How To Get Started With Email Marketing – Top 10 Things To Remember

According to various studies, Email marketing has shown to be much more effective than other digital marketing channels such as social media and paid searches. And this is also the perfect time to get started with email marketing. However, starting with Email marketing can be a difficult task for people who do not have any experience in this sector.

Hence, we have compiled a list of top 10 tips that you should do in order to get started with email marketing for your business. 

Choose An Email Marketing Service Provider

One can benefit a lot by working with an email marketing service provider. Email marketing providers can help to a great extent in automating email marketing in order to effectively deliver messages to a large group of contacts or subscribers. They will also provide you with professional email templates and tools that will help you grow and more importantly, manage your email list. The tracking features will also enable you to see who is opening your messages and engaging with your campaigns.

Gather Contacts For Your Email Marketing List

If you own a business, there are high chances that you already have existing contacts to start an email list with. It could either be business contacts that you have made while running the business or it could even be a few supportive friends or family members. Even if you do not have anyone to put on the list and are starting your email list from scratch, do not be discouraged. One of the easiest ways to get started is by simply putting a paper signup sheet near your register. 

You could also add an online form on your website in order to get people on the email list. Lastly, you can use your influence on social media in order to get your followers and customers to sign up. There are no shortcuts to building an email list and buying an email list is certainly not a good option. If you want to sustain your business, it is important that you learn the art of building and maintaining relationships. Connecting with a smaller list of quality contacts will be much more than having a long list of contacts that are not interested in your business. 

Add Your Contacts Into The Email Marketing Account

Once you have set up an email marketing account with an initial list to send to, the next step is to add your contacts into your account. This can be done in two ways; either by uploading a contact list from an existing spreadsheet, or by importing contacts from a Gmail or an Outlook account. If your contacts are part of different services that your business offers, it is best that you make separate lists for your contacts according to their requirements. By doing this, you will be able to send targeted emails based on their specific interests. 

Set Up Your Welcome Email

Your welcome email is the very first email that your new set or email subscribers will receive from you. The reason why welcome emails are important because they provide the first impression of your business and the services that you offer to your set of new subscribers. You can start it with a warm greeting and provide an overview of the things that they can expect from your services in the future. It is best that you offer a useful piece of information right away so that they know that the email list subscription is useful. Once this is set up, all your welcome emails in the future will be sent automatically to new contacts.

Create A Reusable Email Template

Your email marketing service provider should have a bunch of email templates that you can choose from. You can even select timely templates that can be customized specifically for various public holidays. The most important thing about the template that you are choosing should be its potential to get the message across fast. This can only be done when the layout is clean and eye-catching. In most cases, people quickly scroll through emails on their smartphones, hence, it is important that the template you pick is mobile-responsive. 

Secondly, make sure that you customize your email and put your business’s logo right at the top of your email and link the image to your website’s homepage as well. The next step would be to add your business’s signature colors and create an email footer with your business name, contact information, and links to all your active social media pages. Once all of these things are set up within your template, you can save it as your master template. With this reusable template, you’ll be able to change its contents according to your requirements while keeping the basic essentials intact.

Practice Writing Persuasive Messages

Writer’s block is something that everyone comes across at some point at least once. However, writing effective messages is an important skill to have. The best thing that you can do is to imagine a conversation that you are having with your contact in person and write down everything that you would say to them. You can break down your message in such a way that they receive three important bits of information from it. First, what is it that you are offering, second, how will it help the reader and third, what should they do next. 

Spend Time On Subject Lines

Your email’s subject line is the most important factor in your whole email. The reason for this is because that is what the reader sees first. Only if the subject line is engaging enough will the reader choose to proceed to read the entire email. If you make a good impression with the subject line, the chances of them opening the email increases to a great extent. If your subject line is bland, the reader might just skip the email and move forward. It is also important that your subject line is snappy and short. You can draw attention to your subject line by adding in a compelling question or a deadline that invokes a sense of urgency. 

Preview And Test Your Message Before You Send

In the beginning stages of getting into email marketing, there are higher chances of you making a mistake as you are not used to it. It could be either you missing out on adding an important link or a spelling error and so on. Unfortunately, once the email has been sent out, there is nothing that you can do. Hence, it is always a good practice to send out a tester email to either yourself or a staff member before sending it out to your entire email list.

Send Your Email (At The Best Time)

Timing is an important factor to consider while sending out an email. The best timing completely depends on the kind of audience that you have. Hence, the best time will differ depending on who is on your email list. One of the things that you can do to maintain consistency is to create a sending schedule and follow them thoroughly.

For instance, if you start sending out a newsletter to the people on your list on the first of every month, they will start expecting it in their inboxes. Your subscribers will know for sure when they can expect a message from you next and you can schedule a message as well to send based on your own schedule. 

Track Your Results

It is important to remember that sending an email does not just end at writing it and sending it. It is crucial to track your open rate, click-through rate, unsubscribing rates, etc. Your goal should be to work on these factors and make sure that they improve over time. You absolutely need to have a strong understanding of how emails work so that you can study your customers and their requirements, and make the necessary improvements. Dedicating some time to reading your email reports will help you get valuable information and statistics on who is opening your emails. 

You can also find out things such as who opened specific links and what information did your subscribers find the most appealing. You should strive to know how engaging your campaign messages are. Tracking actions that happen beyond the email are important as well.

Video Credit – Oberlo

At the end of the day, your goal is to grow either qualitatively or in scale. Hence, knowing the trajectory and efficiency of your email marketing techniques make a very important part of your functioning. Having a list of quality contacts will help you reach a long way on your journey instead of expanding your email list without giving it any thought.

If there’s anything you think I’ve missed – talk to me in the comments below!

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