February 20, 2008
How To

Sherpa Kit: Conducting an Email Audit

SUMMARY: Your email marketing works but it could be better. Maybe it's the content or your deliverability ... or something else. Admit it -- you're not sure what works and what doesn't. It's time for an email audit.

An email audit might sound intimidating (let’s face it, the word “audit” alone can be scary), but this can be a valuable tool to evaluate your email campaign(s). Here, we have everything you need to conduct an email audit.

Before you take the first step, here are some questions to ask yourself:
(Don’t worry – we provide the answers!)

1. Why do an audit?
Ignoring problems won’t make them go away. It’s better to know. Trust us.

2. Do you need a comprehensive audit?
This toolkit is designed to help you audit your entire email campaign/process. If you simply want to evaluate a single email newsletter/message, you may need to do only a mini-audit.

3. What will it cost?
Maybe nothing, if you use in-house staff.

4. When should we do an audit?
The sooner the better.

5. Who will do it?
You may be able to do it in-house. If not, we provide a list of vendors.

6. How will we do it?
This one’s easy – by using MarketingSherpa’s toolkit as your guide.

7. How hard is it finish?
The name sounds worse than it is. And if you don’t want to do a full audit, we’ve put together a how-to for a mini audit.

This Sherpa Kit includes the following parts:

-> Tutorial – An overview, step-by-step process, creative content, tracking/managing stats and technical basics
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/tk/AuditTutorial.pdf

-> Glossary – Know what the terms mean
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=30325

-> Checklist – Steps to conduct your own audit
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/tk/AuditChecklist.pdf

-> Timeline – When you should expect to have what parts completed
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/tk/AuditTimeline.pdf

-> Cost calculator – We’ll help you calculate your costs
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=30326

-> List of Vendors – A look at service providers who can help if you don’t want to do the audit yourself
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=30328

-> Resources & Case Studies – Past Sherpa articles to give you inspiration and other resources
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=30327



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