How to get started with email marketing might seem like an impossible question without a solution. As a beginner, you a provided the most minimal solution, why not give it a try. If your existing email marketing initiatives aren’t producing the results you want, or you’re trying to clarify your email marketing practices, getting more results from your efforts starts with understanding the steps of email marketing.
What is Email Marketing?
Email marketing is a digital marketing strategy that involves sending commercial messages, typically to a group of people, via email. These messages can include promotional content, product updates, newsletters, event invitations, and more. The goal of email marketing is to build relationships with customers or prospects, drive engagement, and ultimately, generate sales or conversions. It’s a powerful tool for businesses and organizations to communicate directly with their audience in a personalized and cost-effective way
How to get started with email marketing
Define your Audience
If you want to reach customers through email, the first step is understanding who they are. Getting to know your customers is important because it allows you to create relevant content for your emails.
What are your ideal customers’ demographics? Consider things like age, location, gender, occupation, and interests. The better you understand your customers and who is most likely to be interested in your product or service, the more successful your email campaign will be.
For example, if your company sells organic baby food, you may be able to narrow your target demographic to young working mothers interested in environmentally friendly products and nutrition. Teenage boys, on the other hand, are extremely unlikely to be interested in your product.
Narrow your focus to make sure you’re not targeting those who don’t want to hear from you. If they are most likely to buy your product, they are the best audience for your email marketing. defining your audience gives your a broader view on how to get started with email marketing in your mind.
Choose an Email platform
Research and select an email marketing service provider that suits your needs and budget. Some popular options include Mailchimp, Constant Contact, and Convert Kit.
- Mailchimp: Mailchimp is one of the most widely used email marketing platforms, offering features like customizable templates, audience segmentation, automation, and analytics. It’s known for its user-friendly interface and free plan for small businesses.
- Constant Contact: Constant Contact provides email marketing tools along with features like event management, social media integration, and eCommerce solutions. It offers customizable templates, list segmentation, automation, and tracking features.
- ConvertKit: ConvertKit is designed specifically for creators like bloggers, podcasters, and YouTubers. It offers features such as customizable forms, automation sequences, subscriber tagging, and landing pages.
- Campaign Monitor: Campaign Monitor provides drag-and-drop email builder, automation workflows, A/B testing, and analytics. It’s known for its user-friendly interface and customizable templates.
- GetResponse: GetResponse offers email marketing, automation, landing pages, and webinar hosting services. It provides features like drag-and-drop email editor, automation workflows, segmentation, and analytics.
- AWeber: AWeber offers email marketing tools like customizable templates, automation, segmentation, and analytics. It’s popular for its ease of use and customer support.
- HubSpot: HubSpot provides a comprehensive marketing suite that includes email marketing, CRM, automation, landing pages, and more. It offers features like drag-and-drop email editor, automation workflows, personalization, and analytics.
Choosing a platform enables you to know how to get started with email marketing, by providing knowledge of what each platform can offer
These are just a few examples, and there are many other email marketing platforms available, each with its own set of features and pricing options. When choosing a platform, consider factors like your budget, business needs, ease of use, scalability, and integration capabilities with other tools you use. Many platforms also offer free trials or demos, allowing you to test them out before making a decision.
Set up your account
Sign up for an account with your chosen email marketing platform and follow the setup instructions to create your profile and verify your domain.
let us use MailChimp for an example
- Navigate to Mailchimp’s signup page.
- Type in your Email and Password, then click Sign Up
- Next we’ll display a confirmation message. Check your inbox for the account activation email to complete your account setup.
- Open the account activation email, then click Activate Account.
Determine Campaign type
Your email marketing campaign should have one specific call to action (CTA) for your customers. It also should include a coordinated set of targeted emails written to engage customers over a certain period of time.
Determining your campaign type is important because you can focus on what will best reach the audience you’ve defined. Look at your goals as well as your audience as you decide on the type of email marketing campaign you want to launch. Make sure the CTA for your customers will help you accomplish your goals.
Some campaign types include:
- Newsletter
- Promotional or announcement
- Reengagement
- Content or blog updates
- Autoresponders like welcome emails, transactional emails, and more
For example, if you think your audience wants to feel a sense of community from your business, a newsletter can be a great way to keep them engaged and updated.
Build an email list
As you build an email list, you are assembling your target audience. While it may seem like the easier route to take, it’s important not to buy an email list. A purchased email list is likely to waste your time with prospects that are not a part of your audience. The best way to build your email list is to take an organic approach.
These are a few things you can use to organically build an email list:
- Existing email lists from your company
- Customer relationship management software
- Requests for new emails via social media or your website
- Gated content and promotional offers
Make sure to reach out to customers to request their emails often so that it’s easy for interested customers to give you their contact info. You want to make it as easy as possible for customers on your website or social media to opt in to email, like by having a pop-up that offers a discount. Another way could be to have your chatbots on social media offer to take emails for promotions.
It’s important to make sure that the emails on your list are from customers who have opted in to your communications. If they have not opted in, do not put them on your list.
Segment your audience
Segment your email list by separating your customers into different groups. Creating these segments will allow you to customize the emails that you send, making it more likely that your customers will open and engage with your messages.
When you’re segmenting your email list, think about potential differences between your customers and how you can customize responses to them. Here are some potential email segments you could create with examples of how they could be useful:
- Geography. If you’re creating a newsletter about outreach efforts, you may want to distribute different newsletters depending on the locale of the people you’re emailing.
- Demographics. You can customize the content and subject lines of your emails to appeal to different age groups.
- Past purchases. If you have customers who have purchased certain products on your website, you can send them promotions specifically for similar products.
- Buyer behavior. You can send more promotions to customers who respond well to them.
- Expressed interests. If you ask your customers about their interests (in an intake quiz, for example), you can send them custom product recommendations.
- Email engagement. If you have certain customers who engage very frequently with your emails, you can send them more regular emails without risking them unsubscribing.
These segments should all fall within the goal of your email campaign to make it more efficient. Differentiating your customers can make all the difference for your campaign.
Create a compelling email
The content of the emails you send is what will prompt recipients to follow your CTA — which you should always include. It is what will ultimately help you accomplish your goals, like increased sales or customer education. It’s best if your email content is customized to capture the attention of your audience, especially if it’s customized for different segments within your email list.
You want recipients to actually read the emails you create, so your subject line needs to be engaging. Having dynamic subject lines — different subject lines for different segments or subject lines personalized for an individual — will make your emails even more effective.
Many email marketing platforms will provide templates for you to make the process of creating emails easier. Use the email marketing platform’s built-in templates or drag-and-drop editors to design visually appealing emails. Make sure your emails are mobile-responsive and optimized for different screen sizes.
Test and optimize your mail
Conduct A/B tests on different elements of your emails, such as subject lines, content, and send times, to identify what resonates best with your audience. Use the data to refine your strategies and improve campaign performance.
Because email campaigns are relatively inexpensive, it’s a great idea to test out different versions to see what is most effective for your business. When you test, you’ll look at your results to see which content, subject lines, CTAs, and more help your business reach the goals you’ve determined. Testing will allow you to hone your email campaign so that it produces the results you’re looking for.
One of the simplest ways to test email marketing messaging is called A/B testing. In A/B testing, you’ll create different versions of emails in which you change certain factors. You’ll then compare the results of your different versions to see which changes are most effective. You could test, for example, which subject lines result in more email opens. You could also have different links in different subsets to see which are more likely to lead your customers to your website.
Measure Your Result
Measuring your results is the only way you’ll know how your email campaign performed in relation to your goals. You can use analytics through an email marketing platform to track many different metrics to measure your success.
Some common areas of analysis include:
- Unique open rate, which tracks how many different customers are opening your emails. This is a good way to see how your subject lines are doing and whether your emails are relevant to the recipients.
- Click-through rate, which tracks how many people are clicking on links in your emails. This can help you measure the effectiveness of your content.
- Bounce rate, which tracks rejections from email servers. If you have a high bounce rate, you may have an unproductive email list.\
- Unsubscribe rate, which tracks how many people have unsubscribed to your emails. It can let you know if your emails are spammy or irrelevant to the recipients.
- Monitor Performance: Track key metrics like open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates to evaluate the effectiveness of your email campaigns. Use analytics tools provided by your email marketing platform to gain insights into subscriber engagement and behavior.
- Iterate and Improve: Continuously monitor and analyze your email marketing performance to identify areas for improvement. Experiment with different strategies and tactics to optimize your campaigns and achieve your goals.
How to get started with Email Marketing in summary
Here’s a brief review of the steps of email marketing:
- Define your audience. Identify the various demographics of an ideal customer.
- Set goals. What is the purpose of your email campaign?
- Choose an email marketing platform. It can help you streamline everything from creating your email list and sending emails to evaluating analytics.
- Determine campaign type. How will your emails be coordinated? What is the CTA for customers?
- Build an email list. Do this organically and make sure everyone has opted in.
- Segment your list. For further customization, create unique emails for segmented groups within your email list.
- Create your email. This content will determine whether customers engage further with your business.
- Test your email. Create variations of email elements to see what is most effective.
- Measure your results. Use analytics to see if you’re reaching your goals and how you can improve.
How to get started with email marketing has been solved by simply taking a step
