Set goals. Planning is part of the calendar of any company that seeks growth. This balance can be raised at any time of year, but usually it gains more strength at the beginning of each year, when we prepare the schedule of marketing activities for the next 12 months.

So after speaking about Responsive Design, strong trend that is even more in evidence now in 2015, and Growth Hacking, whose goal is to prioritize business growth, let’s highlight five goals for email marketing campaigns this year.

1. Before you begin, make a balance of the year

First, before drawing any goal for 2015 you must make a balance for the actions of the past year. Evaluate what brought results, which remained and what didn’t generate any benefit for your business.

The next step is to list what worked and to study ways to improve. Also, consider alternatives to what didn’t bring the expected result. With these ideas in mind, it's time to start setting goals for 2015. After all, with defined scopes is much easier to measure the return of your actions, not to mention that helps to keep the focus on what really works. So there we go!

2. Increase your email list based on opt-in

Your contact list is one of the most valuable assets within a digital marketing strategy. It’s the starting point. It’s through this base that your company will build a relationship with new and old customers, encourage sales of products and/or services and promote interactions offering content that adds value to each contact according to individual interests.

To increase it, without infringing best practices leading the rules of etiquette for the Internet and to send email marketing, you should examine ways to do so. Are the inscriptions easy for people? You can collect email addresses through contact forms on your company's website or on a Facebook page. Make sure that the fields are visible and located in areas that create interactions. Create digital baits to stimulate engagement. Improve action calls (CTA). Optimize landing pages. Bet on interaction with social networks.

With well-defined format, evaluate whether you are compelling to justify why a person should provide an email address to receive news from your company. Make sure your audience understands the importance of this from the beginning, that they know what to expect from you and the frequency you’ll send emails for them. These three items are part of the permission policy (opt-in).

Also remember to target these contacts according to common interests directing the content strategically. It’s the best way to retain your customer base, increase engagement and keep a relationship that values your brand.

3. Improve the Open Rates of your emails

When creating your contacts list, the Open Rate is one of the most important metrics to evaluate the engagement and if the campaigns are bringing the expected result. In other words, if your efforts are bringing back something value in return. Through it, you can measure if your emails are opened and know how your business is being seen by your contacts. The more openings, greater business opportunities.

To improve it, try different calls for the subject line to analyze the impact of openings. The most important item here is what your recipient will see first of all and will be an essential factor for him to open or not the campaign. This way you can see which title arouses more interest to your readers and customers. Create anticipation for the next email. When a person signs to receive your newsletter it’s your responsibility to deliver value in each message sent.

You can also test different intervals to find out if there is a more effective time in the day to reach your audience. The goal here is to make your campaigns to excel the inbox blasted by numerous emails daily. Besides the subject, time and frequency, keep a solid return for each message. This creates identification between the consumer and your brand.

4. Prioritize the engagement by email marketing

To increase your open rate next priority becomes the engagement with the content sent. To keep a control over the interactions, you can use another metric: the Click Through Rate. With it, you are able to examine whether there was an interaction, whether the recipients clicked on links of your campaign in search for more information on a subject line or offer.

To prioritize it, strengthen the previous tips. Offer relevant content combined with an attractive subject line and positive connotation to stimulate clicks. Target your contact list, directing the offers according to the profile of each group. Point deadlines and use action verbs, awakening the sense of urgency to the decision-making before a purchase. Do the A/B Testing on the layout or the title. Add share buttons for social networks.

More clicks account for more traffic to your website, more subscribers to your email marketing campaigns and more people interested in buying your products and/or services.

The design is vital. So evaluate if your emails reach all types of audiences, from mobile to desktop for easier readability on small screens through responsive design. Remember to also adapt all the elements in the best way on each mobile device and highlighting the call to action from the rest of the campaign. Note the reports which links generate greater engagement and discover what matters the most for each reader. You can even create a specific list for people interested in a particular subject line and, from there, do a follow-up.

5. Reach more satisfactory results to business

By applying each of the above goals the results will be a natural consequence. After all, it’s not isolated measures and limited to open and click rates. It’s a set of strategies that will be implemented and improved throughout the year. The impact may come through more sales, new customers or more traffic to the website of your company.

For more results set the goals you want to achieve in 2015. For each email marketing campaign think of the return you want: in short and medium term (sales, customers or traffic) or long term (relationship, loyalty and reference on the scope). With well-defined goals, your decisions will be clearer and the next steps during this year will be more accurate.

In addition to putting the strategy into practice, list the metrics that will be used for each goal. Use and read reports after each action. If you applied a discount coupon in a special campaign focused on the summer season, for example, monitor how many people rescued the coupon, if they are old customers or new customers.

Finally, it’s important to set goals for the year along with estimated time to put them into action. It may take days, weeks or months. Planning the strategy that will be put in place is essential to generate results because you can evaluate over 2015 what went right and what went wrong. So you always know the best way to go, minimizing the risk of repeating little effective action and making room for new ideas. In exchange for this plan, your business will have more opportunities of conversions, turning readers into customers.

And you, which are your email marketing goals for 2015?

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