Chapter 2 – Getting Started with Email Marketing
When it comes to starting an email marketing campaign, there are specific steps that you should follow if you want to be successful.
You need to establish clear goals and objectives, build your business email lists, choose the type of email campaign that you want to send, create and design your first email campaign and measure your mail campaign results.
Establishing Your Goals and Objectives
Like with any marketing strategy, you need to develop clear goals and understand your objectives before you dive in head first.
Before you sign up for an email marketing tool, you have to clearly set out what it is you want to achieve with the emails that you want to send to your target audience. You want to make sure that your email marketing campaign aligns with your broader business goals and objectives.
For instance, your business goals might be to attract new leads to sign up for your branded products and services, or perhaps to get more attendees to attend your company events, or maybe you are looking to get more donations for a specific cause. Whatever your overall business goals are, you have to make sure you take the time to think about how you are going to use your email marketing campaign to reach those goals.
Building Your Business Email Lists
After you've established your email marketing campaign goals and objectives, you can start to create your email lists so you can start sending out your email marketing campaigns. There are several ways that you can go about building your email lists. The first option is by importing emails from known contacts.
These are typically the details that you have on your existing customers that you can import into your email marketing tool. You can either manually enter these addresses into your email marketing software, or you can link your email marketing tool to your email account to automatically extract the information.
Another option that you may want to consider is to build an entirely new list of emails from scratch. If you don't have any new contacts currently, you might want to head over to social media to try and entice people from your network to subscribe to your email list by providing them with special discounts or freebies.
You can also utilize your company's website for this as well. You need to make sure that you write compelling content that will get your audience to take action, as well as offering an exclusive first order discount or a freebie for those people who submit their emails from your website or social media network.
Choose the Type of Campaign You Want to Send
You can maximize the effectiveness of your email marketing campaign by following the ten most common and popular formats of emails. These formats have been tested for years and are practiced by top businesses people and established companies.
Each format is unique and has a distinctive purpose, which attracts the interest of different kinds of audiences. Whichever format you choose, each will generate its own kind of reaction.
Newsletters
Newsletters are used for company information, upcoming events, etc. The typical format consists of two columns: one narrow column with a table of contents, logos, sponsors, and feature articles and another wider column with stories and original communication articles and materials.
If there is more than one article, then it's better to use section breaks to make it look smart and eye-catching. You can even put a Read More or Learn More button at the end of each article for detailed information for readers who are interested to know more.
Events and Invitations
This type of email is time sensitive, so you have to be aware of the perfect timing. There should be a buffer of at least a month after an event/invitation email is sent so that your subscribers can decide and make time to prepare.
Every event/invitation email must contain call-to-action buttons, such as a Save to Calendar button, Register for Event button, which will redirect them to another site consisting of forms and Post-Event Feedback Survey Form button for your company’s convenience.
You can also send your audience event details after the event date to all those subscribers who showed interest in the event email, both the attendees and the non-attendees. You may have to send dozens of emails before, during and after the event, so keep your emails short and to the point.
Promotions
This format is used for promotional discounts and special sales of your products and services. You can highlight Limited Edition or Stock Limited products in these emails and get a quick response from your customers. You can also put a call-to-action button like Book Now or Order Now if you are an e-Commerce store.
Setting a deadline on the offer in the email gives the customers that extra push to use the offer right on the spot. Your email marketing campaign will be highly successful if you can make your customers buy products directly from the promotional email.
Press Releases
If you want to share any company information, like the latest business partnerships, new CEO, or new product launches to the local media, then you have to follow the press release format of the email. For this kind of email only, you should make a separate email list where there are just a few addresses for the local media outlets.
Press release emails are different than other formats because others will use it as a reference when they show this information on TV or in the newspaper. Magazines and news portals will write an article based on the information that is contained in your press release, so you need to make sure that it is full of valuable information and that it is share-worthy. There are four sections in a press release: the headline, the body, any statement or quote, and an “about” section.
Announcements
This is similar to a press release, but the audience you will send these emails to is entirely different. Mainly the customers and those who are interested in your company's latest updates are the ones that should get announcement emails.
Announcements could be moving into a new location, product updates, or upcoming product launch information. Only facts and specific information are put in announcements emails, so there is no need for any call-to-action button.
Holiday Greetings
You can design and use special email templates during the holidays, such as one for Halloween, Christmas, or New Year's. Nowadays you can use special HTML or GIF images to make your greeting cards more interesting.
Currently, many ESPs allow you to track customer's birthdays so you can even send them a birthday wish email on their special day. This can help to boost your image and prove that you care about your customers.
Welcome Note
You can set an automated system to send a welcome email to new customers that have recently registered and subscribed to your email service. With a simple “Hello X! Welcome to Y” message you can create a friendly atmosphere with your new customers.
Thank You Email
When you reach a certain level and have hundreds of loyal customers that are buying your products and using your services for years, it's important to show them appreciation. Every year or even twice a year, you should send out thank you emails to your loyal customers.
Most of the time, companies send thank you emails on the day when the company itself was founded. It shows you appreciate your customers and it allows them to feel a deeper connection with your brand.
Notification/Reminder Emails
These kinds of emails remind subscribers about any renewal notifications or service reminder notifications. These kinds of emails typically don’t require a call-to-action button to be placed in the body of the email.
Certifications and Confirmation Emails
You would typically only send this type of email for verification of certain agreement forms and certifications, which require step-by- step tasks. You must make these steps as easy as possible by including several call-to-action buttons. The “I have read the terms and conditions and agree” type of email falls under this category.
Creating Your First Email Marketing Campaign
The first step that you must take when you create your first email marketing campaign is to structure it for easy reading. With adult attention spans getting shorter and shorter, it is essential that you create emails that are easy for the average adult to get through.
You want to create precise copy for the sole purpose of driving your audience toward the final call-to-action.
Next, you are going to want to customize your email campaign. You can utilize a segmented list or even the third-party integration that comes with most email marketing programs to personalize your campaign.
To encourage more interaction with your campaign customization, you want to make sure that you add the individual name on the subject line to attract the reader's attention, and then create copy that includes relevant information based on their interests.
You want to make sure that you are using all of the data the subscriber provides when the sign up to determine the kind of content you want to send them.
You also need to make sure that your email campaign makes it extremely easy to convert the reader to a new lead or customers. You need to ensure that your email campaign is easy to read since more than 40 percent of readers open their emails on a mobile device. This means it's essential that your email campaign is compatible with mobile devices.