMART goals for your campaign. Then, you’ll segment your email list and complete an email series. Finally, you’ll complete the campaign and end the course by analyzing the results of the campaign and presenting them to stakeholders.

Dedication to study

  • Videos: 5 min

  • Leitura: 2 h

  • Teste: 1 Teste com avaliação

Learning Objectives

  • Create an email marketing strategy, including contact management and segmentation.
  • Test, execute, and optimize an email marketing campaign.

Content

  1. Set up an email marketing campaign
  2. SMART goals in email marketing campaigns
  3. Click funnel and segmentation
  4. Analysis and presentation
  5. Review: Run your own email marketing campaign
  6. Course review: Think ouside the inbox: email marketing

1. Set up an email marketing campaign

Welcome to week 5

  • Video Duration: 43 seconds

Hi again and welcome to a new section where things are going to get a bit more interactive. In the next several activities, you’re going to grasp what it’s like to create and run a full email marketing campaign. First, I’ll set up a fake scenario for you where you will act as an email marketer for an online furniture company. You’ll do activities such as creating SMART goals and then reflect on them, crafting different types of emails, segmenting email lists, analyzing data and metrics, and presenting to stakeholders. Someday, you may have to run email campaigns, so getting practice now will help you out when you find yourself in your new role as a digital marketer. Are you ready to get started? Meet me in the next video.

Set the scene for your email marketing campaign

  • Video Duration: 2 minutes

In this video, I will introduce you to a made up company where you’ll be acting as their newest email marketing coordinator. You’ll be asked to do lots of email marketing based activities so that you can feel totally confident in your email marketing skills. This will help you become a more confident and well-rounded digital marketer. Let’s get into it. Feels like Home is an upscale, mostly online furniture company with a brick and mortar store front in New York City and a factory in Oslo, Norway. You’ve just been hired as their newest email marketing coordinator, and your team consists of five other digital marketing coordinators. You’ll handle the upcoming email campaign while your team members handle other digital marketing duties. Feels like Home already has a good online presence because that’s where most of their orders are made. They have ads set up within the Google Display Network and they have ads set up on social media, and through search engines. They’ve hired you because they’re releasing a new line of furniture to appeal to a different crowd. Their For All line features furniture at a much lower price point, but with the same quality craftsmanship. In releasing this line, they hope to cater to customers with less disposable income and grow their customer base. Feels like Home is already serving its current base with email marketing campaigns. Your aim will be just to leverage those current subscribers and new subscribers to market the For All line. For the sake of ease, you won’t have to worry about creating design elements or branded imagery in your emails. You’ll be given templates when you need to create emails, segment email lists, present data to stakeholders and more. Keeping these details in mind, you’ll complete several self-review activities that help you do this. At the end of it all, you’ll be able to reflect on your work. No one else will see these activities and you’ll be responsible for doing your absolute best. As each activity comes, we’ll provide you with the specifics necessary to finish them with confidence. Feel free to refer back to this video if you need a refresher on Feels like Home as a company.

Prepare to complete an email marketing campaign

  • Reading Duration: 10 minutes
Scenario

In this portion of the course, you’ll refer back to the scenario provided in a previous video. Feels Like Home is an upscale, mostly-online furniture retailer, with a brick-and-mortar storefront in New York City and a factory in Oslo, Norway. You’ve just been hired as their newest email marketing coordinator, and your team consists of 5 other digital marketing coordinators. You’re responsible for their upcoming email campaign, while your team members work on other digital marketing duties.

Feels Like Home is releasing a new line of furniture that will feature pieces with quality craftsmanship at a much lower price than their competitors. They hope to cater to customers who don’t typically spend as much money on furniture in order to grow their customer base.

For the remainder of this email marketing course, you’ll be applying the concepts you’ve learned to complete various activities. Read below for a brief overview of each activity.

Create SMART goals

In the activity, you will use what you’ve learned about SMART goals to create your own for the Feels Like Home campaign. We’ll provide you with two example goals created by the Feels Like Home team that you will transform into SMART goals.

Segment an email list

At this point, you’ve learned a lot about segmenting email lists. In this activity, you will segment a portion of an email subscriber list. Your subscribers have responded to a list of questions, and using that information, you will segment them into three different topics.

Complete an email series

In this upcoming activity, you will reflect on what you’ve learned about different types of emails to complete an email series welcoming new subscribers to your list. You’ll be tasked with ensuring there are clear subject lines, email bodies, and calls to action as you write a welcome email, a newsletter, and a promotional email.

Analyze email campaign metrics

In the activity on analyzing email campaign metrics, you’ll review a dashboard with your email marketing campaign results on it. Then, you’ll answer questions based on the results.

Create a presentation for stakeholders

In the activity on presenting to stakeholders, using the scenario and insights provided, you’ll learn how to summarize your campaign results using Google Slides. We’ll provide you with the content on each slide, and you’ll write speaker notes to accompany your visuals.

Key takeaways

By the end of this course, you’ll have created an entire email marketing campaign from start to finish. Don’t hesitate to refer to previous videos, readings, and activities to help you along the way.

2. SMART goals in email marketing campaigns

Activity: Create SMART goals for an email campaign

  • Practice Quiz. 1 question. Grade: 100%
    • Access Quiz:
Activity: Create SMART goals for an email campaign
  • On step 1: to Access the template:

Link to template: SMART goals

Activity Exemplar: Create SMART goals for an email campaign

  • Reading Duration: 10 minutes

Here is a completed exemplar along with an explanation of how the exemplar fulfills the expectations for the activity.

Completed Exemplar

To review the exemplar for this course item, click the link below and select “Use Template.”

Assessment of Exemplar

Compare the exemplar to your completed SMART goals. Review your work using each of the criteria in the exemplar. What did you do well? Where can you improve? Use your answers to these questions to guide you as you continue to progress through the course.

Note: The exemplar represents two possible SMART goals for the Feels Like Home scenario. Your goals will likely differ in certain ways. What’s important is that they meet as many of the SMART criteria as possible.

Let’s review each SMART goal:

SMART goal one

The original goal indicates that Feels Like Home will grow their email subscriber list by the end of September, but it doesn’t indicate how they will do it, whether it’s possible, or why it’s important. The SMART goal addresses all these questions, which increases Feels Like Home’s chances of reaching their aim:

“Grow the email subscriber list by 12,000 people by the end of September by partnering with social and paid media specialists and launching an email referral program that offers discounts to existing subscribers.”

  • Specific: Feels Like Home will create an email referral program that offers discounts to existing subscribers.

  • Measurable: The goal indicates by how much they want to grow the list, so it’s clear how they will measure success.

  • Attainable: They have six months to reach this goal and the target number of new subscribers is reasonable given the launch of an entirely new product line. However, more information may be needed to determine feasibility.

  • Relevant: Adding new subscribers to their email list means more potential conversions, which supports the goal of adding new customers to their base.

  • Time-bound: The deadline is in September.

SMART goal two

The original goal indicates that Feels Like Home will increase the monthly conversion rate, but it doesn’t indicate how they will do it, whether it’s possible, why it’s important, or when they will get it done. The SMART goal addresses all these questions, which increases Feels Like Home’s chances of reaching their aim:

“Increase the monthly email conversion rate by 2% within six months of launch by segmenting the email list for the For All line of products.”

  • Specific: Feels Like Home will segment their email list for the new For All line of products.

  • Measurable: The goal indicates by how much they want to increase conversions, so it’s clear how they will measure success.

  • Attainable: The goal is attainable because they have six months after launch to reach and a 2% is in line with industry benchmarks. However, more information may be needed to determine feasibility.

  • Relevant: Increasing the conversion rate of existing email subscribers directly supports the business goal of expanding the customer base by 30% within a year.

  • Time-bound: The deadline is six months after launch.

Reflect on SMART goals

  • Discussion Prompt Duration: 10 minutes

My SMART goals were similar to the exemplar in terms of being specific, measurable, and time-bound.

The most challenging aspect was ensuring they were attainable, requiring a balance between ambition and feasibility.

In terms of what I could have done better, I realize that I could have provided more context and reasoning behind my goals.

Explaining why each goal was important for the success of the campaign and how it aligned with the overall business objectives would have added depth to my SMART goals.

Additionally, I could have delved deeper into potential challenges and risks that might hinder the achievement of these goals, along with contingency plans to address these issues.

On the positive side, I believe I did well in making my goals specific and measurable.

I clearly defined the objectives I wanted to accomplish and set concrete metrics to measure my progress.

Additionally, I adhered to the time-bound criteria by establishing realistic deadlines for achieving each goal, ensuring a sense of urgency and accountability in the implementation of my email marketing campaign.

3. Click funnel and segmentation

Activity: Segment an email list

  • Practice Quiz. 1 question. Grade: 100%
    • Access Quiz:
Activity: Segment an email list

  • On step 1: to Access the template:

Activity Exemplar: Segment an email list

  • Reading Duration: 10 minutes

Here is a completed exemplar along with an explanation of how the exemplar fulfills the expectations for the activity.

Completed Exemplar

To review the exemplar for this course item, click the link below and select “Use Template.”

Assessment of Exemplar
Line break

Compare the exemplar to your completed email segmentation activity. Review your work using each of the criteria in the exemplar. What did you do well? Where can you improve? Use your answers to these questions to guide you as you continue to progress through the course.

Note: To make it easier to check your activity against the exemplar, select Sort A - Z in both documents for each of the following columns:

Small kitchen solutions

The following subscribers selected “kitchen/dining room” and “small space”, so they should receive emails about small kitchen solutions:

  • Ava

  • Deonte

  • Emmett

  • Leona

  • Stefania

  • Penny

  • Min

Exclusive in-store sales

The following subscribers selected “yes” for both In-store events and Special promotions, so they should receive emails about exclusive in-store sales:

  • Deonte

  • Leona

  • Min

  • Felix

  • Rosa

  • Casey

  • Tarit

  • Shirin

  • Ahmet

  • Riley

  • Kenji

Pet-friendly content

The following subscribers selected “pet-friendliness” and “bedroom” OR “living room/den,” so they should receive emails with pet-friendly content:

  • Felix

  • Rosa

  • Casey

  • Shirin

  • Ahmet

  • Jaya

  • Saanvi

  • Quinn

  • Hector

How did segmentation go?

  • Reading Duration: 10 minutes

Great job on the last activity! How do you think you did?

Segmenting your audience is important because it allows you to categorize your contacts by a predefined set of identifiers. Segmentation is a great way to communicate effectively, which can help your brand stand out when facing online competitors.

In fact, digital retail brands that create personalized promotional emails experience a 46% higher email open-rate and a 27% higher click-through rate than regular marketing emails.

As you just experienced, segmenting can sometimes be a difficult part of email marketing. However, it is key to maintaining successful relationships with your business’s different customer groups. It also helps you understand their preferred styles of communication and their unique needs.

Move on to the next activity where you will create an email marketing strategy, including contact management and segmentation

Activity: Complete an email series

  • Practice Quiz. 1 question. Grade: 100%
    • Access Quiz:
Activity: Complete an email series

  • On step 1: to Access the template:

Activity Exemplar: Complete an email series

  • Reading Duration: 10 minutes

Here is a completed exemplar along with an explanation of how the exemplar fulfills the expectations for the activity.

Completed Exemplar

To review the exemplar for this course item, click the link below and select “Use Template.”

Assessment of Exemplar

Compare the exemplar to your completed email series. Review your work using each of the criteria in the exemplar. What did you do well? Where can you improve? Use your answers to these questions to guide you as you continue to progress through the course.

Note: The exemplar represents one possible way to complete the activity. Your emails will likely differ in certain ways. What’s important is that they are clear, action-oriented, and provide value to subscribers.

Let’s review each of the three emails:

Feels Like Home welcome email

The body of the welcome email is friendly and conversational in tone. It invites the reader to make themselves comfortable and outlines some of the benefits they can expect. It also expresses gratitude in a concrete way by offering a 10% discount to subscribers.

Subject line: Welcome home, “fname”!

  • The subject line is brief, personalized, and matches the friendly tone of the body. The phrase “welcome home” greets the customer and recalls the name of the business “Feels Like Home”. The subject line also includes the subscriber’s name “fname”, which adds a personal touch.
For All product launch newsletter

The newsletter’s subject line makes it clear that the message will introduce a new product line, while the call to action invites the reader to check out the items in the collection.

Body: Say hello to our new For All line, made with the same care and craftsmanship as always—now for less. Featuring classic pieces to last a lifetime, the For All line is sure to please even the toughest armchair critics.

Creating affordable, luxury furniture in our signature style was no easy task, but we’re proud to say we’ve done it. With new kitchen and dining sets, sofas, rugs, and more, there’s never been a better time to get the home you’ve always wanted.

  • The body introduces the new line and emphasizes its main features, which is also a potential benefit for the reader: stylish, quality furniture that doesn’t cost too much. The meaning is clear and the tone conversational. It also uses all the keywords: classic, affordable, luxury, craftsmanship, and signature style.
Promotional email

The subject line and body of the promotional email remind the reader of a product they visited on the company’s website and the discount code they can use to purchase it.

Call to action: Redeem 10% off now

  • The call to action is brief and action oriented. It also describes a specific action the reader can take to collect their discount and make a purchase.

Reflect on example emails

  • Discussion Prompt. Duration: 10 minutes

In comparing my email series to the exemplar provided, there are both similarities and differences.

My welcome email shared a similar friendly and inviting tone, expressing gratitude to subscribers. However, I can see that the exemplar was more personalized with the subscriber’s name in the subject line, which added a nice touch that I might have incorporated into my own email.

The message for the newsletter aligns with the exemplar in terms of introducing a new product line and emphasizing its features and benefits. However, the exemplar was slightly more concise and compelling in its messaging, which is an area where I could have improved.

The promotional email in my series reminded readers of products they viewed and offered a discount code, which is similar to the exemplar. However, the exemplar seemed to use more persuasive language and a clear call to action, which made it more effective in encouraging readers to take immediate action.

The most challenging email for me to write was the promotional email because it required a balance between reminding readers of their previous interaction with the product and persuading them to make a purchase with the discount code. Crafting a compelling and concise message for this email was particularly challenging.

In terms of improvement, I could have made my emails more personalized, akin to the exemplar, by using the subscriber’s name. Additionally, I could have refined the messaging in the newsletter and promotional emails to make them more concise and persuasive.

On the positive side, I successfully maintained a friendly and conversational tone throughout my email series, which is essential for engaging and retaining readers.

4. Analysis and presentation

Activity: Analyze email campaign metrics

  • Practice Quiz. 1 question. Grade: 100%
    • Access Quiz:
Activity: Analyze email campaign metrics
  • On step 1: Access supporting materials

The following supporting materials will help you complete this quiz. Keep them open as you proceed to the questions below.

To use the supporting materials for this course item, click the link below and select “Use Template.”

Activity: Analyze email campaign metrics result

Revisiting presentations

  • Reading Duration: 10 minutes

You just completed an activity where you created an email marketing strategy, including contact management and segmentation. In the next activity, you will create a presentation for stakeholders.

This reading provides tips to consider when creating a presentation for stakeholders.

As a reminder, presentations are a great way to share research insights with people in your organization and external parties. There are many digital tools you can use to create a presentation, like Google Slides, Microsoft PowerPoint, and Apple Keynote.

Provide an overview

Include a short roadmap or “table of contents” at the beginning of your presentation, so your audience knows what to expect throughout the presentation. Your roadmap should almost be like a checklist that the audience can follow along, so they have a vision for how much content is left to cover.

In addition, one slide should feature an overview of the content you’re presenting, also known as an executive summary. It’s kind of like sharing your conclusion or biggest takeaways at the beginning of the presentation. Be sure to discuss how your research impacts the big picture, like how the product would support the company’s goals and objectives. When your audience understands the overall goal of the presentation and your product from the start, they’ll have a better context for specific details and stories you provide later.

Show numbers

A powerful image often communicates information more clearly than words. Use data, graphs, and charts to illustrate your most important insights. Your goal is to keep the attention of your audience, so let the images and data you show speak to your audience and strengthen the story you’re telling.

Less is more when it comes to text

Keep the information you present short and to the point. Your slides should only include high-level details that answer questions like why, what, and how. Try to include minimal text on your slides so that the audience doesn’t spend time reading while you’re presenting. If necessary, you can add additional resources in the appendix of your presentation for the audience to review later.

Provide recommendations for next steps

End the presentation with a list of recommended next steps based on the insights you presented. Your recommendations might include changes to make to the product designs, additional research to conduct, or future meetings to schedule. This step helps gain support from stakeholders and will put the pieces in place to move forward in the design process. It’s a best practice to clearly state your recommendations on a single slide.

Leave time for questions

At the end of your presentation, be sure to leave a few minutes so your audience can ask questions about the material you presented and for you to clarify any points. This is also a great opportunity for you to provide more details covering areas that your audience is interested in learning more about.

And that’s it! With these tips in mind, you’re ready to create your very own research presentation and deliver it to stakeholders.

Activity: Create a presentation for stakeholders

  • Practice Quiz. 1 question. Grade: 100%
    • Access Quiz:
Activity: Create a presentation for stakeholders
  • On step 1: Access supporting materials

To use the template for this course item, click the link below and select “Use Template.”

Activity Exemplar: Create a presentation for stakeholders

  • Reading Duration: 10 minutes

Here is a completed exemplar along with an explanation of how the exemplar fulfills the expectations for the activity.

Completed Exemplar

To review the exemplar for this course item, click the link below and select “Use Template.”

Link to exemplar: Email campaign presentation

Assessment of Exemplar

Compare the exemplar to your completed presentation. Review your work using each of the criteria in the exemplar. What did you do well? Where can you improve? Use your answers to these questions to guide you as you continue to progress through the course.

Note: The exemplar represents one possible version of the presentation. Yours will likely differ in certain ways. What’s important is that your presentation explains the campaign data clearly and makes actionable recommendations.

Let’s review Slides 4– 7 one at a time:

Slide 4: New subscribers added

Summary: The speaker notes summarize the most relevant information from the slide: The number of new subscribers have gone up each month, but not enough to reach the 12,000 subscribers target on time. They also suggest that the launch of the new line could have had a bigger impact on this number than pre-launch marketing activities.

Recommendations: Because the campaign is only a few weeks behind schedule for its subscriber goal, the notes recommend continuing to monitor the situation.

Slide 5: Conversion rate

Summary: The speaker notes state that the campaign is also behind schedule in meeting its conversion goal. The conversion rate has risen in both July and August, but is projected to miss the target.

Recommendations: Like the subscriber goal, the conversion goal is about a month behind schedule. However, as the next slide will demonstrate, optimizing certain metrics could have a measurable impact on the conversion rate. The notes also suggest continuing to monitor results to determine whether this rate of growth is sustainable.

Slide 6: Weekly open rate vs. click-to-open rate

Summary: The speaker notes explain that the gap between the open rate and click-to-open rate has widened in the eight weeks after launch.

Recommendations: Because the click-to-open rate is unusually low, the notes recommend conducting A/B tests with the CTAs and hyperlink placement. Optimizing the click-to-open rate could help boost the conversion rate.

Slide 7: Conclusion and next steps

The conclusion summarizes the most important parts of the presentation and restates the suggested next steps. It also makes recommendations for future campaigns, including running more A/B tests and starting to build the email list earlier.

5. Review: Run your own email marketing campaign

Wrap-up

  • Video Duration: 1 minute

Great job completing those activities. You’ve accomplished a lot in this session. To recap, as an email marketing coordinator for Feels like Home, you set SMART goals for your campaign to target a new audience, crafted emails that you might send out to grow your subscribers, segmented email lists, analyzed metrics and KPIs to gain insights, and presented those insights to your stakeholders. Now that you’ve created, tracked and leveraged insights from an email campaign from start to finish, you understand how important each element is to the success of your campaign. And moving your way through this course, you’ve been prepared for a whole new role and perhaps industry. And by the end of the program you’ll be able to use all of these assets to create a portfolio to show employers. The purpose of digital marketing is to garner new traffic leads and sales for a company. Setting SMART goals, crafting emails to segmented targeted audiences, and reflecting on all the metrics that come as a result, helps you do that. And getting extra practice at presenting to stakeholders will help you justify whatever campaigns you come up with in your role. You should be really proud of the work you’ve done on that email campaign.

Glossary terms from module 5

Module 5 challenge

6. Course review: Think outside the inbox: email marketing

Wrap-up

  • Video Duration: 1 minute

Congratulations on completing this course on email marketing. If you search for jobs in the digital marketing space, you’ll have several achievements you can point to as proof that you are equipped to handle all kinds of digital marketing tasks. In this course, you gained an understanding for how email marketing fits into a digital marketing strategy. You learned to create contexts for your strategies using PESTLE, SWOT, and SMART goals. Then you learned about the various types of emails and what makes each of them effective. You explored email marketing tools like HubSpot, Mailchimp, and Salesforce. You learned all about analyzing metrics and presenting data to stakeholders. And finally, you put all of those skills together and created an email marketing campaign from start to finish as a digital marketing coordinator at our example upscale furniture company, Feels like Home. As a digital marketer, each day may be different than the last. Keeping in mind the email marketing based concepts and processes you learned here will give you a greater understanding of how all of the different types of marketing fit together. If you know how to create goals, track metrics, and reflect on lessons you learned in email marketing, you can apply the same basic concepts to all kinds of digital marketing campaigns. As you continue on in the program, refer back to what you learned here. Having a full picture of all types of digital marketing helps you become a more effective digital marketer. Good luck.

Glossary terms from module 5

Your learning journey

  • Discussion Prompt Duration: 10 minutes

Throughout this course on email marketing, I’ve gained a comprehensive understanding of the subject, but there are still some areas I’d like to explore further. I’m particularly interested in diving deeper into advanced email segmentation and personalization strategies to enhance targeting and engagement. Additionally, learning more about A/B testing and email optimization techniques would be valuable to improve campaign performance.

One surprising aspect I’ve learned is the intricacy of data analysis in email marketing. The depth to which we can track user behavior and use that data to refine strategies and content was unexpected. It highlights the importance of data-driven decision-making in this field.

I’m quite intrigued by roles in digital marketing and e-commerce because of the dynamic and data-centric nature of these fields. The ability to reach a global audience and influence consumer behavior through digital channels is fascinating. I believe working in such a role would offer an exciting and continuously evolving environment where creativity and analytical skills intersect to drive business growth. The potential to harness the power of technology and data to connect with audiences and drive results is a compelling prospect for me, and I’d be eager to explore such opportunities in the future.

END! - Week 5 - Course 4

Final Grade of this course: 94.00 %