Majority of us after our morning session be it meditation, working out or reading the Bible, the first thing we do is check our emails. It’s sort of automatic for most people. Email has been around for many years and for a good reason. It’s an effective way of doing business with people who are kilometers away in a matter of minutes. There are also millions of email addresses worldwide giving businesses an opportunity to connect with so many people. When email marketing is utilized properly you can create long lasting and profitable relationships with small businesses and customers plus you get to grow your business and increase your revenue. Take your first steps in creating an effective email marketing plan using this beginners guide.
What is Email Marketing?
Email Marketing is the process of sending promotional based messages to people in mass quantities via email. These people could either be your prospects, customers or your target audience. The purpose of email marketing is to generate sales and boost conversionđ° by providing customers or your target audience with information that is valuable to them. An effective email marketing plan can turn prospects into clients and turn your one time customers into loyal return ones.
When Can You Use Email Marketing?
You can use this marketing strategy to achieve certain goals such as;
- Building relationshipsđ¤ and loyalty with your customers and target audience. By sending emails you are engaging with them not to mention providing useful information that is valuable to them.
- Promoting your content. You can use email to share out your blog posts or videos that can be deemed useful and interesting to your audience.
- Boosting brand awarenessđŁ Share your business with your emailing list and give them an idea of what you can do for them
- Marketing your products. This strategy is also effective when you have just launched a product and you want your audience to know about it.
- Nurturing your audience. Sharing content that will help your customers succeed or educate them will have them coming back for more
How To Get Started With Email Marketing
Starting the email marketing process takes joining different pieces together in order for its launch to be successful. This shouldnât discourage you as it doesnât mean it has to be a complicated process.
Build Your List
You need to have a list of people who will be receiving these emails you send in the first place. Before building this list, you must pay attention to who you want to be on your email list. Having anybody or everybody beats the point. One way you can do this is by guest blogging. Identify popular blogs within your niche and find out whether they accept guest blogs. You could also add a banner or a form on your website where one can key in their details, publish content on your own website’s blog or using lead magnets that will prompt them to download a PDF or guide.
Ensure you provide great content
Once you have identified who you are writing too, you now have to come up with qualityđŻ content. Ask yourself what you want to say to your audience. Remember that you want to send emails with a purpose therefore you need to keep in mind what your subscribers signed up for. Examples of content include upcoming events, news coverage, details about a new product, social media posts, an article about your company etc. All in all whatever content you decide to share, ensure it’s useful, brief, put in some personality eg some sense of humor. Another thing to remember is that your content should be balanced. While you may send an email promoting your products, ensure you include a personal message or friendly memo.
Read more: Content Writing Do’s and Don’ts: Watch Out For These Mistakes
Figure out how frequently you will be sending the emails
There is nothing as important as being consistent and sticking to a specific frequency. Have you ever received an email from a certain business but have you can’t remember when or where you subscribed to it? It could be because the business failed to maintain a consistent emailing routine hence why you may have forgotten. If you donât want your business to be forgotten donât disappear for too long. This is not to say that you should send out emails every day as this could result in people unsubscribing. Once or twice a week is more reasonable while other businesses do it once a month. Whatever you choose, make sure you stick with that.
Understand Your Email Analyticsđ
Just like any other marketing strategy, it’s important that you keep track of your performance. The most important email marketing analytics to look out for is open rate, click-through rate (CTR)Â and unsubscribes. Open rate is how many people opened your email, click-through rate shows the number of people who clicked through to a link if any and unsubscribes are those people who unsubscribed and wonât be getting your emails. If your CTR and unsubscribe rate is high you then have to re-strategize and improve your email content as it could mean that your message isnât going through to your audience. Keep an eye out and pay attention to why it could be happening.
Use Email Automation Carefully
Once your email list starts growing, it might be difficult to respond to every email you get as it could be too much for you to keep up with. For this the best solution is email automation as it sends out emails you schedule in advance. This will also prevent your business from going MIA for a long time. Get familiar with all the email automation tools and make sure you do thorough research on them before selecting.
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