Reading through my email newsletters this morning and found a valuable entry from DM News reporting the successful use of email as part of an overall marketing campaign. The goal was increasing participation in fund raising events for breast cancer research sponsored by the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation and the National Philanthropic Trust Breast Cancer Fund.
The complete article is at http://www.dmnews.com/cms/dm-news/e-mail-marketing/41350.html
Note these highlights:
- Email was part of an integrated “multichannel” campaign that included direct response TV, radio, billboards, newspaper, direct mail, lead generation, and search.
- Email recipients were selected according to demographic and geographic criteria to build as accurate a target audience as possible of people who were likely to take part in fund-raising walks.
- A preliminary email was sent (that included an opt-out choice) announcing people would receive “a few marketing messages over the next few weeks.”
- Emails were then sent every second week over an 8 week span.
- Results of the email component were tracked every two weeks by matching email registrations and requests for information against the master file of people receiving the email messages.
All of these steps can of course be used for email campaigns by colleges and universities, particularly that first step announcing the campaign and giving people a chance to opt-out right from the start.