Email Marketing (iModules) Performance Goals
Creating great websites, newsletters and emails requires a lot of skills and software knowledge. Many staff have job duties that require updating websites and contacting students and alumni, but reflecting the new skills that you've learned can be hard to do when performance excellence season comes around. As a resource for staff who wish to improve their communications and marketing skills or are already working with iModules, we've created these template Performance Excellence goals. Feel free to adapt and change them for your specific needs. We've also included some ideas for assessing performance and building your development plan.
Email Marketing (iModules) Performance Excellence Goal 1
Job Responsibility: Uploads content to faculty/dept website. Creates, writes, edits & posts articles, newsletters, program summaries, etc. to website.
Goal: Create and send email campaigns that drive traffic to website through email campaigns, focusing on newsletters to alumni, faculty, students, and community members. Assess results by open/click rate and engagement with calls to action, working toward a minimum of 20% open rate and 2.4% click through rate.
In addition to open/click through rate, other potential indicators of success that can be part of this goal
- Increase the click through rate from the newsletter page on the website to other pages on the website
- Increase engagement with linked social media accounts
- Increase engagement with any calls to action to attend an event or submit alumni updates
Recommended resources for this goal:
Higher Education blog post on email marketing
Really Good Emails blog: resource for email strategy, design, etc.
Email Marketing (iModules) Performance Excellence Goal 2
Job Responsibility: Uploads content to faculty/dept website. Creates, writes, edits & posts articles, newsletters, program summaries, etc. to website.
Goal: Move newsletter from print or pdf form to website article form, disseminated via email, creating a more accessible and searchable newsletter. Assess results through faculty and alumni satisfaction, and email or website analytics.
Recommended resources for this goal:
Higher Education blog post on email marketing
Really Good Emails blog: resource for email strategy, design, etc.
Email Marketing (iModules) Performance Excellence Goal 3
Job Responsibility: Uploads content to faculty/dept website. Creates, writes, edits & posts articles, newsletters, program summaries, etc. to website.
Goal: Write an annual email marketing strategy for the department, defining what “success” means for your department. Choose estimated send dates for all newsletters and any other email campaigns. (In this document, identify workflow indicators and best practices that will allow you to assess this goal.)
Example indicators for performance
- Based on performance of the first newsletter, change one story/feature type to test how readers react to changes.
- All content will be created and approved one week before email send.
- All staff will be trained and have access to needed software (including Photoshop, SiteImprove, iModules, Cascade, etc) by January 1st.
- All newsletter emails are sent on the timeline planned, unless there is a pivot in strategy.
Recommended resources for this goal:
Higher Education blog post on email marketing
Really Good Emails blog: resource for email strategy, design, etc.
iModules Training and Goal Assessment
Ideas for a training/development plan:
- Take ARD104 Our Northwestern Email and submit forms to ARD to get access to iModules.
- Attend marketing development events from the Dean’s office or Global Marketing to improve understanding of marketing strategy and best practices.
- Learn more about email marketing through Lynda.com to guide content planning and get new ideas for communications.
Assessing goal performance:
Open rates email campaigns for higher education are generally around 20% and click through rates about 2.4%. (Check standard rates for 2019 online.) Check your email reports in iModules to find out your Open and Click through rates. Emails performing above those rates demonstrate a deep level of interest and engagement from your readers with your content and outreach.
Check your links to see which stories your readers are clicking on. Plan future newsletter content strategy around the interest your readers show you through link activity.
Track how much time you spend creating content and sending your newsletter/emails. Which part takes the most time or is the most difficult? What kinds of resources at Northwestern could you access to improve that process for yourself?
Happy email strategizing!
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