Improving Things One Step at a Time

Online marketing can be overwhelming at times because there are so many vehicles and each one requires flawless execution of many, many details.  If you join a company that has little online marketing infrastructure (or perhaps worse, a very disorganized marketing program), it can be a daunting task to put everything in place.  The best approach - take one vehicle and improve it methodically step by step.

For example, let's assume that this company you have joined has no formalized email newsletter to its customers.  You would love to have a robust newsletter program using email best practices.  However, you will never get there in one giant leap; you need to make regular, incremental progress.  For example, the steps you take could be something like this:

1. Set up a hosted email service with a one-time email list (ensuring opt-out data is retained) and custom newsletter content
2. Create an HTML template that you will use for each newsletter
3. Create an automated or semi-automated program to populate the newsletter member database
4. Master whatever tracking tools are in your email program
5. Implement Google Analytics UTM tracking links
6. Personalize the name in the email
7. Personalize big chunks of content in the email based on data from your customer database
8. Incorporate A/B testing of headlines
9. Incorporate A/B testing of content
10. Incorporate an ad server (even if you are just using it to target internal ads to your customers)

Each time you send an email you try to bite off the next step in your email improvement program.  If you send 1-2 newsletters a month, it won't take long before you have gone from a rudimentary email program to a state-of-the-art program.  At the same time, because each new newsletter is incorporating just one new change, you minimize the chances of things going wrong.

Being state-of-the-art requires constant forward motion.  You won't get there over night, but you will get there quickly if you keep improving.