How to do email marketing even if you are a beginner?

Email marketing has become one of the most effective ways to reach customers and prospects.

In fact, according to Forrester Research, email marketing generates $11.4 billion annually.

This makes it the third largest advertising medium after television and print media.

The key to success lies in writing compelling subject lines, creating great messages, and tracking performance.

There are several things you should consider before sending your next campaign. To get started with email marketing, check out our guide below.

Let’s get started.

What Is Email Marketing?

Email marketing is the process of using email to send marketing messages to existing customers, prospects, and members of a community.

A company can use email marketing to build a relationship with current and potential customers.

It is a useful tool for businesses that want to generate revenue, but it is also a low-cost and efficient way to reach consumers.

Email marketing is a great way to stay connected with your existing customer base and attract new ones.

Companies can also use email marketing to promote special events or promotions.

How Does Email Marketing Work?

Many people think email marketing is complicated, but it’s not. It only needs regular A/B testing to know the best way to communicate with your prospects and customers in a way that benefits your business goals.

Here’s a review of how email marketing works:

Sign up for an email marketing tool.
Come up with an email marketing strategy.
Build your email list.
Set up automation tasks.
Clean up your email list regularly.

1. Sign Up For An Email Marketing Tool.

You can automate email marketing with the assistance of a reliable marketing tool. Some popular marketing tools you should use are Mailchimp, Aweber, Convertkit, SendPulse, and Constant Contact. These email marketing tools will help you create, optimize, test, send, and give4 reports about your email marketing campaign.

2. Come Up With An Email Marketing Strategy.

Every email marketing brand must have a good business plan. Your email marketing plan should be able to fulfill the following:

Help you know how to use email marketing in conjunction with other online marketing campaigns.
Help you determine which email marketing platform to use and your monthly cost.
Come up with ways to help you build your email list.
Help you decide when to use automation and the type of messages to send at what stage.
Give you an idea of the proper reporting mechanisms you can use to measure the quality and effectiveness of your campaigns.

3. Build Your Email List.

For email marketing to work effectively, you must build and grow your email list. It doesn’t help to have a massive inventory of inactive subscribers. You need a strong email list with trusted active subscribers to help you grow your brand. Choose the right email marketing tool to help you manage your email list.

4. Set up Automation tasks.

Setting up automation means sending messages to your subscriber according to their actions when receiving your emails or what they do on your site. Some standard email automation tasks are Email campaigns, welcome emails, abandoned cart emails, cross-selling, etc.

5. Consider Cleaning Up Your Email List Regularly.

You should clean up your email list regularly, so you don’t have many inactive subscribers. Inactive subscribers register to your list but don’t open your campaigns. It is better to have a smaller list of active subscribers than a massive list of inactive subscribers.

How To Start Email Marketing?

By now, you know what email marketing is and how it works. The next step is to understand how to start email marketing so that you get started. Let’s dive right in.

1. Choose An Email Marketing Service Provider.

Finding the exemplary email marketing service helps businesses leverage email marketing automation to deliver messages to their large groups of subscribers efficiently. An email marketing provider will ensure that you benefit from tools that help you manage and track your email list and benefit from professional email templates.

2. Gather Contacts For Your Email Marketing List.

The next step after choosing the right email service provider is to get more contacts for your email list. You cannot market without having connections. Therefore, you need to think of the people and businesses you interact with daily and how you can use them to impact your email marketing campaign positively. Put up a registration list on your website and encourage people to participate.

3. Set Up Your Email To Respond To New Subscribers In Time.

Preparation and an excellent first impression are vital in email marketing. You must be ready and alert to respond with a warm, welcoming message immediately to notify new subscribers. Welcoming emails are relevant and essential because your subscribers use them to form an opinion of you. All welcoming emails should start with a warm greeting before you give an overview of your brand.

4. Practice Writing Persuasive Messages.

I know that not everybody has the creativity to write a persuasive message, but you can always learn and practice. The best way is by assuming you’re having a face-to-face conversation with someone and then writing what you would have said to that person. You also need to break down the message into three categories: what you are offering, how it helps your subscribers, and what they should do next.

5. Send Them At The Right Time.

When you know how to write persuasive messages, the next step is sending them at the right time. In this case, the right time means sending emails to your subscriber at a time you know they’ll receive and read without feeling bothered. It is insensitive to send messages in the middle of the night when most of your subscribers are fast asleep. The right time should be between 12-2 pm when most of them are on a lunch break or 5-9 pm when they are from work and have time to go through their emails.

How To Write A Marketing Email?

A marketing email is slightly different from regular emails because they are sent to prospects and customers, while periodic emails are sent to specific individuals. Now that you know what marketing email is, let’s look at how you can write it.

1. Take It As A Face To Face Conversation.

Put your imagination into practice and take it as if you have a regular face-to-face conversation with someone and what you would say or want to know. You then write down what you would say.

2. Have True Email Content.

When writing a marketing email, ensure the content you deliver to your subscribers is accurate. An example is lying about the benefits of the products and services you deal in. If your subscribers find out about this dishonesty, they’ll want out.

3. Be Clear When Writing Your Email.

Writing straightforward emails is the best way to give subscribers an overview of what you deal in, especially when it is a welcoming email. If you have a wordy email that is difficult to understand, it will put your subscribers off.

4. Write Short And More Detailed Emails.

If you have a high chance of succeeding in writing marketing emails, write more often. When you write many emails, it’s easy for your busy subscribers to notice them. Also, sending long emails can annoy people incredibly when busy. That’s why I suggest writing and sending short emails that deliver effectively.

Why Is Email Marketing Important?

Email marketing is arguably the oldest form of digital marketing and yet the most rewarding. It has remained relevant even with the emergence of other digital marketing forms like content marketing and social media marketing. Let’s quickly have a look at some of its importance:

1. Helps To Create Personalized Content For Your Subscribers Easily.

Email marketing allows you to market and customizes your content and delivery effectively. Usually, emails that start with the subscriber or customer’s name stand a high chance of being opened. It also allows you to segment your subscribers into small subgroups, especially when they have everyday things. You can use images or different messaging techniques

2. Improves Your Sales.

There is no doubt that email marketing campaigns help increase sales. But to have high sales, you have to feature your products and services in your emails to entice your customers to buy. You must also pass crucial information like a discount, price, and other promotional services in your email.

3. Helps Reach Your Customers At The Right Time.

Email marketing helps you reach your audience at the right time. This is because most people use emails at the workplace, making it easier for them to notice when your email arrives. However, knowing the right time to send emails will help you reach out to more of your subscribers when they can catch them. I suggest you send your emails between 12-2 pm when they are on lunch break.

4. Helps You Get Direct Feedback About Services You Offer.

Many brands want to know what their customers or subscribers think about their services and goods. It helps you understand your customer’s needs and requirements to make the necessary improvements in the future. A short survey will help you collect all the information you need. Knowing what your prospect and customers think about your products and services will also help you evaluate yourself and grade yourself effectively.

5. Ensures You Provide Good Customer Service.

Email marketing raises your marketing game and helps you provide high-quality services to your customers. Most of the time, your customers always want to know the details about the goods and services you offer or updates on shipping and delivery when they make their orders.

How Can Email Marketing Help Small Businesses?

Email marketing has turned out to be the best form of digital marketing today. It allows you to directly market your products and services to customers who have already shown interest in your products, services, or brand. But how can email marketing help your small business?

1. Create a Strong Relationship With Your Customers.

Creating and developing a good relationship with your customers can help small businesses grow faster than expected. Building relationships will make your customers trust your business, leading to them referring their friends and relatives to your business.

Regularly sending valuable and actionable email content to your customers will help foster a good relationship. Occasionally giving them offers and discounts on your products and services make them feel worthy of being on your email list.

2. Develop A Unique Brand.

Developing your brand may take some time but will pay off eventually. Email marketing gives you a platform to reach a larger audience, market your brand effectively, and increase your sales.

Email marketing also allows you to nurture your potential customers using regular marketing emails, thus building trust with them. Keep your messaging consistent with your brand so potential customers can better understand your business.

3. Create Top-notch Content.

Before starting your email marketing campaign, you need to develop a strategy to help you create valuable and actionable content that’ll appeal to your audience. Videos and blogs are some of the content you can leverage. Good content also sets you apart from your competition and positions you as an industry leader.

4. Manage Your Time And Budget.

Time is of the essence when you are running a small business. Depending on the processes you’ll handle, you need to find ways to automate or take some burden off your shoulders. Every Minute you waste, so using email marketing to send out emails to your customers all at once can save you time.

5. Make Your Business Credible.

One of the most stringent tests every small business has to pass is credibility. Why should someone trust you? You need to answer this when trying to prove your credibility to your audience and turn them into loyal customers.

Email marketing allows you to nurture your email subscribers into loyal customers who are willing to become your army of marketers – referring their friends and relatives to your business.

Why is email marketing important to your brand?

Email marketing has become a crucial part of modern-day communication.

Businesses rely heavily on email marketing to reach their target audience, from personal emails to newsletters.

Email marketing is a powerful tool that allows companies to connect with customers directly.

The key to successful email marketing campaigns is to create messages that resonate with recipients.

Email marketing is a great way to build relationships with potential clients. In addition, it helps to increase sales because it provides a direct connection between a company and its customer base.

What’s A Good Email Open Rate?

Your email open rate is one of the most vital performance metrics you can use to cope with the marketing pressure. It shows insights into how your subscribers react to your content and develops ways to improve your email marketing strategy. What percentage of your emails are opened by your email subscribers? How many haven’t opened or clicked their emails for the past few days?

How To Calculate Email Open Rates?

You don’t need to worry about calculating your email open rates because they have already been calculated. However, if you want to know how it’s done, divide the number of opens by the number of sent emails, minus the number of bounces.

Good Email Open Rates

According to Epsilon, the open rate for the 2018 fourth quarter was 29 percent. However, each industry’s opening rates vary, but what is certain is that your average email available rate should be between 15-25 percent, the average click-through rate should be 2.5 percent, while your average open rate should be 20-30 percent.

How to increase click rate in email marketing?

Email marketing is still one of the best ways to reach customers and prospects. But some marketers struggle with getting their emails open and read.

Here are some tips to ensure your messages stand out from the crowd.

1. Use Subject Lines that Grab Attention:

Subject lines are crucial when it comes to email marketing.

They’re the first things recipients see when they open your message. And since they only have so much space, subject lines must grab attention quickly.

You can test different subject line formats to find the ones that get the most opened and clicked.

For instance, “We’re having a sale!” gets opened and clicked over 50% more than “Sale Alert!”

2. Include Calls to Action:

Your call to action is the final sentence in your subject line. It tells readers exactly what to do next.

For example, “Click here to learn more about our product” is a clear CTA. “Learn more about our product“ is a little vague.

3. Add Images:

Images are powerful tools for grabbing attention. Studies show that images receive higher engagement rates than text alone.

Include multiple images in your email. One image per paragraph is fine. More than that makes your message look cluttered.

4. Be Specific About What Readers Can Do Next:

Don’t just tell readers what they can expect. Tell them precisely what they can do next.

For instance, instead of saying “click here,” say “Read more about our product.” Or, instead of saying ‘get started now,” say ‘Start saving money right away.”

5. Write Emails That Are Easy to Read:

People scan emails to decide if they want to read them. So make sure your writing style is straightforward.

Avoid jargon like “webinar” and “eCommerce platform.” Instead, write in plain English.

Best Email Marketing Tips?

Before your email marketing campaigns roll, you must know some of the best email marketing tips and best practices. Use these sources for this section:

1. Create A Good Subscriber List.

Creating a good subscriber list is a good email marketing tip to help you win more customers and improve your sales. An email marketing list has your audiences’ addresses, which you can use to send them information about your business. The process of acquiring more lessons for your list doesn’t end because you want a large audience that will help you market effectively. If you are starting email marketing, I suggest you put a subscription form on your website so your audience can fill in their details.

2. Know Your Audience.

Knowing your audience is very crucial because it determines the type of content you send. Every email you send needs to be relevant and serves its purpose to your subscribers. All your subscribers are different, so sending them the same email will be insensitive. I’d suggest using email segmentation to quickly categorize your subscribers into sub-groups to send them relevant messages.

3. Personalize Your Emails.

People need to know that there is more to personalization than just addressing your subscribers by name. It’s about being relevant, sending timely emails, and anticipating your subscribers’ needs. Personalization helps you collect the correct information from your subscribers to know the marketing gaps you need to fill to improve your primary goal of getting more sales.

4. Test And Track Emails.

Ensure that you test and track your email marketing campaigns before sending them to your email list. Tracking your movement gives you a clear picture of how your email marketing campaigns are performing. It also gives you insight into what you are doing wrong to develop ways of improving your email marketing strategy.

Email Marketing Examples?

1. Uber.

Uber’s email campaign is simple yet very exciting. They are straightforward – they always state who they are and what they do, which is suitable for users who don’t have much time. They place a link for those who might want to know more about what they do.

2. Litmus.

Litmus email marketing designs are unique and exciting because they use GIFs and animations, which are very popular these days. Animations and GIFs draw attention and persuade subscribers to continue reading your email marketing content. Besides, Litmus writes very catchy headlines to boost their open rates.

3. BuzzFeed.

Buzzfeed writes excellent and persuasive content with catchy subject lines and previews to compel subscribers to open it immediately. They provide their subscribers with high-quality content about cats which many people like. BuzzFeed newsletters include cat pictures and links, which do well in entrancing their audience to finish reading. Buzzfeed also writes the right pieces about foods and love.

4. Aesop.

Aesop email marketing has everything you need. It has exciting and unique content, colors, and illustrations. The best part is that they use brief descriptions suitable for people’s understanding and save time. They always have a button you can click if you want to know more about them.

5. Starbucks.

Starbucks often writes useful and engaging emails that make its subscribers crave more of their pieces. They know how to compel their customers to buy their coffee even when it wasn’t in your plans. They use good pictures to add to their message, which is nothing but perfection.

Email Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

Even though email marketing has lots of benefits like boosting your sales, building your credibility, creating stronger customer relationships, etc., some areas can cause more harm than good if not looked at properly. Let’s have a look at some of them.

1. Starting Badly.

Once you have succeeded in getting your audience’s email addresses, remember that first impression always matters. Therefore, you must first thank new subscribers for subscribing to your email marketing campaign. A welcoming email must always contain a greeting, appreciation for the subscription, and what they should do next. However, some marketers make the mistake of getting straight to the point without following the proper marketing strategy protocols.

2. Not Utilizing Message Preview.

Good opening previews are essential in ensuring the readers are well acquainted with what the email is about. The preview should be written uniquely to compel readers to know more about your brand. When you write long and tedious previews, your subscribers will feel disinterested in learning more about what you do. That’s why you need to keep your previews short and sweet to read.

3. Disallowing Allowing Feedback.

Disallowing customer feedback is a mistake most marketers make. This is a costly mistake because feedback always helps you reevaluate your marketing strategy. It lets you know what your customers don’t like about your business. Feedback also gives you a clear picture of what you need to change to make your customers happy and improve your sales. However, some marketers deny their customers from replying to their emails by sending “no-reply emails.” You should avoid this mistake if you want to know your customers’ problems.

4. Not Tracking Your Campaigns.

When using email marketing, you should always have a plan that includes tracking your campaign step by step. Those who don’t track their campaigns put themselves at high risk of not knowing how their business is doing. When you follow your campaigns, you get to know the challenges and those that may arise to find the best way to counter them—plan to track your marketing campaigns so that you don’t incur losses.

5. Neglecting Mobile Users.

We are in a digital world, meaning there are more mobile phone users than years ago. Some marketers disregard mobile users by creating email marketing content that you cannot load on mobile phones. This is a costly approach any email marketer can have because many of your subscribers using phones will not effectively get your message. This is why you need to test and check all your emails to see if they work on multiple devices before sending them.

How To Get Email Lists For Marketing?

With the emergence of other digital forms of marketing on social media, people are beginning to question if email marketing has the same impact as before.

Email marketing still plays a vital role in a business’s functioning by building close relationships between email marketers and customers. It also informs your potential customers about the goods and services you offer.

However, you need an email list for email marketing to be complete. That’s why in this post, I’m going to walk you through how you can get email lists for marketing.

What Is An Email List?

An email list contains potential and current customers’ addresses to who you send information regarding your business. It is the first thing you must have to execute your following business plans properly. The lessons you obtain are for people who have permitted you to send emails to them through email marketing.

How To Get Email List For Marketing?

Every business needs to have an email list for its email marketing plan. Here are some ways to get an email list:

1. Use Forms.

This method is the simplest because it only requires you to create a form on your website so your visitors can fill in their details, including their best email addresses. This method also gives you an insight into how many people like your content and would be interested in receiving regular emails.

2. Use Lead Generation Tools.

This method allows you to add a popup form with a clear call-to-action on your social media page or website, which requests your audience to subscribe to your campaign. This method is engaging and is one of the best ways to persuade your audience to join your email list. There are a ton of lead generation tools – both free and paid. One of the best you can take advantage of is the OptinMonster lead generation tool.

3. Ask People For Their Email Addresses.

Asking people for their email addresses is time-consuming but also very rewarding. You can apply this method by directly asking people to share with you their emails on various social media platforms so that you can send them value-packed emails.

4. Use Social Media.

Social media has taken over the world in a way that you can apply just anywhere. The best way to do this is to create contests or giveaways and let people participate in the competition by signing up using their email addresses. However, you must clarify that they’ll leave behind their email addresses, so they don’t feel cheated.

5. Offer Freebies to Your Target Audience.

Customers are always skeptical and would love to test your products before they can commit and purchase your products or services. The best way to win your potential customer’s trust is to offer them a freebie in exchange for their email addresses. However, you must ensure that the freebie you offer is worth the email address exchange. A good example is a free mini-course that walks your customers through a specific topic.

6. Host Online Events.

Events contain a good number of people who share specific goals. In most cases, people wishing to participate in online events must sign up and save their spots. When signing up, they’ll have to leave their email addresses. A good example is hosting a webinar on starting an affiliate marketing biz – from the basics to the essentials.

What Is The Best Email Service?

There are quite a good number of email services that give high-quality services. Once you start using one, it’s always tough to change to another unless it does not entirely satisfy your needs. Let us look at some that have managed to serve many users best over the years.

1. GetResponse.

GetResponse is one of the best email marketing services with affordable pricing. It helps small, and large businesses build targeted email leads and market their products and services. There’s a free trial for 30 days, after which you can choose a package you want, depending on the size of your list.

2. Constant Contact.

Constant Contact is one of the reputable email marketing software with tons of features to help you get the most out of your business. You’ll get a free 60 days trial, after which you will choose a package – plans starting from $20 every month.

3. Drip.

Drip is also an email marketing service, primarily popular among eCommerce business owners. Bloggers and other digital marketers can use this email marketing software as well. You can automate your email, access sales funnels, and personalize your emails to better connect with your prospects. Like other email marketing services, you’ll get a free trial and choose a plan – a package starting at $49 monthly.

4. Mailchimp.

Mailchimp is another fantastic marketing automation platform best known for its modern features necessary for a successful email campaign. Mailchimp’s main features are drag and drop design tools, email automation, sign-up forms, dynamic content, customer segmentation options, and social media integrations. It also offers opportunities for free or paid plans, depending on what you need. With the paid plans, you can get their 24/7 live and email chat support.

5. AWeber.

AWeber offers you an incredible experience when you are looking to develop your email list by adding and managing contacts from your email list. The unique thing about AWeber is that it has an Al-powered email template designer, making it easier for beginners to create emails. They also offer sign-up forms and a free image library. Their phone, email, and live chat are available 24/7.

6. ActiveCampaign.

ActiveCampaign is also the best email marketing automation platform that efficiently connects businesses with customers worldwide. It offers a modern email marketing service, but one that stands out is adding a machine learning aspect to create unique content and send emails. You can send an unlimited number of emails with any of their plans. Their email and chat support are fully operational during working hours which is a great bonus.

Why Is Email Marketing Effective?

An email has been at the forefront of marketing campaigns for many years. Although there is stiff competition from social media platforms, it still delivers effectively. However, many people still doubt if it’s useful; that’s why I’m going to take you through why email marketing is effective.

1. An email is a low-cost form of direct marketing.

When you compare other marketing forms like TV and internet advertising, you will realize that email marketing is the cheapest way to market your business. Email marketing suits companies of all kinds because their methods merely email your potential customers after their approval or subscription. Email marketing helps you save some money which you can use to invest in your business.

2. It’s personal and highly targeted.

If you want to create a personal relationship with your customers, email marketing is a suitable medium. Email marketing helps you develop a personal relationship with your subscribers at different levels, depending on how you relate. It also allows you to send additional emails to other subscribers to solve their challenges efficiently.

3. It’s an effective way to reach people.

Email marketing is the best method to reach people anytime without them missing out on your intended message. Why? Because many people have smartphones, email popup is very unlikely to be missed. If you compare the number of computer users to smartphone users, you’ll conclude that many emails are open on smartphones making it easier for you to reach many people at a go.

4. Email helps mitigate the environmental impact.

Email plays a critical role in saving costs and creating awareness of preserving our natural forests. With the wood industry growing, it’s clear that our natural forests are in great danger. Instead of spending time printing posters and booklets, you can use your email to share your story. When you use this method, it becomes cheaper and more effective.

What Are Your Common Email Marketing Challenges?

There is no doubt about how valuable and essential email marketing has become to marketers worldwide. However, email marketing comes with its unique challenges. Here are some of them:

1. Engagement Rates.

Email engagement rates are a big challenge to marketers because they require you to improve email recipient rates. This means that you have to personalize all emails you send to your email subscribers. You also must ensure that your content is packed with exciting and relevant information. Although this method is challenging, it is still achievable.

2. Customer Acquisition.

When you listen to some of the marketers’ goals, you always mention getting new customers on board. Some even say they want to get new customers who plan to buy from them, not those who will read the emails but take no action. However, this is the marketers’ number one challenge. Acquiring new customers is not an easy thing. It requires you to be creative and put in hard work before you start to see the benefits. It is never easy because you also have to convince new customers to share their email addresses, why they should buy from you, etc.

3. Customer Retention.

Customer retention is another challenge marketers go through daily. It’s hard to retain customers because they come across new goods and services they want to purchase daily. Having your customers means making them happy every day until you gain their trust and become loyal customers.

4. Email Personalization.

In email marketing, the more personalized the email is, the more interesting it is to your subscribers. This is another challenge marketers go through because personalizing messages, especially with many subscribers, is challenging. Personalizing messages also consumes a lot of time you would have used to do other things. Even though it’s rewarding, it is also tricky.

5. Brand Awareness.

Creating brand awareness is what every marketer wants to achieve. There are many ways to create awareness of your business or brand, but it comes at a cost when you use mediums like paid ads and events. Creating awareness is challenging because you have to use extra cash and time to benefit yourself.

6. Marketing Costs.

Marketing is always high, and many wish for a way to lower them. It is impossible to cut them completely, but you can reduce them if you find a way. Even though this is a challenge to many marketers, I’d suggest they only take marketing tools that serve their specific functions instead of paying for what they don’t use.