Creating an email marketing campaign can be exciting. You have your product or service ready, a list of subscribers to contact, and endless ideas about what to include in your emails. But before you hit "send" on that first email, there’s one critical step that many marketers overlook: setting a clear goal.
Whether you're looking to build relationships, nurture leads, or drive conversions, having a well-defined goal is the foundation of any successful email marketing strategy.
Interestingly, Ashley Budd and Dayana Kibilds touch on this topic in their book Mailed It!: A Guide to Crafting Emails That Build Relationships and Get Results, where they discuss the importance of aligning your email content with a clear objective. By setting the right goals from the start, you ensure that each email you send has a purpose and gets you closer to achieving your desired outcomes.
If you’re ready to take a more strategic approach to email marketing, keep reading to discover why setting a goal is the first step to creating impactful, results-driven campaigns.
When you ask “What is your goal?” before creating an email marketing strategy, you gain clarity on what you’re trying to achieve. This helps you to focus your efforts, ensuring that every email you send has a clear purpose and is aligned with a broader marketing objective.
Without a clear goal, your email marketing efforts can become scattered. You might be tempted to send out a variety of messages that don’t tie into one another, or you could switch strategies mid-campaign without understanding the impact. Having a focused goal prevents this by guiding every decision, from content creation to email frequency.
For example, if your goal is to drive sales, you’ll want to focus on creating emails that promote specific products or services, perhaps with clear calls-to-action like “Shop Now” or “Buy Today.” Your entire campaign would revolve around creating urgency and making it easy for the reader to convert from a prospect into a customer. On the other hand, if your goal is to nurture long-term relationships with potential customers, your strategy would focus on providing value, such as sharing educational content or offering exclusive insights.
A well-defined goal also helps you choose the right tone and message for your emails. Promotional emails aimed at driving sales might be more direct and benefit-oriented, while nurturing emails might be softer, focusing more on building trust and providing information.
When your goals are clear, you avoid wasting time on ineffective strategies. You’ll know exactly what type of content to create and how often to send emails because everything is mapped to that one goal. For example, if your goal is customer retention, sending too many promotional emails might alienate your audience. Instead, your efforts should be focused on creating a series of engaging, value-driven messages that keep your audience connected to your brand over the long term.
This focus helps allocate resources more efficiently. By directing time, budget, and creativity toward activities that are directly linked to your goals, you avoid spreading your resources too thin across tactics that don’t drive results.
One of the biggest benefits of focusing your efforts is the ability to maintain consistency across your email campaigns. Consistent messaging not only helps reinforce your brand but also keeps your audience engaged and clear on what to expect from you. This doesn’t mean every email looks the same, but that the theme, tone, and overall purpose are aligned with the goal.
For instance, let’s say you want to build trust with new subscribers. All your emails in that sequence should work together to build a positive perception of your brand. You could start with an introductory email that explains who you are, followed by educational emails that provide valuable information related to their interests. In each email, you’re building on your goal of establishing trust, creating a cohesive narrative that strengthens your relationship with your audience.
Without a clear goal, it’s easy to fall into the trap of the “spray and pray” approach—sending as many emails as possible in the hopes that something sticks. Unfortunately, this often results in poor performance and an irritated audience. Focused efforts, on the other hand, mean that every email has a specific role to play in moving your audience toward the desired action, whether that’s engaging with your content, purchasing a product, or simply staying connected with your brand.
By having a clear goal, you set yourself up for a more organized, efficient, and effective email marketing campaign. It allows you to put the right message in front of the right audience at the right time, increasing the likelihood of achieving your desired outcome.
One of the key advantages of setting a clear goal before launching your email marketing strategy is that it helps you identify the right audience. Knowing your goal allows you to segment your audience effectively and deliver tailored messages that resonate with specific groups, increasing the chances of engagement and conversions.
Audience segmentation is the process of dividing your overall email list into smaller groups based on specific criteria, such as demographics, buying behavior, or stage in the customer journey. By understanding your goal, you can determine which segments are most relevant to your campaign. For instance, if your goal is to convert first-time buyers into repeat customers, you would focus on targeting those who have made a purchase in the past but haven’t engaged with your brand recently.
Segmentation helps you avoid sending generic, one-size-fits-all emails that may not appeal to everyone on your list. Instead, it allows you to tailor your content to meet the specific needs and interests of each segment, making your emails more relevant and increasing the likelihood of engagement.
Different goals require different audience segments. Here are a few examples:
Lead Nurturing: If your goal is to nurture leads, your target audience might consist of people who have signed up for your newsletter or downloaded a free resource but haven’t yet made a purchase. These individuals are aware of your brand but need more information or trust-building content before they’re ready to buy. In this case, you would focus on providing value through educational content, case studies, or special offers to keep them engaged and move them further down the sales funnel.
Customer Retention: If your goal is customer retention, your target audience would include existing customers who have made one or more purchases. Your emails would focus on keeping these customers engaged, offering personalized recommendations, loyalty rewards, or tips on how to get the most out of their previous purchases. By segmenting your audience in this way, you ensure that your messaging remains relevant to their specific needs and encourages long-term loyalty.
Re-engagement: If your goal is to re-engage dormant subscribers or customers who haven’t interacted with your brand in a while, you’ll want to create a specific segment of those users. The content for this audience might include special promotions, incentives to return, or a simple “We Miss You” message to reignite their interest.
Promotions and Sales: If your goal is to drive immediate sales, you’ll likely target a segment of active, high-intent subscribers who are most likely to make a purchase. These could be people who have added items to their cart but haven’t checked out or those who have shown interest in specific products through past interactions. A more sales-driven email with discounts or time-sensitive offers might work well for this group.
Once you’ve segmented your audience based on your goal, the next step is to tailor your messaging. Personalization is key to email marketing success, and it goes beyond just using someone’s first name in the subject line. When you personalize your emails based on the recipient’s behaviors, interests, or demographics, you create more relevant content that feels tailor-made for them.
For example, let’s say your goal is to promote a new product line. By segmenting your audience based on past purchase behavior, you can send personalized recommendations that are more likely to resonate with each recipient. Customers who previously bought a specific product might receive an email suggesting complementary items from your new collection, while new subscribers could receive an introductory offer to encourage their first purchase.
Data is the backbone of audience segmentation. The more data you collect about your subscribers—whether through purchase history, website interactions, or email engagement—the more effectively you can segment them. Tools like customer relationship management (CRM) systems and email marketing platforms provide valuable insights that can guide your segmentation efforts. These tools allow you to track user behaviors and interactions, which in turn help you refine your segments and create more targeted campaigns.
For instance, if your goal is to build stronger relationships with your audience, you might segment based on engagement data, focusing on subscribers who consistently open and click through your emails. This segment represents your most loyal followers, and you can reward them with special offers, early access to products, or exclusive content that strengthens the bond.
One of the risks in email marketing is sending too many messages to too broad an audience, which can lead to email fatigue. When your emails aren’t relevant to your audience’s needs or interests, they’re more likely to unsubscribe or mark your messages as spam. This is where having a clear goal and the right audience segmentation comes into play.
By narrowing your focus and targeting specific segments with relevant content, you reduce the risk of overwhelming your audience with irrelevant emails. You also maintain a higher quality of engagement because your subscribers receive content that aligns with their preferences and interests.
Let’s say you’re an e-commerce business launching a new product. If your goal is to promote this product to your most loyal customers, you could create a segment of those who have made frequent purchases in the past. These customers are already familiar with your brand, and they’re more likely to be interested in your new product launch.
On the other hand, if your goal is to attract new customers, you might focus on a different segment—perhaps people who signed up for your newsletter but haven’t made a purchase yet. For this group, your emails might focus on introducing your brand, showcasing customer reviews, or offering a first-time purchase discount.
By identifying the right audience for each goal, you ensure that your email marketing efforts are both targeted and effective. Audience segmentation allows you to create more personalized and relevant messages, which in turn leads to higher engagement, conversions, and customer satisfaction.
Once you've established your goal for an email marketing campaign, that goal will heavily influence the type of content you create. The content you send to your audience needs to align with your objectives to effectively guide them toward the desired action. Whether your goal is to build relationships, drive sales, or educate your audience, having a clear content strategy is essential for achieving your email marketing targets.
Different goals call for different content approaches. Here’s how understanding your goal can shape the kind of content you produce:
Building Awareness: If your goal is to build brand awareness, the content of your emails should be focused on introducing your brand and communicating your unique value proposition. This might include sharing your company’s story, showcasing your team, or highlighting your brand’s mission and values. You can also provide educational content that helps subscribers understand how your product or service fits into their lives. This type of content typically doesn’t push for an immediate sale but aims to create a connection and build trust with your audience.
Driving Sales: When the goal is to generate sales, your content needs to be much more action-oriented. Emails in this scenario might include product showcases, special promotions, discounts, and limited-time offers. The tone of the email is often more urgent, encouraging subscribers to take immediate action, such as clicking through to a product page or completing a purchase. Sales-driven content typically includes strong calls-to-action (CTAs) like “Buy Now,” “Shop Today,” or “Claim Your Discount.”
Lead Nurturing: If you’re nurturing leads, your content will likely focus on providing value to your audience through educational or informative materials. This could be in the form of blog posts, how-to guides, case studies, or even video tutorials. The goal here is to engage your audience with useful, relevant content that helps them solve a problem or understand how your product or service benefits them, while gradually moving them closer to a purchasing decision.
Customer Retention: If your objective is customer retention, your content should focus on maintaining engagement with existing customers. This could include personalized product recommendations, loyalty programs, tips on how to use your product more effectively, or updates about new product features. Retention-focused content is designed to remind your customers why they chose your brand in the first place and encourage them to keep coming back.
The tone of your emails also plays a significant role in how your content is received, and this tone should be shaped by your overall objective. For example, a series of emails designed to promote a sale would likely adopt a more energetic and direct tone, emphasizing the benefits of making a purchase now. In contrast, if your goal is to nurture leads over time, the tone may be softer, more informative, and less sales-oriented.
The language you use, the way you structure your content, and the style of your messaging are all influenced by what you hope to achieve. For example:
Let’s break down some specific types of content that align with common email marketing goals:
For Awareness Campaigns: Storytelling, brand videos, infographics, and introductory blog posts can help potential customers get to know your brand. Emails that focus on awareness might include links to your About Us page, blog content, or videos explaining your product or service.
For Sales Campaigns: Product highlights, customer testimonials, and exclusive discounts are ideal for driving sales. A sales email might include images of products, customer reviews, and an enticing call-to-action like “Shop Now” or “Limited Time Offer.” This content should be visually appealing and persuasive, making it easy for recipients to quickly understand the value and make a purchase decision.
For Lead Nurturing Campaigns: Educational content such as how-to guides, industry insights, white papers, and webinars can nurture leads by offering valuable information without pushing for an immediate sale. These emails might link to a series of blog posts, case studies, or offer downloadable resources that help leads solve a specific problem. The aim is to keep the audience engaged and informed while gradually building trust and credibility.
For Customer Retention Campaigns: Loyalty rewards, personalized recommendations, and customer satisfaction surveys are examples of content that can help retain customers. You might send emails thanking customers for their purchase, offering them a discount on their next order, or recommending new products based on their past purchases. Retention content is all about reinforcing the customer’s decision to choose your brand and showing them the ongoing value of their relationship with you.
The frequency and timing of your emails are also shaped by your goals. For example, a series of promotional emails aimed at generating sales might be sent more frequently, especially if there is a limited-time offer involved. On the other hand, nurturing emails designed to build trust over time might be sent less frequently, with a focus on providing valuable content at regular intervals that don’t overwhelm the recipient.
The timing of your emails is crucial to their success. For instance, if your goal is to promote a special event or sale, you’ll want to send emails leading up to the event and a final reminder on the day of the event. If your goal is to build long-term relationships, you may space out emails over weeks or months, ensuring each one delivers value and deepens the relationship without bombarding your audience.
Data plays a crucial role in shaping your content strategy. By analyzing past campaign results, you can determine which types of content perform best with your audience. Are they responding more to educational content, or do promotional emails drive the highest engagement? Are there particular topics that seem to resonate with certain audience segments?
With the help of data, you can fine-tune your content strategy to better meet your goal. For example, if your goal is to drive engagement, you might notice that emails featuring blog posts or how-to videos get higher click-through rates, signaling that your audience prefers content that educates rather than sells directly.
A clear goal also makes it easier to test and refine your email marketing campaigns. You can conduct A/B tests to see which types of content, subject lines, or calls-to-action perform better with your audience. For example, if your goal is to increase conversions, you could test two different versions of a promotional email to see which one results in more clicks or purchases. With this data, you can continually improve your content strategy and optimize future emails for better performance.
In summary, having a clear goal shapes your content strategy in several ways, from the type of content you produce to the tone and frequency of your emails. By aligning your content with your objectives, you can ensure that every email serves a specific purpose, whether it’s to educate, engage, or convert your audience.
One of the biggest benefits of having a clear goal in your email marketing strategy is that it helps you identify and track the right metrics, often referred to as Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Metrics give you insights into how well your emails are performing, but the specific metrics you track depend on what you’re trying to achieve. By setting a goal, you can determine which KPIs are most relevant to measure your success.
Different email marketing goals require different metrics to evaluate success. Without a clear goal, you might end up focusing on metrics that don't tell the full story or aren’t aligned with your primary objectives. Let’s take a look at some common goals and the corresponding KPIs to track:
Goal: Increase Sales
Goal: Build Brand Awareness
Goal: Nurture Leads
Goal: Increase Customer Retention
When you have a clear goal in mind, tracking the right KPIs allows you to measure success more accurately. For example, if your goal is to boost sales, open rates alone won’t tell you much. You could have a high open rate but a low conversion rate, meaning people are opening your emails but not taking the desired action. In this case, focusing on conversion rates or revenue per email would give you a much better picture of your campaign’s effectiveness.
Similarly, if your goal is to build relationships through lead nurturing, tracking engagement metrics (such as open rates and time spent on linked content) can help you understand how well your emails are keeping leads interested and moving them along the customer journey. Without these insights, you might not realize that your content is missing the mark or that you need to adjust your approach.
Once you’ve tracked your KPIs, you can use this data to optimize your email campaigns over time. For example, if your goal is to increase customer retention and you notice that repeat purchase rates are lower than expected, you might adjust your email content to offer more personalized recommendations or exclusive discounts for loyal customers. Similarly, if your goal is to drive conversions but your click-through rate is low, you might experiment with different types of calls-to-action (CTAs) or product offers to see what resonates better with your audience.
Tracking KPIs also allows you to conduct A/B testing to improve future campaigns. For example, you could test two different subject lines to see which one results in a higher open rate or test two types of content to see which generates more engagement. By continuously refining your strategy based on data, you’ll get closer to achieving your marketing goals.
Having a clear goal also helps you set benchmarks for success. For example, if you’ve previously run campaigns with similar goals, you can use those results as a benchmark to measure the effectiveness of your current campaign. Let’s say your average open rate in past campaigns was 20%, and your goal is to improve that to 25% in the next campaign. By setting these benchmarks, you give yourself a target to aim for and can adjust your tactics accordingly if you’re not reaching it.
Even if you’re running a campaign for the first time, industry benchmarks can serve as a guide. For instance, open rates for email campaigns typically range between 15-25% across various industries. Knowing these benchmarks can help you set realistic goals and measure whether your campaign is performing above or below average.
Metrics aren’t just useful for measuring the success of individual campaigns—they’re also valuable for tracking long-term progress. Over time, you can analyze trends in your email performance to see if you’re consistently improving. For instance, you might notice that your open rates, click-through rates, or conversion rates are gradually increasing as you refine your strategy. These trends provide insights into the overall health of your email marketing efforts and allow you to make data-driven decisions moving forward.
In conclusion, having a clear goal helps guide your metrics and KPIs, allowing you to track the success of your email campaigns more accurately. By focusing on the right metrics, you’ll gain valuable insights into what’s working and what’s not, enabling you to optimize your strategy and achieve better results over time.
A clear goal does more than just guide your content and metrics—it plays a crucial role in keeping your entire team aligned and focused. When everyone understands the goal of an email marketing campaign, each team member knows their role in achieving that objective, which leads to a more cohesive, efficient, and effective campaign. Here’s how setting a goal keeps your team on track and maximizes the impact of your efforts.
When your goal is clearly defined, every team member—whether they’re part of content creation, design, analytics, or marketing automation—knows exactly what they’re working toward. This ensures that each person understands their responsibility in moving the campaign forward.
For example:
This clarity helps avoid confusion or misalignment. Without a clear goal, different team members might work toward different objectives, leading to a disjointed campaign where the design doesn’t match the messaging, or the content doesn’t align with the intended outcome. A focused goal ensures everyone is on the same page and working in sync.
Having a goal in place significantly simplifies the decision-making process throughout the entire email marketing campaign. Every decision—ranging from the selection of the most appropriate email template to determining the optimal timing for sending out the emails—can be carefully evaluated based on how effectively it aligns with and supports the established goal. For instance, if the primary goal is to boost sales during a high-traffic holiday season, the marketing team is keenly aware of the need to prioritize urgency in their messaging. This means crafting emails that feature time-sensitive offers, such as limited-time discounts or exclusive holiday bundles, to create a sense of urgency and encourage immediate action from the recipients. On the other hand, if the goal is to foster long-term engagement and build a lasting relationship with customers, the decision-making process might lean toward developing more personalized and valuable content. This approach focuses on delivering content that offers genuine value to the audience, such as insightful tips, helpful guides, or exclusive insights, rather than resorting to quick-sell promotions that may not sustain interest in the long run.
With a clear and well-defined goal, decisions can be made more swiftly and efficiently because the guiding principle remains consistent: Does this action help us achieve our objective? This clear-cut approach eliminates the need for time-consuming debates and discussions, ensuring that every step taken in the campaign is purposeful and strategically aligned with the overarching goals. By maintaining this focus, the team can avoid unnecessary distractions and concentrate their efforts on activities that directly contribute to the success of the campaign, ultimately maximizing the impact and effectiveness of their email marketing strategy.
A well-defined goal fosters collaboration among different teams and departments, ensuring that everyone contributes to the campaign in a way that complements the work of others. For instance, when the marketing and sales teams have a shared goal—like converting leads into customers—they can collaborate to ensure that the email content resonates with the sales pitch and provides the right incentives to drive conversions.
Similarly, the design and content teams can work closely together to ensure that visuals and copy are aligned with the campaign’s objective. If the goal is to raise awareness, the design team might prioritize branding elements, while the content team focuses on storytelling. If the goal is to drive conversions, both teams will likely collaborate on creating strong, visually appealing CTAs that prompt immediate action.
By having a shared understanding of the goal, teams can break down silos and work together more effectively, creating a unified message that resonates with your audience and helps achieve the desired outcome.
When there’s a clear goal, the team’s focus undergoes a significant transformation—from merely producing content to genuinely delivering meaningful results. Instead of simply adhering to a schedule and sending out emails because they’re marked on the calendar, the team becomes deeply motivated to craft emails that are not only timely but also strategically designed to achieve the specific objectives laid out for the campaign. This crucial shift in mindset—from concentrating on output to honing in on outcome—ensures that every email sent out is purposeful, providing tangible value to both the brand and its audience, thereby bringing you incrementally closer to realizing your ultimate goal.
For instance, rather than sending a generic newsletter that attempts to cover a broad spectrum of unrelated topics, a team that is focused on a well-defined goal will dedicate its efforts to crafting emails that directly align with and contribute to the success of the campaign. This could involve creating targeted promotions that speak to specific segments of the audience, developing personalized content that resonates on an individual level, or producing educational materials that effectively nurture leads and guide them through the sales funnel. Such a results-oriented focus also aids in prioritizing tasks, ensuring that the most impactful and strategically significant work is tackled first. This prevents the team from becoming bogged down by less critical activities, allowing them to maintain momentum and avoid unnecessary distractions, ultimately enhancing the overall effectiveness and efficiency of the email marketing initiative.
A clear goal ensures that the messaging remains consistent throughout the campaign. When everyone knows the objective, it becomes easier to maintain a consistent voice, tone, and theme across all email communications. This consistency is crucial for building trust with your audience and ensuring that your emails reinforce your brand’s message at every touchpoint.
For example, if the goal is to build customer loyalty, the team will consistently emphasize themes of appreciation, reward, and long-term value in every email. If the goal is to drive sales, the messaging will consistently focus on urgency, special offers, and the benefits of purchasing now. This consistent messaging across all emails ensures that your audience receives a clear and unified message, increasing the likelihood of achieving your campaign objectives.
Email marketing doesn’t happen in a vacuum—it’s part of a broader marketing strategy that likely includes social media, paid ads, content marketing, and more. A clear goal for your email campaign ensures that it aligns with your larger business and marketing objectives. For example, if your overall marketing goal is to increase website traffic, your email campaigns might focus on driving clicks to your site by offering valuable resources, blog posts, or new product information.
By aligning your email marketing goal with your broader strategy, you ensure that your efforts contribute to the company’s overall success, creating synergy between different marketing channels. This alignment also makes it easier for your team to see the bigger picture and understand how their work in email marketing supports larger business goals.
A clear goal allows for easier evaluation of team performance. With specific KPIs tied to the goal, it becomes straightforward to measure the team’s success. Are the open rates, click-through rates, or conversion rates meeting expectations? If not, the team can analyze the data, identify areas for improvement, and adjust their approach to better achieve the goal.
For example, if the goal is to nurture leads and the engagement rates are lower than expected, the team can reassess the email content, design, or segmentation to find out where the disconnect is. Having a clear, measurable goal makes it easier to pinpoint what’s working and what’s not, ensuring that the team remains focused on continuous improvement.
In summary, setting a clear goal keeps your team focused, aligned, and accountable. It simplifies decision-making, fosters collaboration, and ensures that every action taken contributes to achieving the campaign’s objective. When everyone is working toward the same goal, the result is a more cohesive, effective, and impactful email marketing campaign.
Asking “What is your goal?” before diving into your email marketing strategy is not just a question—it’s a comprehensive roadmap for success that serves as the foundation of your entire approach. This pivotal question encourages you to pause and reflect, ensuring that every subsequent step you take is intentional and strategically aligned with your desired outcomes. A clear goal acts as a beacon that focuses your efforts, enabling you to streamline your marketing processes and avoid the pitfalls of scattered tactics that lack direction. By establishing a specific objective, you gain the ability to identify and segment the right audience, ensuring your messages are tailored to resonate with the individuals most likely to engage with your brand. Additionally, a well-defined goal shapes your content strategy, guiding the creation of messages that are not only relevant but also compelling and persuasive, driving the desired action from your recipients.
Furthermore, setting a goal provides a framework for determining the most appropriate metrics and KPIs to track, allowing you to measure the success of your campaigns with precision. This data-driven approach helps you make informed decisions, optimize future efforts, and ensure that each email contributes to achieving your overarching objectives. A clear goal also plays a crucial role in aligning and focusing your entire team, fostering collaboration and ensuring that everyone works in concert toward a shared vision. Whether you’re looking to drive sales, build brand awareness, nurture leads, or retain customers, having a specific and well-articulated objective guarantees that your emails are not only purposeful but also measurable and impactful, ultimately enhancing the effectiveness of your email marketing strategy.
By starting with a well-defined goal, you can create more targeted and effective campaigns that truly resonate with your audience and deliver meaningful results. This strategic clarity allows you to fine-tune your approach continually, ensuring that you’re not just sending emails, but sending the right emails that strategically move your business forward, adapting to changing market conditions and audience preferences with agility and precision.
For a deeper dive into crafting emails that build relationships and drive results, check out Mailed It!: A Guide to Crafting Emails That Build Relationships and Get Results. This book offers expert insights into aligning your email marketing efforts with clear goals, tailoring your content to meet the needs of your audience, and enhancing your overall strategy to achieve greater success in the dynamic landscape of digital marketing.