Email proves an extremely effective marketing channel when done well. This is a very affordable option, and I believe that anyone can create successful campaigns when he has the right advice, so it’s ideal for small business owners or solo preluxes.
Email gives you the opportunity to truly interact with your audience, educate potential customers and ultimately turn them into customers. You can also automate all your campaigns, which means that you will not have to spend hours each day working on them, giving you more time to devote yourself to other areas of your business.
With over ten years. marketing experience under my belt, I put together a simple step-by-step guide to setting up your first campaign.
Step 1. Create your list
Of course, email is no good unless you have a group of people who have given their permission for you to contact them. So you need to think about creating a list.
By permission, I mean, they willingly provided you with their email address. Just asking customers to enter their email address is often not enough to convince them to do it - they want to know "What is for me?" therefore, you need to provide what is called a price exchange (sometimes called a lead magnet), such as a discount code, free pdf download, e-book, or e-mail.
In addition, tell them about the things that you send them, for example, that as subscribers they will learn about our new offers / ranges / releases for the first time.
In addition, by e-mail, people who have not been asked to contact them are much less likely to become clients.
Step 2. Choose an email service provider (ESP)
Simply put, ESP allows you to send email marketing campaigns to a list of prospects. Most ESPs also provide a wide range of related services, including the ability to create and create a list of subscribers, customize your email templates, add personalization and dynamic content (content intended for a specific audience), reports and analysis,
To get started, here is a small selection of ESP that you can consider:
Constant contact
Mailchimp
Campaign monitor
When choosing which vendor is right for you, we recommend starting with thinking about how you plan to use email in your business and what functions you consider necessary to accomplish this.
If you are just starting out, you don’t need to complicate things too much, so we’ve put together a handy checklist of the main things you should look for:
- Does the supplier have many attractive templates to choose from? In addition, nowadays, most people open emails on a mobile device, so make sure their templates are mobile, ensuring that your emails look amazing no matter what device they are viewed on.
- Ability to plan your campaigns.
- Easy to understand tracking and reporting - you want to keep track of how your emails are being executed, so make sure your ESP offers easy navigation through the report panel so that you can quickly check your openings, clicks, bounces and replies.
- Support - there will be times when, no matter how easy their platform will be used, you will need a little help. Make sure your ESP has a support service that you can contact day or night.
- Budget. After you have scored several ESPs in accordance with the above points, now you will want to understand your fees, as you will need to make sure that the service is appropriate for your budget. Many providers will offer monthly plans based on the number of customers on your list.
- Delivery - Do not waste precious time creating your campaigns, only to find that they do not fall into the client's mailbox! Make sure that your chosen ESP has a delivery rate above 98%.
This is the exciting part where you can be creative. And if you are not creative - do not worry, this is not a necessary prerequisite for creating effective campaigns!
Here are some best practice tips to help ensure that your email address does not fall into the basket!
- What is the purpose? First of all, you need to consider the goal (s) of the campaign - what is the email trying to receive? And be specific. Also, think carefully about who you are talking to. Be sure to keep your client in front of the mind when combining emails and make sure the content the benefits - the reader will want to know within a few seconds what is in it for them.
- copy : Try to keep the text short and use bullet points to break it a little. Think about what you want the recipient to do - what action you want to take. Council Make it really obvious! That leads to ...
- Call to action : Make a call to action stand out, so you can't miss it. A colored button with text on it tells them exactly what to do (i.e. Get a quote / register here / get a free e-book). Remember that you can use more than one, it is actually recommended to use two or three buttons. But you can always check it in the future.
- Story line : Do not neglect the storyline! Many people view the topic as thoughtful, but this is a vital consideration, because it is this that opens up your email in the first place! Do this advantage and not too long. This should make your recipient feel like they’re gone, if they don’t open the email to find out what's inside - they just can't help themselves, they need to open your email!
- Images : You can really bring your email to life and give it a polished and professional feeling - but do not abuse them! What for? Although the email will look fantastic when the images are turned on, many email clients will not automatically include the images, or they will not load if there is a poor Internet connection, so the client may simply see a lot of empty boxes and your message will be lost. Consult with Add an “alt tag” description to the images so that even if the images are not displayed, a text alternative will be displayed that fills the gap. For example, if you display a product image, enter the product name as the alt tag.
- logo : Make sure your logo is at the top of the email, so the client will instantly know who this is coming from, which means that they are more likely to want to know what you have to say.
- embodiment : On least You must include the person’s name in the email. You can also try to include it in the subject line (to find out about the impact on your open rates, you can always check it out, that is, send 50% without a name in the subject line and 50% with a name and see which one is better).
- footer : You should always add a valid contact address at the end of your letters, usually in the footer # 39; area, and not in the main part of the letter.
- Unsubscribe : You must provide customers with the opportunity refuse receive further messages from you every message you send - and you also need to act. You should always familiarize yourself with the data protection laws that apply in your country. In the UK, you need to comply with the Data Protection Act and, in addition, for electronic communications, including email, Privacy Policy and Electronic Communications. For more information about Pecr visit: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-pecr/what-are-pecr/
- Evidence : Or a boring bit! After you have written your email, review it several times and check for spelling errors, typos, and grammatical errors. It may be useful to show it to someone else, as they often see what you have missed.
- SEND ! After you take care of it, you can choose who you want to send (or click on your entire list) and click send!
After all this hard work, did anyone really read your email?
When analyzing your campaign, review the campaign’s original goals to determine which metrics you’re going to use to measure performance. As a rule, you are always interested open rates and clicks (how many people clicked on the call to action), but you can also determine what the client did after they clicked - a further journey. For example, if you offer a free download of an e-book - how many clicks turned into successful downloads, if you tried to get them to buy something - how many sales did you receive from this particular email campaign? You get the picture.
And finally ...
Step 5: Testing and Learning
As you become more confident and experienced in email as a marketing tool, you can start thinking about testing various elements, such as topics, time of day, day of the week, types of offers (i.e. Interest rate vs. discount £ ) (short copy), images ... The list goes on! Even a small increase in your open rates can greatly affect the success of your campaigns.
I hope you found this useful useful, and I wish you good luck in your first campaign!
