Email marketing is one of the most popular ways of getting in touch with potential customers, generating leads and engaging with potential buyers. However, a lot can go wrong without careful consideration, and many businesses fail to capitalize on this communication channel due to a lack of understanding of what is required.
To help businesses understand the basics of email marketing and how to successfully integrate this vital channel into their marketing strategies, we’ve put together a top 10 checklist to follow.
1. Create a list of email addresses
Before you embark on your email marketing journey, you need to make sure you’ve collected a list of email addresses. Building a mailing list is easy enough; you can start by asking your customers for their email addresses, or by getting in touch with people via social media and asking them for their email addresses. You can also look into buying a list of subscribers or curated email lists from a company like MailChimp.com. Having a wide range of contacts will make it much easier to send out valuable, engaging emails that will result in conversions.
2. Set up an email marketing campaign
After you’ve collected your list of email addresses, you need to set up an email marketing campaign. An email marketing campaign is a series of emails that are sent out to potential customers over a period of time. You can set up automated emails that are sent out regularly, or you can create a series of valuable emails and send them out as soon as your customer has done something that entitles you to track their activity.
3. Choose a suitable email platform
You need to pick a suitable email platform to host your campaign. There are a number of choices, such as Gmail, Outlook, or Apple Mail. For smaller businesses that are just getting started, free email platforms such as Gmail and Outlook are more than suitable. However, if you want to ensure that your emails land in the inbox, then it’s best to use an enterprise-grade solution such as MailChimp or HubSpot.
4. Choose a subject line for your emails
The subject line of your email is arguably the most important part, as it will dictate how your email is going to be treated by your recipient. With so much competition, you need to find a way to stand out, and the easiest way to do that is with a catchy subject line. When creating your subject line, keep in mind that your email is going to be separated from other messages by the recipient, so use a short, concise word or phrase that will catch the attention of the reader.
5. Choose an appropriate template
After you’ve set up your email marketing campaign, you need to choose an appropriate template that will be used to compose your emails. There are a number of email templates that you can choose from, including the basic.onlc template, which many email marketing tools offer. If you want to keep things simple and clean, then use a.Onlc template.
6. Customize the content of your email
Once you’ve picked an email template, it’s time to customize the content of your email. You can do this by adding relevant links and quotes, or you can add a brief summary of the content that you plan to include in your email. For example, if you’re sending out an email about product recommendations, you can add in a few links to sites that offer the products or services you’re recommending, or you can include a short quote or excerpt from a notable author or expert on the subject matter.
7. Make sure your emails are legitimate
It’s essential that your emails are legitimate and not created by a machine. This means that the person sending out the emails has the right to do so and that the emails are sent from a reliable source. Checking for spelling errors is also important because there are automated tools that can flag emails as spam if they contain spelling errors or otherwise look suspicious. A good rule of thumb is to assume that every email you get is spam until you know otherwise. This is why it’s important to take the time to do a little research before giving out any personal or financial information over email.
8. Always keep your emails relevant
It’s essential that your emails are relevant to your target audience. If you’ve gone through the effort of collecting email addresses, then you probably already have a pretty good idea of who the recipient of your email is and what they might need or want. You need to make sure that your emails are providing value and answering questions that your audience might have. One way of doing this is by including a strong call-to-action (CTA) in your email’s text; something that will make them want to take the next step and enter their contact details. You can also test out different subject lines and body copy to find the one that gives you the best chance of converting your readers into customers.
9. Measure the success of your campaign
After you’ve sent out your initial email marketing campaign, it’s time to measure its success. You can do this by looking at the actions that you’ve encouraged your audience to take, such as making a purchase or signing up to a newsletter. The easy way to do this is by looking at the metrics such as open rates, click-throughs and conversion rates for each campaign. The more you measure, the more you’ll learn and be able to improve.
If you want to get really fancy, you can track referrals, view the journey that people are taking from initial interest to purchase, and see how many people are doing business with you as a result of your efforts in email marketing. With so much competition, it’s essential to find an approach that will give you an extra edge.
10. When to stop?
So you’ve done all the preparation and you’ve managed to successfully establish an email marketing campaign. That’s great! But, remember that email marketing is a continuing process, and once you’ve reached your desired audience, it might be time to stop.
If you’ve hit your daily or weekly limit on emails, then it’s time to take a break and get back to work on collecting new email addresses, or picking a new topic to write about. With a little planning and research, you can always find a way to bring in the revenue you need to make it all worth it.