The process of starting email marketing can feel a bit like this:
Being told that you should do email marketing and getting carried away reading one too many articles and researching the platform of choice before even deciding if email marketing is for you.
Then as you start to set up your account and design your first email you’re also trying to figure out what to send, how often and desperately trying to recruit your first subscribers without defining your value proposition.
Send the first campaign and maybe even send the second a week or two later, but eventually be disheartened that you have few subscribers and wondering if you should just drop it.
And most likely, deprioritising this and dropping the ball on building an active and engaged audience. Followed by feeling guilty and a failure for doing so, even though you were completely unprepared.
The above emotional rollercoaster can be a lot less bumpy if you do the hard work upfront and prepare before you dive in.
I’ve divided the basics of getting started with email marketing into 7 parts and explained each briefly below.
The 7 parts of email marketing
Decision: should you do email marketing?
Platform: what do you choose?
Set up: verify, authenticate, organise
Audience: getting your first subscribers
Automation: make it work for you
Content: what to send
Analytics: understand what works and what doesn’t
Decision: should you do email marketing?
Before you begin doing anything about email marketing for your business, you need to answer the following questions:
What am I trying to get out of this?
Who am I going to talk to? i.e. who is your audience and what do they want?
What is the value I am going to share in my emails with my audience?
Do I have time to commit to this new communication and marketing channel?
Before, and I mean before, you start researching the platform of your choice, you need to understand why email marketing is a marketing channel that will benefit your business and have a clear value proposition for the audience.
Platform: what do you choose?
Now that you‘re super clear on that email marketing is right for you and why it is important to your business, it’s time to research a platform that will host your email marketing for you.
There are thousands of choices out there today, but it’s important to not get carried away with finding the “perfect” platform, but just choosing one and getting started.
2 email marketing platforms that are good for beginners with 1k free subscribers:
These platforms integrate with lots of different tools and systems, such as online shops, third-party apps and allow you to send personalised messages based on subscriber details and activity.
What about MailChimp?
The megalith of email marketing, MailChimp, is still great at what they do, but it’s not for beginners. They target paid members with large email lists and advanced features. If you’re just starting out, it’s too much.
Set up: verify, authenticate, organise
So, you’ve chosen your platform and are ready to sign up and get started.
But wait, you need to set up your account before sending your first campaign which involves things like:
Authenticating your domain
Verifying your email
Adding company details
Activating double opt-in
Setting up the first template
Creating sign-up forms and landing pages
Making sure everything is uniform and consistent
And if you have an audience, migrating the data over and organising it
This is a very important part of the process and will take a little bit of time, so don’t rush it.
Audience: getting your first subscribers
If you had an email list audience already, you will need to migrate to your new platform but most likely you’re here because you are just getting started from scratch.
So how do you get an audience email list?
You will need to create a landing page where people can sign up, but more importantly, you need to help people understand why they should sign up for your emails. What’s in it for them?
Few ways you can go about attracting the first few people:
Create a lead magnet that helps them with a question or problem
Explain clearly what they get out of being on your email list and how your content will be beneficial for them
Invite everyone you know: past and current clients and your social network, and ask them to share with their connections
On your email marketing platform, you can segment or group your subscribers into groups based on their interests and the type of info they want to hear from you (provided you have this option on sign-up).
Think about having 2 groups to start with, but don’t worry too much about it, you can always group them later.
Automation: make it work for you
It may seem scary and overwhelming if you’re new to email marketing, but automation has evolved and is now really easy to set up.
Why should you do automation?
Because it enables you to stay in touch with your subscribers without having to manually do the work.
For example:
Every time someone signs up on your landing page and gets the lead magnet, you can automatically also send the lead magnet to them via email and welcome them to your subscriber list
Then, you send them a welcome sequence of emails that introduces them to your business and your services
Automation does the work for you, provided you have clearly defined what actions trigger which automation.
You can automate things like event reminders, follow-ups, activity-based automation, and more.
Content: what to send
How do I decide what to send in my emails?
Eman Ismail, one of the big email marketing strategists, shares The Rule of One.
The rule of one is simple: one email should have one goal, one topic, and one action for the audience.
Why only one?
Because with more than one idea and action, you will confuse and distract the audience and they might not take any action at all. It’s about keeping it simple.
It’s better if you send one email a week with one topic each than send one email a month with multiple calls to action.
What about the newsletters that have many links?
It comes down to your business and what your emails are all about, if you share resources with your audience, then yes you can have multiple links.
But if you’re sending a sales email asking your audience to get your latest book, don’t also ask them to sign up for your course and read your latest blog in the same email.
Analytics: understand what works and what doesn’t
Your first email is out!
Time to check the analytics and see how it performed.
The open rate indicates the % of people that clicked to open the email.
Your subject time, sender name, and timing of the email sent will affect the likelihood of your email being opened. It’s a matter of experimenting and seeing what works.
The click-through rate indicates the % of people that clicked a link in the email.
You can also see which links were clicked most, helping you understand what content was more appealing to your audience. Improving the click-through rate is about content relevance, a compelling enough call to action, and a little bit of magic.
Unsubscribe stats can seem disheartening but don’t lose your sleep about it. It simply means your content wasn’t for them. You don’t want to email someone who doesn’t want to hear from you anyway.
At the start, don’t obsess about analytics but use them to help you understand if your emails are being delivered and opened, you can deep dive later on.
More detailed breakdowns of all parts of email marketing will be coming soon.
*it’s an affiliate referral link, which means I will get a little something if you sign up for a paid account. 🌞