Every business should prioritize email if they’re not already.
This powerful yet all-too-often ignored marketing channel is your digital goldmine (if used correctly). Its ROI potential is unmatched, dwarfing every other marketing avenue, including social media, SEO, and paid ads. And the best part? It’s simple to get started and relatively hands-off once you get the right systems in place.
However, at this point, you’re probably wondering how to start email marketing. I’ve got you covered…
Benefits Of Email Marketing
An email marketing campaign is one of the best ways to boost conversions and revenue.
In fact, it’s the most profitable channel of any brand or business. A series of authentic marketing emails do more than just sell your services or boost key metrics.
Here are some advantages to consider:
- Hone in on your ideal customer avatar or buyer persona
- Nurture customer relationships
- Increase audience engagement rates
- Improve customer retention
- Enhances your overall marketing efforts
- Creates an authentic buyer journey
- Gives you great insight for future campaigns
- Increase brand awareness with relevant content
- Helps you to turn cold leads to loyal customers on auto-pilot
An effective email marketing strategy gives you a direct line of communication to your audience on a regular basis. The result? You can grow customer loyalty and revenue quickly and easily.
Your email marketing list is your secret weapon.
For this reason, it’s crucial to treat these email addresses with the respect they deserve.
The Types Of Emails
When it comes to learning how to start email marketing, it’s important to gain a grasp on the emails you can send.
Here are a few variations to keep in mind:
- Content emails: These deliver valuable content aimed to educate, entertain, or inspire.
- Abandoned cart emails: These are designed to save the sale when a prospect abandons the item at checkout.
- Re-engagement emails: These are designed to get inactive subscribers to re-engage with your content again.
- Newsletter emails: An email newsletter keeps your list in the know about product updates or new offers.
- Commercial emails: Otherwise referred to as a sales email. These are usually part of an email series in a promotion or launch to sell a product or service.
Email marketers and copywriters use these types of emails in their campaigns to hook attention, build relationships, and drive sales.
How To Start Email Marketing In 7 Easy Steps
Email marketing may seem daunting.
However, the truth is that (just like anything else) it becomes a lot easier when the steps are clear. Every successful email marketing campaign follows a system for product launches. And this is important when it comes to how to start email marketing.
You can have the best opt-in forms, the perfect email, and use the most popular email marketing platform, but if you lack a proven strategy, your product releases will fall flat.
The whole point of email marketing messages is to establish long-term relationships with potential customers.
The goodwill you establish in this way is what facilitates an effective email campaign. So, here are 7 easy (and proven) steps to start this process.
1. Choose A Content Cadence (That You Can Actually Stick To)
Let’s assume you already have your email service provider, signup forms, and email automation in place.
Now, you need an email frequency, otherwise known as a content cadence.
Your content cadence refers to how often you’ll email your list.
Will you email them once a week? Twice a week? Every day?
Here’s the thing… The frequency of your emails is not nearly as important as the consistency.
It’s infinitely better to email your subscriber list once a week consistently than in a sporadic, on-and-off-again cycle. Some businesses email twice weekly, some once weekly, and others do it daily.
The idea is to choose a content cadence that works for you and stick to it.
A successful campaign requires consistency in your content emails. This creates customer engagement and allows your series of emails to be more effective in reaching prospective customers.
2. Draft Your Emails
Now’s the time to draft your emails.
Clear email communication is critical as the attention of email users is constantly being pulled in numerous directions.
You’re fighting against a lot…
As a result, every single email has a lot of heavy lifting to do.
Here are a few key details to figure out for your digital marketing strategy:
- Determine your goals and target audience
- Do market research to understand your customer profile
- Choose a content cadence (how often you’ll send your emails) and stick to it
- Create quality content tailored toward your market’s needs, desires, and interests
- Decide how many promotional emails vs educational content you’ll send (hint: you should be sending more content than promotional emails)
This process streamlines your efforts, increases email engagement, and allows you to save time and money while increasing your overall efficiency in email marketing.
3. Create Your Monetization Paths
Your email funnels have a secret weapon…
It’s not the size of your list…
Or how often you email them…
It’s not even how amazing your promotions are…
It’s your content emails.
Digital marketing expert Amy Portfield once said, “The success of any promotion is directly tied to what you do in between.“
Content emails keep your list “warm,” priming them for your next launch or promotion.
But more than that, they also allow you to “sell” without actually selling…
This is done by creating strategic monetization paths within your content emails that direct readers to your offers.
You can redirect them to a services page, a product page, or even to fill out a survey to learn more about them, helping you sell more effectively when you launch your next promotion.
You get the point.
It’s more of a passive way of selling.
4. Figure Out Your “Reason Why”
Professor Ellen Langer published a study at Harvard University in 1977.
In the study, Langer would target people at the library waiting to use the copy machine. She had participants then ask the unaware bystanders a set of questions.
- First question (request only): “I have five pages. Can I use the Xerox machine?”
- Second question (request with a genuine reason): “I have five pages. Can I use the Xerox machine because I’m in a rush?”
- Third question (request with a fake reason): “I have 5 pages. Can I use the Xerox machine because I need to make copies?”
You’ll see that the third version didn’t really make sense, as it was kind of redundant.
Of course, you need to make copies. What else would you need a copy machine for? However, the reason didn’t seem to matter to the target in allowing the requester to skip ahead of them in line. All that mattered was that there was a reason.
And the results speak for themselves…
- First question results: 60% of people allowed the researcher to skip the line.
- Second question results: 94% of people allowed the researcher to skip the line.
- Third question results: 93% of people allowed the researcher to skip the line.
How does this information apply to email marketing?
Providing a reason for launching a promotion, discounting an offer, or limiting a sale in your campaigns makes your promo more believable in the minds of your prospects. And as a result, it increases their sense of safety and trust in your offer.
So, determine the reason why you are launching your email promotion.
It could be anything: Black Friday, 4th of July, your birthday, Cancer Awareness Month, your company anniversary, etc. Get creative with it and use your reason to boost your sales.
5. Pick A Promotion Framework
There are a few promotional frameworks you can use for your email campaigns.
However, I’ve had the best results with two of them:
- 48-hour flash sales
- 5-day pop-up promotions
I organize my campaigns to have 6 promotional emails. Then, I use the above frameworks to give each launch structure and cadence.
For example…
A 48-hour flash sale launch will send 6 emails over 2 days.
The sequence of emails is designed for a specific purpose…
To build anticipation and authority, present my offer and how it will benefit the reader, and use scarcity and incentives to create urgency, pushing them over the edge to buy.
For a 5-day pop-up promotion, the purpose is the exact same.
The only difference is I have a longer window of time to deliver my sales message.
6. Launch Your Campaign
Once all the moving pieces are in order, it’s time to launch the campaign.
The key to a successful launch is knowing what your goals are…
Are you trying to boost performance metrics, increase brand awareness, or generate a massive cash flow injection into your business?
Whatever the case, knowing your specific goals will help you determine what to monitor and what you need to adjust if results fall short of your expectations.
Which brings us to the last step…
7. Track Results And Adjust Accordingly
What doesn’t get tracked can’t be improved.
You have to monitor how the copy in your email campaigns performs. So much of marketing revolves around testing—seeing what works and what doesn’t and then adjusting accordingly. Depending on your email marketing goals, there are a few testing metrics you’ll want to hone in on.
- Open rate: Your open rate refers to the percentage of email subscribers (on your entire list) who open your email. Great open rates mean you are doing an excellent job creating compelling subject lines.
- Click-through rate (CTR): The click-through rate is the percentage of people on your list that click through from your email to your landing page.
- Conversion rate: Your conversion rate is the percentage of people who take the action you want them to take on your landing page (e.g., buy your product or service).
- Bounce rate: This measurement refers to the amount of people who immediately leave your email/page (or bounce) once they land on it.
- Unsubscribe rate: The percentage of people who unsubscribe from your list.
Measuring these performance metrics will help you to determine the sticking points within your campaign. As a result, they’ll provide the insights you need to make the necessary improvements.
What’s Next? Learn How To Start Email Marketing Today
Email is by far the most important marketing channel in your business.
In fact, I would go so far as to say that every business on the planet should prioritize, build, and nurture its lists if it’s not already. Yes, it’s that important. And if you’re ready to learn how to start email marketing, I can help. I can guide you through the process with proven and practical steps to optimize your email list fast.
So, contact me today if you’re ready to take your email marketing to the next level.