Done the right way, email marketing can be one of the most cost effective ways to spread your business message and expand your customer base. Alas many small businesses throw money away by starting their email campaigns without a well though through strategy. Read on to discover five steps to creating a successful email campaign.

1. Identify your objective.

Before you start your email campaign take time to clearly define your objectives. For example the following may be considered as reasonable goals:

• Increasing the number of leads generated.
• Raising the awareness of your brand.
• Establishing your company's experience or trustworthiness.
• Increasing the number of newsletter signups.
• Driving more traffic to your Website.
• Attracting and acquiring new customers.

If your campaign has more than one objective, prioritise before you start. While most companies would love to achieve all of the above, trying to hit too many notes in one email will significantly dilute your message.

A final word on Objectives. Any Business Objective (marketing or otherwise) should be SMART:

Specific - Be precise about what you are going to achieve. e.g. '50 new prospects qualified'
Measurable - Quantify your objectives.
Ambitious - Aim high.
Realistic - Be realistic with what can be achieved.
Timed - State when you will achieve the objective e.g. 50 new prospects qualified within eight weeks of campaign.

2. Be very clear about the target audience.

Just because you happen to have a large and growing email list do not make the mistake of treating each individual (or business) the same. Email recipients should be clearly segmented along appropriate lines.

For example for a provider of IT support services wishing to target corporate clients it may be useful to segment their list by dividing businesses into groups such as Group 1 (Target clients with 1-10 employees) Group 2 (Target clients with 10-20 employees) etc.

When it comes to e-commerce based businesses a common approach is to segment the target group based on their purchase behaviour. In this instance the target groups might be Group 1 (Frequent/Heavy purchasers e.g. Once every three months), Group 2 (Light Purchasers e.g. Once in the last six months) Group 3 (Lapsed purchasers e.g. no purchase since 12 months).

3. Develop a tailored content strategy