E-Mail Campaign Formula 101

Before you look at deliverability, open rates, and recipient-side metrics on a campaign, it’s important to look at how your e-mail campaign is constructed and know it can improve. Blue-chip focused ESP e-Dialog created the Relevance Trajectory to offer its clients a benchmark for e-mail programs. The program looks at factors like segmentation, lifecycle management, triggers, personalization, interactivity, and testing or measurement.

The concept began informally at a client conference held by the company last year mapping where clients fell in the relevance trajectory. The response was positive, and at this past year’s conference e-Dialog followed up by asking clients to rate themselves and see how they measured up. Most companies were too hard on themselves, but regardless of score, e-Dialog president and CEO John Rizzi said there is always room for improvement.

Relevance Trajectory can be used as an annual or semi-annual checkpoint, and a strategy toward making sure your e-mail campaigns don’t contribute to the inbox clutter, but are meaningful messages for recipients.

While the Relevance Trajectory is seen as an effective benchmark for e-Dialog clients, it only rates the components of an e-mail practice and campaigns, it doesn’t have anything to do with the messages once they’re sent to recipients. It’s the first half of the proposition, and doesn’t replace diagnostics on bounce rates and open rates, among other metrics on e-mail senders’ minds.