Before planning and deploying your e-mail campaign, think about the message goals:

Open the e-mail: Message open rates depend heavily on the inherent trust that lies with the sender of the e-mail and the subject line. Think carefully about the “from” field in the e-mail. If the relationship lies with an individual employee, list that person’s name rather than a generic customer service e-mail address, or the like. Subject lines should summarize the content of the e-mail and sell the value of the content found within. Ask the question the recipient will be asking – WIIFM – “what’s in it for me”? Also, pay attention to the time of day you’re sending to your audience – consider when the message will be best received.

Read the e-mail: What is the goal of the content? To educate the consumer on industry best practices? To present a client success story? To sell the features of a product? To discuss a new service? Whatever the goal, make it clear and always make sure you’re providing value to the reader.

Click from the e-mail: What’s the desired next step? Don’t provide all of the available information within the e-mail… give the reader a reason to click for more information or to complete the associated task. Make the call-to-action very clear and provide adequate instructions so the reader knows what to expect when they arrive on the web site landing page.

Click through website: You’ve gained the web visitor – you’re done, right? Wrong… gaining the click is only half the work. Now, you need to provide a clear navigation path for the visitor to click through and convert on your web site. Conversions may be a sale, a request for information, an e-mail newsletter sign-up, a content/promotion, etc.

Convert on site: You’ve led the visitor to the final step – now make task completion easy and thank the visitor on the confirmation page.