What is this?

What is this? You might call it 'junk mail'. Those more sympathetic to the marketing cause might call it 'marketing email'.

What you probably don't know is the thousands of dollars and hours of effort into making one of these. There's the editorial content, or words of the email. They are drafted by a team of copywriters. Sent out for approval. Sent back for revisions. Sent back for approval. Sent back for revisions. Sent to the manager. Sent back for more revisions. This process takes a while. What is the result? A highly collaborate piece of text which conveys a message creatively and accurately.

What's more? What pictures will be used is a consideration. Do we own the picture or do we have to buy the rights? Is the picture approved? What size should it be? What should the layout of the email be?

The email is sent out. What next?

You have to measure analytics. What percentage of emails were opened? How many were interacted with? How many times did people make a purchase? How much revenue did this generate? Was the added revenue more than the cost to create it? What are the demographics of who opened it? Are they current owners? Previous owners?

For the next email, you have to determine when it is sent out. Sometimes there are blanket emails sent out marking an event or sale, but more often than not there are transactional emails which are triggered by something like a purchase or download.

Email marketing is complex and I'm glad to be learning a lot more about it at work!