Email Marketing: Knowledge Base #

 

Overview: #

Email marketing is vital as part of your marketing to your members and previous customers, as you can directly send relevant and targeted campaigns to them, eg. member offers, upcoming details for camps etc.

At Core we aim to send out at least 12 campaigns each month, however this can vary depending on the monthly focuses. Below is the focuses for the 2023:

 

 

Monthly Planning: #

Each month an email schedule is created, in order to plan which content is going out and when. This is created in a Google Sheet, so that all team members can collaborate and it will update automatically, so that you are always on the live view. At Core we have an annual email campaign calendar, that has monthly tabs which include the following:

• Subject line
• Date/time of the email
• Audience list
• Link to campaign
• The team member responsible for the content
• Whether the content has been written/scheduled/sent

As well as monthly tabs, the spreadsheet also includes a monthly focus tab in which the yearly marketing calendar is reflected. This tab helps to find a focus/theme for the month eg. camps, weekend sports offer etc.  Some months there will be multiple focuses, whereas other months there may not be a clear focus. Marketing for holiday camps is usually the main focus each month, as most of the time you will come out of a camp season and straight into marketing for the next, therefore the majority of the campaigns are camps targeted.

By having a monthly schedule you can plan out your campaigns, and then write and schedule them ahead, so that you don’t have to worry about it on a day to day basis, with other tasks/priorities building up.

 

 

Writing Campaigns: #

With your planned out subject lines, you can then begin to write the email campaign content. As a starting point, you can take a look at some of the previous email campaigns we have sent out at core to help with wording and keeping to the brand. Every email campaign should include a call to action eg. Book Now, Secure Your Child’s Place Today etc. and this should be seen above the fold (before you scroll) if possible.

Your campaign should be detailed and to the point. If you have an offer running it is good to include this within the first line. You also should include a graphic or some imagery within your email too.

You should aim for around 5-6 lines of text for the majority of emails, however some emails may need more detail so may be a bit longer. Once you have written your email copy, it is always worth checking through for grammar, and readability.

 

 

Mailchimp: #

At core we use Mailchimp for our email marketing campaigns.

Once you have written the content, you can then use a Mailchimp template to make your content stand out and add in your content. Here is the template we have created which you can use – https://us5.admin.mailchimp.com/templates/share?id=10306707_58ce14330e35981d560d_us5

You will also be able to create your audience on Mailchimp. When you upload contacts to your audience in Mailchimp, you can add tags to that upload. For example, if you were uploading a list of contacts that attended your Easter Camps, then you could add the tag ‘Easter Camp Parent’. This means that if you wanted to send a survey email out to parents who attended Easter Camps you could then, select the audience and the tag that you want to send the email to. See more on audiences below.

 

 

Audiences: #

To create an audience of your previous/existing customers, you will need to pull a broadcast list from Sports Fusion. Once you have your selected list, you will then have an excel spreadsheet which you can sort through the data, but in order to send out an email campaign the main information you need is:

• First Name
• Last Name
• Email Address

You will then need to export the spreadsheet as a CSV file so that it is compatible with Mailchimp. You should keep your email list up to date, therefore updating your contacts every month is good, and also after each camp season as well.

Once you have your audience set up you are ready to start sending out your campaigns!

 

 

Scheduling/Sending: #

Once you are happy with your email campaign, you should send yourself a test email, which can be done from the dropdown list under preview. If you are happy with how the email looks on both desktop and mobile, then you are ready to schedule your email.

You can schedule your email in the top corner of the screen, and select your time and date that you want to send the email. The best time to send an email to parents is either 11am or 8pm, as this is the time that they tend to be child free and have time to look at their phone.

Before you schedule the email, you should ensure that your audience is correct, as you want to make sure your campaign is targeting the right audience.

 

 

Monitoring Analytics/Reviewing Insights: #

After your campaigns have gone out, you will want to review the following email metrics for each campaign:

• Email Sends
• Open Rate
• Click Through Rate
• Bounces
• Unsubscribes

This can be done on either a weekly or monthly basis. You can track this on Mailchimp through the reports tab, which will give you information on all of your campaigns.

You should also keep an eye on your audience lists as well, by keeping an eye on unsubscribes and how many subscribers are in your audience.

 

 

Other Tools: #

Urgency in your email campaigns is important, particularly with the countdown to camps or limited time offers (early booking etc). To add in this urgency you can include a live countdown timer, we use Sendtric for this, in which you will be given some html code which you can add to your template. Here is the link to Sendtric – https://www.sendtric.com/