Fundamentals of Email Marketing Decoded

Research has shown that 99% of consumers and internet users use their emails on a daily basis. While this figure is a nice shot for business owners, the promise it holds is huge if you have an effective email marketing campaign as part of your marketing efforts. In this article, we will discuss some email marketing basics, how to create marketing emails, and the purpose of email marketing. Consider this your email marketing guide with all the fundamentals you need to know! 

Email Marketing 101

Ranked as the most effective marketing channel, beating the likes of social media, SEO and affiliate marketing to take the top spot. As reported by Smart Insights, email marketing is a treasure chest you should explore. It is a marketing strategy that every business should consider. 

Email marketing allows you to stay in control of the variables. There is no fear of playing toe-in-toe with the algorithm, if you are using a social media campaign, or learning the ropes if you opt for SEO and Affiliate marketing. With email marketing, you control every stage of your campaign and call the shots. 

With all these facts in your bag, building a successful email marketing campaign is an essential aspect of your business growth that you should consider. And yes, it can be tricky and hard in the beginning. This is why we have put this article together, to give you a perfect footing and get you going. There are also plenty of email marketing tools, like email templates and marketing automation software, that you can consider using to help you. 

If there’s one truth you should know before we tell you the steps you should take, it is that: getting into someone’s inbox is like entering a house for the first time. In addition to showing some courtesy to your host, you are expected to be on your best behavior. There is a right way to do email marketing.

Enough of the niceties. Let’s get started with some serious business and discuss some winning email marketing strategies.

5 Steps to Building Your Email Marketing Campaign

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Step 1: Build an Email List 

It is like sending a letter by post, you surely will need the postal address or fax number, if you will want to fax the letter. So the right place to begin is to build your email list, you will need to collate email addresses, and here are proven ways to beat this:

  1. Add a banner or form to your website, asking people to subscribe.
  2. Create an incentive 

Rightly so, these two steps will get the mail addresses rolling in. However, you can only hit gold with these steps if you are creative enough with the process. Here is why: people will not sign up to your email list, by just reading the sign-up notice or banner. 

You will have to attract them to do so, and the best way to attract them to do this, is the second step, create an incentive. Everyone is looking for value, increasing their sales, building a successful business or a career, this list can be endless, however, the central theme is value. 

So to sign up for your email list, they will want guarantees as to what they stand to gain, doing this. This incentive can be a free weekly white paper, newsletter, updates, and others. The nature of your incentive will be central to who signs up for your email list. 

Never buy an email list. This is a bad way to sell your business. Unsolicited messages are frowned upon by everyone and when you slide into people’s inboxes without consent, the spam folder often is where your mails will find succor. This is never what you want, so take the time and build your unique list, it will pay the greatest reward. 

Step 2: Create Awe-Inspiring Content

Next, let’s discuss how to create marketing email that works. It’s important to ensure that your content is top-notch, with a smashing subject line. You are opening communication with your customers and your first impression, along with others should be worth the click. You also want to make sure people are actually opening your email. 

It is about meeting expectations, your incentive has leveled the ground and your leads will be expecting you to meet the expectations. Do it great with your content and they should be groomed for this moment. 

If you are just starting out with your campaigns, I highly recommend you to go for any copywriting services available online like grammarly, trustmypaper, hemmingway, supreme dissertations etc. The biggest advantage is they have the experience that you lack and they know what works. They can help you nail your email campaigns copy from day one. 

Don’t forget to add links to your blog posts to encourage your readers to read additional content.

Keep to your promise. You can lose or keep leads based on this fact. If you promise to send weekly emails, don’t convert to daily emails. Your leads signed up for weekly content. How you respect this privacy will tell on your business success.

And don’t forget to add a call to action! Incentivize your readers to purchase a product, visit your website, or take any action that you want them to complete.

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Step 3: Send Out an Introductory Email

Don’t keep your leads waiting for you for weeks before you drop your first email. Remember, people’s attention span on the internet is often short. And this is also triggered by the fact that you are not the only one doing what you are doing, so they can easily forget you.

Establish an immediate connection with a welcome email, use this to confirm their subscription, and give them a tip of what they should expect by subscribing to your email list. Avoid the temptation of pitching at this point, your first email should be about sales, establish a genuine connection. 

Your welcome emails should be immediate and should not land in a spam folder, you can use any of the autoresponder tools to set up your welcome emails for free.

Step 4: Use Analytics and Segmentation

Let’s begin with segmentation, we will hit the nail on the analytics after that. Why segmentation? You must have read the mail and wondered, just how and when did you subscribe to such email services, this happens more than once. The absence of segmentation is the reason for this usual happening. 

Your email list should be divided along interest lines. If possible, create extra space on your form or banner that seeks to ask a few specific questions. This way, you will be sending the right emails to the right people. It ensures that your emails won’t look like those written by a robot and sent randomly. 

To get the maximum out of your segmentation, you need to choose the right newsletter tools. We recommend going for sendinblue or constant contact if you wish to send welcome emails for free. 

Now let’s look at analytics, they are your feedback system, your hidden eyes and you should employ them to your advantage. Keep your eyes on your open rates, which will tell how fast or slow your leads open your mail. In addition, pay attention to your click-through links and unsubscribe numbers. 

Knowledge of all of these indexes will help you achieve success with your email marketing campaign, so keep your eyes on the numbers. 

Step 5: Stay Consistent

Now that you have an email list, with a line of communication established with your leads and customers, staying consistent will be your greatest currency to buy off the market. Don’t go dark for a length of time and appear out of the blue. Your leads usually will not have the luxury of time to keep up with these gimmicks. So stay consistent!

If your schedule is billed for a weekly email, ensure the email is sent every week, as your list grows the task of keeping up can be demanding, at this point you can automate. 

However, don’t forget the rule of segmentation as you automate your emails. In addition, also personalize your emails with the name of the receiver. While it is still a bulk email, when personalized, this detail is often forgotten. 

You can grow from an email marketing rookie to a pro within a few days or hit an instant success with these steps.

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Email Marketing for Your Business

Now, you should know how to get started with the email marketing process. Email marketing is a gold reserve to tap from for your business growth and expansion. If you are still contemplating whether email marketing is what your business needs now, you are missing a whole lot already. 

Do it right with our 5 steps and you will be glad you did!

FAQ: 

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