• by Kara Trivunovic , Op-Ed Contributor, August 4, 2011

A few days ago, my husband and I officially put the "For Sale" sign in the front yard and buried the St. Joseph statue in hopes that we can sell our house without the aid of a realtor. But we didn't just wake up one morning and decide to sell the house. There were months of tasks that led us here -- and we have the splinters and scrapes to prove it!

According to a "For Sale by Owner" guide, "Preparation and organization will go a long way toward the successful sale of your home." The same could be said about the success of your email program.

Preparation and organization -- it's a novel idea, I know. But one section of the workbook focuses specifically on making simple home repairs that could dramatically impact the sale of your home.  I wanted to share these ideas with you, as they're great advice for optimizing your email program, too! 

1.     Start small. If you don't feel that your email programs are operating and performing as wonderfully as they could, then you probably need some fine-tuning. While many of us would like to take a wrecking ball to our email programs, realistically, minor modifications could make a big impact on performance.  It could be as simple as including an updated color palette (think fresh coat of paint), new call-to-action buttons, or even simple segmentation to get to the right audience.

2.     Stay true to your house. Be sure that the revisions you are making are a reflection of the brand and not your own personal preference or style. What appeals to you may not be the best representation of the brand or the audience's expectations. If you depart too greatly from brand expectations, you could deter recipients rather than create a welcoming environment for them to engage with.

3.     Don't go too far. When you think change, you may think complete home makeover. But you can swing the pendulum too far in the other direction and shoot yourself in the foot. The costs of completely overhauling your program may not drive the response you anticipate. If the return on your investment isn't there, then why move forward? Just keep reminding yourself of #1: Start small.

4.     Turn to the pros. Sometimes you just need an expert. You think you can do it, it seems to make perfect sense, but something isn't resonating with the execution. I may come to the harsh reality that I need a realtor. I don't want one, but it may be a necessity (a short amount of time will tell). If you don't ask for help sometimes, the magnitude of your success could be impacted. Asking an expert doesn't mean that you can't do your job; it often indicates you need to focus your attention on the much bigger picture (keeping the program running and functional, versus the minor modifications necessary to move ahead.

It isn't rocket science, I know, but often when we think about these big tasks, we get overwhelmed by the sheer number of possibilities. But when you break it down into manageable tasks, it doesn't seem so insurmountable. Now, I'm off to talk to an architect about floor plans for a new house (don't even get me started on the "building houses and email" metaphors, we could be here all day!).