The purpose of this blog post is to provide you with a simple, straightforward plan to help you make the most of your email marketing efforts. We’ll cover everything from how to select the right list to send your emails to, through setting up automated emails to send to your contacts on a schedule, to how to build a brand for yourself in the industry.
Before you begin your email marketing plan, it is important to answer a few questions. First, what is your overall email marketing strategy? Next, who are your target audience, and what would make them open and click on your emails? Third, what kind of content do you want to include in your emails?
To help you get started, we have compiled a one-stop-shop email marketing plan that incorporates all the key components of a successful email campaign. This email marketing plan can be used as a starting point for your own strategy and should serve as a roadmap to help you reach your goals. With this plan in hand, you will be able to develop robust and effective email marketing campaigns that will help you grow your business and connect with your audience.
Select The Right List
The first step in creating an email marketing plan is to select the right list. The type of list you select will depend on your budget, the nature of your product or service, and the demographics you are aiming to reach. There are three categories of email lists you can choose from:
- Active lists – These are email lists that you can use to send out a daily digest of articles, tips, or blog posts that are relevant to your niche. Some examples of active lists are blog subscribers, newspaper subscribers, and members of a LinkedIn group.
- Passive lists – These are lists of contacts that you can use to send a one-off email, or batch of emails, to. Examples of passive lists include people who filled out a quote request or signed up for a trial offer.
- Selection lists – These are lists of contacts that you can choose to send your next email campaign to. You can use a tool like Scrapebox to easily create your selection list. With Scrapebox, you can choose specific criteria to use to build your list, such as website, product interest, or email address. You can also use a tool like GetResponse to create a batch of emails and send them out to your selected list of contacts.
When choosing your list, make sure to consider the size of your recipient base. If you are new to email marketing, start with a small list (up to 1,000 subscribers) to allow you to get your feet wet and build up experience with creating and sending out emails. As you gain experience, you can add more subscribers to your list. Keeping a small list can also help you gauge the effectiveness of your campaigns more easily.
Set Up The Automation Behind The Scenes
One of the most effective ways to improve the engagement rate on your email campaigns is to set up automated emails. An automated email is one that is pre-filled with content, typically pulled from a database. You can use a tool like MailChimp to create and send out automated emails, or you can do it manually. Either way, setting up automated emails will increase the engagement rate on your email marketing campaigns.
Creating automated emails is fairly straightforward. First, you will want to identify the email template that you will use, the recipient’s list, and the content you will use to populate the template. Next, you will need to create a workflow that will carry out the task of sending the email on a schedule. It is also advisable to examine the open-rate and click-rate on your past campaigns to get a better understanding of what content performs well and what content gets ignored.
Find Your Niche
If you are looking to grow your email marketing efforts, it is important to find a niche where you can shine. If you are not sure where your strongest niche is, examine the products and services you are providing, analyzing past performance, and looking at the markets and demographics you are aiming to reach. Once you find your niche, you can build a following and find ways to monetize your efforts.
For example, if you are an attorney and you want to target consumers who are looking for legal advice, you can build a following in the legal niche and provide valuable advice that will make a difference in their lives. You can also incorporate your blog into your email marketing strategy to attract and retain customers.
Create Content That Customers Want
In the previous section, we discussed the importance of finding your niche, and creating content tailored to fit the needs of your audience. When you are creating content for your marketing efforts, it is important to think of what would make your customers or potential customers click on, open, and read your content. To get the most out of your content creation, develop a content strategy and set a benchmark for content quality. The better you get at this, the more effective and efficient your content marketing efforts will be. In addition to that, create multiple types of content for your audience, such as videos, infographics, and webinars. Having a wide variety of content will make it easier for your audience to find exactly what they are looking for.
Measure The Results Of Your Campaign
In the previous section, we discussed setting up automated emails to send to your contacts on a schedule. One of the key metrics you will want to measure is the open rate (the number of people who opened your email) and the click rate (the number of people who clicked on a link in your email).
- Open rate – This measures the effectiveness of your email marketing campaign. Open rate is derived from the total number of emails your campaign sent out, and the total number of recipients who opened the email.
- Click rate – This measures the effectiveness of your email marketing campaign. Click rate is derived from the total number of emails your campaign sent out, and the total number of recipients who clicked on a link in the email.
As you can see, measuring the results of your email marketing campaign is fairly straight-forward. To get the most out of your investment in email marketing, it is important to examine the results of your campaigns and make necessary adjustments. This process is called feedback-learning-based optimization, and it allows you to get better and better each time you send out an email campaign.
To conclude, building a successful email marketing plan starts with a clear idea of your objectives and a strong desire to succeed. From there, you can take the initiative to develop an actionable plan that will help you gain the results you are seeking. At this point, you can sit back and enjoy the benefits your email marketing can bring to your business.