If you’re looking to grow your email list, the best resource to follow is arguably not a book or a website, but an expert named Alex Becker. For the past 10 years, Alex has helped thousands of entrepreneurs and startups develop an effective strategy for email marketing.
Recently, he’ve teamed up with MarketingCharts to compile all his email marketing advice into a comprehensive guide that applies to both beginners and experienced marketers alike. The result is the Alex Becker’s Guide to Email Marketing, which provides a blueprint for putting email marketing to work for you.
Let’s take a look at how you can use this crucial guide to effectively grow your email list and boost your marketing performance.
The Definitive Guide to Email Marketing
The Alex Becker’s Guide to Email Marketing is an essential resource for anyone looking to get started with email marketing or looking to improve their existing strategy. For those new to the subject, the guide provides an overview of the basics of email marketing along with an introduction to the tools that you’ll need to successfully carry out your plans.
Whether you’re looking to grow your email list to engage with prospective customers, boost your sales performance, or gain more visibility in your industry, this guide provides indispensable advice.
The guide begins by defining the purpose of email marketing and providing some key insights into its future.
What is Email Marketing?
Simply put, email marketing is the process of capturing email addresses from potential customers for the purpose of sending them targeted messages. The key to effective email marketing is to develop a clear objective and a well-thought-out strategy before you begin to build your list. While there are many different ways to approach building a business email list, as a beginner, you may want to consider focusing on growth as opposed to profit for the time being. Why? Simple: Building a business email list is much more challenging than monetizing it. But don’t worry, success in this arena is completely achievable with the right approach.
To define the purpose of your email marketing, consider what you hope to get out of the process: sales, leads, and most importantly, engagement.
Why should You engage with your audience via email?
Despite the seemingly obvious benefits, email hasn’t been embraced by all industries quite yet. But as with most other channels, the benefits of email marketing are undeniable. Here are just a few reasons why you should engage with your audience via email:
- It’s cost-effective.
- You can tailor your message as needed.
- You can test the performance of your campaign easily.
- You have a dedicated audience that you can engage with on a regular basis.
- You can allow your subscribers to follow you easily.
- You can encourage interaction and feedback.
If you’re looking to carry out your email marketing strategy, you’ll need the following:
What are the essentials for a Mailing List?
As the name suggests, a mailing list is a collection of email addresses that you’ve gathered together. To grow your list, you’ll need to follow some tried and tested methods that can help you identify interested parties and gain their trust. Here are some of the essentials:
- A compelling value proposition.
- A Call To Action
- A dedicated landing page
- An email signup form
- An opt-in box
- A way to collect emails
- A confirmation of delivery
Additionally, you’ll want to look at each piece of content you send out and ask yourself “is this going to encourage the person reading it to subscribe?” If you’re looking to build a long-term relationship with your audience, consider looking at each email you send out as a standalone piece of content with a clear call to action.
How to Get Started with Your Own Email Marketing Campaign
To get started, simply follow these steps:
- First, identify the key pillars of your strategy.
- Second, choose a fitting acronym for your campaign (i.e. STRONG, for “Sales & Training”).
- Third, decide on the goals of your campaign (i.e., to attract new customers & to increase product sales).
- Fourth, find an email marketing tool that’s suited to your needs (i.e., built-in analytics, dedicated landing page, and so on).
- Finally, populate your list with the relevant and authoritative contacts from your strategy.
As you work through this process, you’ll want to think of ways to measure the success of your campaign. For instance, did you meet your goal for sign-ups? How about dollars spent?
The Anatomy of a Good Email Marketing Campaign
In addition to providing you with the basics, the Alex Becker’s Guide to Email Marketing also serves as a starting point for designing your own successful email marketing campaign. With a few key components, you can craft a brilliant piece of marketing that will convince people to subscribe to your list.
To start, define the purpose of your campaign and consider the type of audience you’re going after. In terms of marketing objectives, you want to choose something that’ll be easy for you to track and verify. Consider looking at your competitors for inspiration
As part of your strategy, you need to identify the key contacts you intend to use to drive the success of your campaign. Before you begin, it’s essential that you choose a fitting acronym for your team (i.e. STRONG, for Sales & Training).
Next, you want to develop a brilliant strategy for pitching your product or service. To do this, dive into the details of your product and determine what exactly you’re selling. Additionally, consider brainstorming some compelling benefits that may entice potential customers to purchase your product. The more you can pack into a single pitch, the more you can compel potential customers to subscribe to your list.
To gain customers, you’ll want to focus on three key areas of your strategy:
1. Content
The first and foremost piece of the puzzle is the content you’re using to pitch your product. To design a content schedule, take your marketing goals and the type of content you’ll be using to reach them into consideration. For example, if you’re trying to target B2B audiences and you have a general marketing blog, you may want to focus on product reviews or case studies. But if you want to focus on attracting a younger audience and use YouTube to your advantage, you may want to consider creating video content marketing campaigns.
2. Distribution
With digital marketing, the distribution strategy is just as important as the content strategy. Where will you pitch your content? What platforms will you use to promote your product?
As a beginner, you may want to limit yourself to just a couple of platforms to start with. But as you gain experience, you may want to consider branching out to other platforms as well.
To distribute your content, you’ll want to utilize the various methods available to reach your audience. When developing your content strategy, you’ll want to choose platforms that allow you to target the right audience and establish credibility. For example, if you’re looking to target millennials and you have expertise in luxury products, you may want to consider using TikTok.
3. Measurement
As you work through your content strategy, you’ll want to take into consideration the various metrics available to measure its success. Just remember: Content is meaningless unless you can prove that it’s resulted in more qualified leads and sales. To start, consider looking at the amount of web traffic coming to your site from relevant keywords.
In addition to measuring the success of your content strategy via the growth of your blog, you may want to look at other metrics as well. For instance, how many times have people clicked on a sponsored link or downloaded a white paper you promoted? In addition to web traffic, you may want to consider looking into the number of closed sales and the dollar amounts generated from each sale as well.