Email Marketing for Beginners

By  //  March 18, 2020

Emails are the perfect marketing tool and if done right, they offer better clickthrough rates than social media. They can be highly customized to ensure you are sending the right email to the right customer.

Emails are the perfect marketing tool and if done right, they offer better clickthrough rates than social media. They can be highly customized to ensure you are sending the right email to the right customer.

But if you are new to email marketing, how do you do it right? Below, we will walk through the process of getting started so that you can use email marketing in your marketing efforts.

Write Down Your Goals

While it is easy to sign up for an emailing service and start sending out emails, you should start by setting your goals. Think about what you want to achieve with your email marketing campaign. Ensure that these things align with your business goals so you can see better results.

The goals and objectives you set at this stage will be what you use to measure if your campaign is doing alright. 

Some question to ask yourself include:

• Do you want more customers?

• Do you want more sales?

• Would you like to work with other companies and brands?

• Do you want better social media numbers and engagement?

Build the Email List

This is perhaps the most important part of email marketing. There is no email marketing without an audience and this should be the next step after you know what you want to get out of the campaign. There are lots of different ways to build a list. Below are a few of them.

Add an Email Signature

An email signature is an HTML content block with your branding and actionable contact information. An email signature is placed at the end of the email when anyone could easily spot it.

A well-made signature footer will have your brand logo and colors and include a banner or a button with your updated campaign call to action. You can follow either of these guides to quickly add an email signature in Gmail or in Outlook.

Importing a list of contacts

If you have a website that collects user data, it is very easy to get this data and add it to an email list. A lot of companies that offer email services will usually let you import your list of contacts. Ensure that the contacts you import have given you permission to email them otherwise you could be reported for spamming.

Building a new list

This can be difficult, but if done right, the effort is worth it. You need to think about ways of collecting contacts. The best way is to build a list capture method.

This can be a form on your website or social media websites. Most paid and free email marketing tools let you embed forms on websites and social media for easy lead capture.

A winning formula is offering an incentive for signing up, like an eBook or a coupon code, and making it simple for people to sign up. Making the process needlessly complicated might turn people away, no matter how good the incentive is.

Good incentives include:

• Discounts – This can be a discount on their first order or for signing up. A discount encourages people to sign up but more importantly, it can increase your revenue. 

• Exclusive content – If you have a blog, telling your subscribers that you will send them exclusive content can be a good way to get them to sign up.

• Shipping upgrades – You could offer free or even express shipping to those who sign up if you run an online store. 

Adding a header bar

A header bar is added to the top of websites to encourage people to sign up. They are a good option because they are prominent and can be seen by everyone even if they do not scroll down to see your content.

Adding a slider

You could add a small slider box that slides into view when a visitor has been on the website for some time or when they want to leave. Ensure that you mention the benefits of joining the list as well as the incentive you are handing out. 

Decide on the Types of Campaigns You Would Like to Run

There are different types of campaigns you can run. You could start with a newsletter which is simply an email with just one topic.

Ensure that you set the campaign to be sent out at fixed times so that people get used to receiving your email at a particular time. A newsletter can be a good way of introducing yourself and talking to your customers.

A marketing offer email can be an email with the latest products and services or even a list of discounts and promotions. Ensure that you have your users in mind when crafting these emails as you want them to be both informative and useful. 

Announcement emails are good for when you need to tell your users about something new that is coming to the market. It could also be about a launch or an event you are planning.

Create the Campaign

At this stage, you should start preparing the emails you will send out and scheduling them to be sent to different segments of your audience. Ensure that your subject lines catch the attention of your readers in a few seconds so they do not turn away.

Email marketing can be very beneficial to a business. It can bring new customers in as well as help increase sales.

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