A lot of instant messengers have come and gone, but email is still the most trusted tool to correspond with other people. A lot of people have multiple email accounts so that they can have separate email addresses for personal, school and business. If you’ve already done lead generation for your business, then it’s time to do email marketing. I won’t encourage you to email your leads one by one because that would not be worth your effort in the future. There are a lot of email marketing tools online that you can use for the marketing needs of your business.
Email marketers worldwide are competing to attract more visitors to their website so that it can be converted to sales. Just because a lot of people are doing email marketing it means it’s easy. The fact is, it’s not. In fact, if you have more than 20% open rate for your email marketing campaign then you have a very impressive technique. If you are here to know to get email marketing tips on how to create an effective email marketing campaign then I’ll tell you all about them.
How To Do Email Marketing
1. Set Your Goal
Don’t rush. If you have an idea and you want to work on it right away, then you need to think it over. Think back and know your goal in doing email marketing. Do you want to drive traffic to your site, generate sales, or do you want to get people to support your cause? Whatever your goal is, make sure that you understand what you want to happen when people receive your emails.
2. Choose Your Email Platform
Try to check your CRM or Customer Relationship Management system if they have email marketing tools online that you can use for your marketing needs. If not, you can get a dedicated email marketing provider that you can use for your email marketing campaign. Here are a few of them.
Popular Email Marketing Providers
a. MailChimp – MailChimp is used by a lot of email marketers worldwide. It has great automated features. It includes letting you send targeted emails, track your performance, easy to use design templates, social media campaigns, and will let you integrate with major e-commerce platforms. It has a free version if you want to use just a few of their features, but the subscription starts at $10.
b. Mailify – They have a new version which is called Mailify Sunrise. It has new features which include creating online forms linked to your contact list for your email or SMS marketing. They also have a lot of templates to choose from. You can also create emails and landing pages easily with their drag and drop builder feature. Best of all, this app can be integrated with Magento, Prestashop, and WordPress.
c. GetREsponse– This is another email marketing tool that you can use. The features include email marketing, custom landing pages, and webinar marketing designed for different niches. It can be integrated with a lot of popular e-commerce platforms. The basic email marketing package is $15 per month.
d. Constant Contact – This email marketing tool has mobile responsive templates which means that you can use it using your phone. It gives you KPIs real time and it has a simple list of building and contact management. You can also get email marketing tips from the owners of this provider. They currently offer a 60-day trial period. After that, the paid subscription starts at $20 per month.
e. ActiveCampaign– They offer email marketing and marketing automation. It’s very easy to use because of the drag and drop features of this email marketing tool. It can consolidate data from third-party applications with detailed reports and e-commerce integration. Their subscription starts at $9 per month.
f. Campaign Monitor– This email marketing tool online has a lot of professionally-designed email templates to choose from. They also have a drag and drop campaign builder, dynamic content, and optimization tools that you can use for your business marketing campaign. They have good customer support. They have a limited free version if you want to try using it. The monthly subscription starts at $9.
Of course, I’m not saying that these are the only email marketing tools online that are available. You can check other email marketing vendors and their features and see if they fit your marketing campaign.
3. Build An Email List
You only have a few contacts in your email list right now and may want them to grow. Getting an email marketing course online is one of the options that you can choose to know how to build your email list. You can also build your email list from scratch using these ways:
a. Existing email list– Of course, this is the basic. You first need to check your current email and add their contact info in your email contact list.
b. CRM – If you are using a CRM tool, then you have a lot of contact information in it. Get the contacts from your CRM and add them to your email marketing tool if you are not using your CRM to do your email marketing efforts.
c. Contact Management System – If you have contact management apps then it’s really helpful. This is in sync with your email, phone, and social media so you can get the contacts in it and add it to your email list.
d. E-commerce platform – Your online store has current and past customers so you can export them and add it to your email list. Some email marketing providers can be integrated with your e-commerce platform so it’s best to check it out first.
After you have built your contacts, then we need to grow your email list. One important note though. Do not by an email list. They may already be expired email addresses or those people do not know you or your company so when they receive your emails, the tendency is, they will ignore it and will trash your email right away. It’s always best to grow your email list the natural way.
4. Build an Email List from Scratch
a. Attract visitors with interesting and unique content – Building your contacts by creating unique content is a sure way of building an email list. People who have already read your articles are very interested in your product or content so they are more likely to buy the product or service that your market. If you are doing blogs never forget to include a call-to-action so that you can get them to your landing page and get their email address.
b. Offer giveaways – Right now, the most popular giveaways of businesses online are discount coupons and free ebooks. This is done by marketers so that they can get the email address of site visitors in exchange for an ebook or a coupon. Of course, there are other giveaways that you can give to your site visitors. Just make sure that your giveaway is related to the product or service that you offer.
c. Get a call-to-action button – A call-to-action button on your landing page will get people to easily subscribe to your newsletters. Make sure that your message is clear and attractive.
d. Guarantee your subscribers that you won’t spam them – There’s nothing more annoying than spam emails. So when you get people to sign up for your newsletters make sure that you don’t send them an email every day. You can ask your subscribers if they want to get newsletters from you daily, weekly or bi-monthly and make sure to honor your end of the bargain.
e. Use a Facebook call-to-action button. According to an email marketing course online that I have attended, you should never ignore social media if you want to grow your email list. Get a Facebook business page and add a call-to-action button on your business page. You may get a lot of Facebook users redirected to your landing page by doing this.
f. Include a subscription link in your email signature – You can always include a subscription link to your email signature to get people to subscribe on your newsletters. It’s not a popular way to grow your email list, but it can still add up to your growing list.
5. Use Autoresponders
Now that you have built your email list, you can now use autoresponders for your email campaign. It’s a program that sends emails for you automatically when triggered by specific actions. For example, after you add an email to your email list an autoresponders will automatically send a welcome email and after a few days send the first newsletter. You can set the time on how these autoresponders are sent. The good thing is, you won’t have to do it manually. All you have to do is write these emails and incorporate it to your autoresponder so that it will be sent automatically every time there is a specific action from your lead.
6. Enable tracking – Now you are almost done. All you need to do is track the rate of your emails. Your emails will be sent automatically on the pace that you have chosen. Of course, you can send a special email from time to time about special offers and special holidays, but other than that, all you need to do is track your emails. You always need to know your performance because if your campaign is not working, you may need to change your marketing campaign strategy. You can change your subject lines or preheaders to get more people to open your email. You can get a lot of information on how to build a successful email campaign by getting an email marketing course online.
Now that you have created an email marketing campaign, it’s time to focus on other areas of your marketing campaign. You can get back to working on your content or your e-commerce website, but make sure that you check it from time to time. You may not get a lot of sales on your first email marketing effort, but don’t lose hope. You can always do research on how to succeed or you can get an email marketing course online. Either way, you can study your performance and make test emails. Also, check your KPI regularly. A little patience and a lot of effort can help your business succeed.