Email marketing is a form of marketing that’s been around for centuries and is as effective today as it was back then. Why? Perhaps because people are still as curious as they were back then when it comes to new things. Or, because people are still as eager to hear what marketers have to say as they were in earlier times. Either way, the ability to send email messages to huge lists of people is as great as it’s ever been.
So, if you’re looking to create an email marketing plan but don’t have the time or resources to do so manually, we’ve got you covered. Here’s how to easily create your email marketing info on Google Sheets.
Create a Spreadsheet
The very first step is to create a simple spreadsheet. You can use any spreadsheet you want, but we recommend using Google Sheets because it’s relatively easy to use and there’s a lot of pre-built formulas you can harness straight away. For those new to spreadsheets, don’t worry – we’ll walk you through the basics.
To get started, navigate to https://sheets.google.com and click on the Create New Spreadsheet button. Then, give your spreadsheet a name and hit Create. You’ll see the basic template with columns named A to Z. Just below this, you’ll see a section called Formulas. This is where you’ll type in your own formulas to calculate things such as the total price of an item, the discounted price of an item, the days till the next payday, etc.
Add Your Email List
Once you’ve created your basic spreadsheet, the next step is to add your email list. To do this, click on the Insert icon at the top of the spreadsheet. This will open up a box where you can select from various link sources. After selecting Email list, you can either paste in your email list manually or click to select a file containing your email list. Once you’ve copied your email list to the clipboard, you can close the Insert icon and click on the Copy icon to the top of the spreadsheet. You can now paste the copied list into the appropriate column. Once this is done, you can save the file and then close it down.
Add Headers & Footers
If you’ve ever emailed something professionally, you’ll know that there’s usually a section called Subject and another called Message. These are the headers of your email. If you want, you can add them manually or you can use the Insert icon to add headers and footers from Google Docs or other Office files. Just make sure that whatever you add has the proper grammar and spelling (especially if you’re using the former).
Sort & Filter Your List
Once you’ve got your basic email list in place, the next step is to sort and filter it. You can do this by using the Filter icon at the top of your spreadsheet. Just select Status from the drop-down menu and then select either A to Z or Z to A. This will sort your list horizontally or vertically, respectively.
Calculate the Total Cost of Ownership
The last step is to calculate the total cost of ownership of your selected equipment. To do this, you’ll need to add up the total price of the equipment (minus any discounts) divided by the number of days you’ll use it. So, let’s say you’ve chosen a Microsoft Surface Book. The base price of this item is $1,299 and it will need to be replaced every 30 days (based on an average usage). You’ll need to multiply $1,299 by 30 to get the total cost of ownership in dollars and cents. You can find the total cost of ownership for your equipment here: Equipment Total Cost of Ownership.
Once this is done, you can hit the F11 key on your keyboard to see a magnified view of the spreadsheet – this will make things much easier to follow. Now, you can easily create and follow a plan for sending out electronic messages to your customers. There are a lot more steps and variations you can take depending on what you want to do, but this should get you started.