It is one of those nasty tricks of life: if you do not set goals for yourself in business you will not know if you are running efficiently and doing your best. This is, if anything, even more important in the email marketing sector. Given the amount of detailed information that is returned it is rather a waste of potential not to use it.

The system is easy. To start with you need to pick a few overall goals. These generally set themselves. By way of example your New Year’s resolution might be to lose a bit of weight for your holiday. The first thing you would do is weigh yourself. It would then be a case of eating less, exercising more and weighing after set periods. As the summer drew nearer you would know whether to east less or indulge in the occasional shortbread. 

Let us pick an overall goal of increasing your email marketing list. It is unarguable: the email marketing dream. Do not opt for a random figure. Make it achievable.

First of all you need to know how many subscribers you normally gain over a set period, say three months. Then you need to check if there is a seasonal variation. Once you have an evidenced baseline you can go onto a method.

Run with just the one programme. If you start two at once it will negate the usefulness of any stats. Your method should take into account the length of your campaign. Whilst a newsletter might give some increase at once it is in essence a long term project. 

Let us say you install and maintain your products. These are long-term contracts. An incentive to your engineers to encourage the customers to subscribe is easily monitored and, if a suitable reward is included, likely to be successful.

With targets set and figures monitored you will know if you are likely to hit your goal. Next time you will be able to be more precise as to your target figure.

Without goals there are no checks and no proofs. It is all rather amateurish. Is your business just a hobby?