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How To Do Email Marketing - The Basics Covered
Considering an email marketing strategy but unsure how to get started?
Here’s a brief 101 guide to the basics of email marketing and how to make it work for your business:
Q1: How Do You Do Email Marketing?
There are basically just six steps involved in an effective email marketing campaigns:
- You establish realistic goals and objectives
- You build a list of viable contacts
- You get to know your audience and its expectations
- You produce engaging content of the highest quality
- You use email automation tools (if preferred)
- You assess your campaign’s performance and optimise
All of which should be approached as an ongoing cycle, in order to ensure continuous optimisation of your campaign.
Q2: Where Do I Get Started with Email Marketing?
Assuming you know what you want to get out of your campaign, the first major step is to begin building an email list. After all, you can’t initiate an effective email marketing strategy without plenty of contacts to email.
Embedding an email registration form on your website is a good place to start, as is publishing sign-up instructions on your social media pages and elsewhere. At all times, reassuring your subscribers you’ve no intention of spamming them, while reminding them of the benefits of subscribing.
Q3: What Should Go In The Emails I Send?
It depends on your objectives, but there are two important things to remember when crafting emails for marketing purposes:
- Coming up with an engaging subject line is essential
- Don’t get carried away trying to sell your products and services
Marketing emails are only successful when the recipient feels they are getting something out of the deal. Interesting information, insightful snippets, exclusive deals/discounts and so on. Or perhaps, just a friendly word or two from the sender, with no ulterior motive whatsoever.
Q4: How Can I Improve Engagement?
Email open rates are often determined near-exclusively by the quality of the subject line. Make your email enticing enough and chances are they will open it.
Engagement (and taking action) is a different matter entirely. If you want to encourage the recipient to click through to your website, you need to make them an offer they can’t refuse.
Special offers, discount codes, exclusive sneak previews – anything that makes them feel valued and special. Time-limited incentives can also be particularly appealing, bringing a sense of urgency into the matter.
Q5: What Email Layout and Structure Works Best?
Short answer – any layout and structure that suits mobile devices. You simply must compensate for the fact that the vast majority of people open and view emails primarily (or exclusively) via mobile devices.
In addition, the primary points and general purpose of your email should be more or less clear at a glance. If the benefits for the recipient aren’t made evident within a few seconds, they won’t bother reading the rest.
Q6: What Qualifies As Spam?
Unsolicited emails in general are regarded as spam these days, so avoid emailing those who haven’t confirmed their interest in your communications. Anything misleading, inaccurate or irrelevant is also regarded as spam, as is the practice of bombarding recipients with too many messages.
Think about the types of emails you yourself would like to receive. Anything you’d prefer not to land in your inbox is something you probably shouldn’t be sending to anyone else.
Q7: What Is Personalisation and Why Does It Matter?
In email marketing, personalisation refers to the practice of segmenting your email audience and ensuring the emails each recipient receives are as relevant and personal as possible to their tastes, preferences and priorities.
Personalisation is important for the simple reason that it’s hard to find a generic mass-produced email inspiring or appealing, which is more likely to make you feel like a statistic than a valued customer. Irrespective of the time and effort involved, therefore, personalisation is essential for an effective email marketing strategy.