Over half of the world’s population receives emails on a daily basis. And it’s no wonder that that’s the case. Email is a proven method for improving a business’ return on investment, strengthening brand credibility and loyalty as well as boosting sales.
If you’re a franchise owner who has struggled with creating your email campaigns, this blog post is for you. In this article, we outline the importance and benefits of marketing email templates and share the essential steps to achieving your goals before you press the “send” button. Ready to get started?
What are some of the benefits of using a template for your email marketing campaigns?
If you have a dedicated franchise marketing team, you’ll be aware that they’ll be marketing to your prospective customers and franchisee partners. This type of communication needs to be standardised and located centrally so that all team members can access it and remain on the same page.
That’s where creating an email planning template comes in handy. Some of the benefits that you can enjoy as a result of using and implementing this template in your marketing operations include the following:
- Standardisation of work processes
- Better organisation
- Improved tracking of KPIs
- Better comparisons of metrics
- Information is located centrally
- Easy access at your fingertips
- Streamlined decision making
- Data-driven insights
- Reduces uncertainty and unclarity
- Send timely and appropriate emails
- Ability to improve future campaigns based on past performance
- Boost sales and engagement with your brand
- Strengthen your brand’s credibility
How to plan an email marketing campaign for franchises: The key steps
Every franchise marketer knows that there is a major build-up of events, planning, meetings, strategising and discussions before the actual execution of an email campaign. This build-up requires serious consideration of multiple factors simultaneously for maximum results and effectiveness.
If email marketing and its planning process are new to you, the following steps should help you prepare your email campaign up to the point when you press “send”. Let’s take a closer look.
Step 1: Context is everything
The start of any email marketing campaign involves getting down to basics and determining the internal and external context within which your franchise is operating. In short, this means doing a SWOT and PESTLE analysis. Here’s a brief breakdown of what each of these acronyms stands for:
- S: Strengths
- W: Weaknesses
- O: Opportunities
- T: Threats
Here, you’ll need to identify your business’ internal strong and weak points so that you know what your emails should focus on and what type of content they should steer away from.
As for a PESTLE analysis, this is an exploration of the external environment in which your business operates. This acronym stands for the following:
- P: Political factors
- E: Economic factors
- S: Social factors
- T: Technological factors
- L: Legal factors
- E: Environmental factors
In a PESTLE analysis, you are essentially evaluating all the possible external contextual factors that can affect your franchise business and its operations. These factors may range from the cost of labour to sensitivity shown with regard to political issues, interest and inflation rates, new technological developments, GDPR restrictions and even eco-friendly business practices that make your business more ethical than your competitors.
Step 2: Define your objectives and goals
Once the foundation has been established and the context within which your franchise business is operating has been identified, it’s time to set the objectives and goals for your email marketing campaigns. It’s important to note at this point that an objective and a goal are two different things. While an objective is a small milestone that you are striving to reach, the goal is your final destination and can be made up of smaller objectives. This means, for example, that you can have short-term objectives and long-term goals. Your long-term goals may be things such as improving the return on your investment, boosting subscriber loyalty or even increasing your sales. Meanwhile, short-term goals may include improving your email open rate through catchy subject lines, etc.
For this step, it is essential that you use the SMART framework when outlining your objectives and goals. Here’s what it stands for:
- S: Specific
- M: Measurable
- A: Actionable
- R: Realistic
- T: Timely
What all this translates into is that you have clear and identifiable metrics and key performance metrics that contain a relative amount of flexibility and which are not abstract. It’s also critical to measure in real time as and when a campaign goes out because you don’t want outdated data or to be responding to your audience with a delayed reaction.
Step 3: Get to know your audience
Once the groundwork has been established, you’re still not ready to hit that “send” button. Instead, you need to get to know your audience. A shocking statistic indicates that a whopping 43% of consumers will unsubscribe from your emails if they feel that your messaging is irrelevant to them. That’s why studying who your audience is is such a critical step.
Knowing your audience goes beyond knowing their names, age and gender. It’s about creating an ideal buyer persona where you can clearly pinpoint your audience’s interests and pain points as well as personal values, passions, goals, etc. When you have this information in mind, you’ll be able to cater your email content to them more accurately and effectively.
Some of the steps to achieve this aim include:
- Customer satisfaction surveys
- In-depth discussions with your sales team
- Studying the competition
- Studying your audience’s online engagement with your brand
- Auditing your social media engagement
- Researching data on the buying habits and behaviours of your target audience
Step 4: Segment your email list
Creating your ideal buyer persona is just one part of the process. Once you’ve done this, you need to segment your audience because not all your customers have the same needs. Some of them may be decision makers while others want to know more about your product or service and how it works.
Each different audience type will have different messaging needs that you will need to address. When you get this right, you can start sending out more targeted and highly effective emails that can not only increase your email open rate but position your brand as an authority and even improve your lead nurturing efforts.
Step 5: Start with the basics
Now it’s time to fill your marketing calendar. Although you may have a lot of information to send out to your subscriber list, you should prioritise your communication so that your emails don’t overwhelm your prospects or make them feel spammed.
In order to prioritise, you need to create an email marketing strategy template in which you plan what to add to your email campaigns and what to leave out.
Examples of important campaigns that you will want to include may feature important holidays, product launches, charity events, business events, etc.
Once you’ve started building your calendar and filling it in, plan how far in advance you need to start marketing for it. Other less important email campaigns can be squeezed in around the more important ones. And this is a great way to prevent email campaigns from running into one another.
In conclusion
Having an email marketing strategy plan is an essential part of any franchisor’s marketing efforts and you need to have the basics in place before you hit that “send” button.
Yes, a lot of preparation goes into sending the right messaging at the right time through email but the results are truly worth it. Increased ROI, KPIs met and exceeded, boosted sales, new subscribers and so much more.
All it takes is prior planning and thorough preparation and research and you’re well on your way to using email as a successful marketing strategy in your franchise business.
And, if you’re ready to take your franchise business to new heights and unlock the full potential of email marketing, our comprehensive email marketing solutions for franchises are here to support and empower your journey to success.
