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Electronic mail Advertising and marketing Information for Novices

Email is an indispensable means of communication for our business. This is because it is a free, fast, and reliable form of communication that anyone with an internet connection can access. It enables users to maintain and build lasting relationships regardless of distances to potential customers and customers.

Email is most commonly used as a potential conversion and customer loyalty. In particular, email can be an effective push for your online communication. It is useful for customer loyalty as it can help with targeted email campaigns where your message can be sent to customers to inform and remind them. As a two-way form of communication, it is valuable to collect feedback and initiate actions from your audience.

According to forecasts, the number of daily global email users will increase to 347.3 billion by 2023 and there will be 4.371 billion email users. Current trends suggest that email accounts are growing faster than the number of email users worldwide. This highlights the need for why your company should focus on email marketing campaigns. Despite skepticism, it is either the same or surpasses other marketing channels such as social media, SEO and affiliate marketing.

If you've ever wondered why your small business should use an email marketing campaign and how to use it step by step, read our guide.

What is Email Marketing?

Email marketing appeals to potential customers who have subscribed to your email. Effective email marketing can help companies turn potential customers into customers and turn one-off buyers into lifelong loyal customers. The great thing about an email campaign is that it's free and you only have to start to go online.

Given that you can't have face-to-face meetings when you have a large number of customers spread across large geographic locations, an email marketing campaign with your customers can be an ideal way to build these relationships build up. With an email campaign, you can create targeted and personalized messages. Your marketing campaign can be used to reach both large audiences and smaller recipients depending on your specific needs and goals.

These relationships can relate to subscribing to your newsletter, a holiday greeting, promotional offers, discounts, and other types of engagements. With email marketing, you can help people understand your business – what you stand for, what your values ​​are, and what your latest offerings are all about. What's even bigger is that you have more control over creating targeted messages through this form of marketing.

Marketing is about permanent and ongoing engagement and relationships with your customers. As a business owner, you must continue to contact your customers to let them know what's happening and what offers are available to them.

Advantages of Email Marketing

Email enables people to act immediately; Increase lead and conversion rates; helps create brand or company awareness; Promote products, services and content. Email lets you deliver private, interchangeable messages that can help you find customers, build customer loyalty, and strengthen relationships.

Once an email is open, it doesn't take long for recipients to take action, as just a click of the mouse is required. Immediate actions include clicking your landing page and subscribing to your newsletter. Buy right away and any other option you've put in the body.

According to the DMA Marketer Email Tracker report of 2019, the numbers speak for email marketing. The average return on investment (ROI) from email marketing is $ 52.30 for every dollar spent. This is in addition to the Lifetime Value (LTV) of each individual email address, which is $ 51.06 for B2C and $ 43.59 for B2B email addresses. All the best for email marketers.

Getting Started With Email Marketing

With email marketing, you have a proven, simple, and effective tool to help you achieve your marketing goals. Here are some basic steps you need to take to start your marketing campaigns.

1. Decide how you want to use email marketing

When you include email in your marketing mix, you can maximize the results of your marketing efforts. Success depends on the amount of research you put into your strategy. In this way you can identify your message. Choose the right audience. how you deliver your message and of course evaluate your results and optimize them if necessary. In addition, your strategy should tell you how to manage your subscriber list. the design and copy of each email; Planning the delivery time; Testing messages; and analysis of the results.

First, subscribe to your regular email newsletter and give news about your company or helpful tips. This allows you to direct traffic to your website’s landing page for additional interactions. This is another way to present your offerings to both new and old customers. You can also use email notifications to notify your subscribers of occasional special discounts or offers.

Individual entrepreneurs such as speakers and consultants can use email marketing to share advice on thought leadership. They can also announce their upcoming engagement, such as webinars or conferences, and how people can participate.

2. Choose an Email Marketing Tool

To begin your marketing efforts, you can first choose an email marketing tool. You can use email marketing tools to design, send, test, optimize, and measure email campaigns. An email marketing tool can be a special tool for email marketing campaigns, e.g. For example, an email subject line generator or inbox placement testing tool, or a set of tools that allow a marketer to do all of their email marketing.

Mailchimp

Mailchimp is one of the most popular email marketing service providers on the market. It's free, has a simple email builder, autoresponder features, grouping contacts, and analytics. With Mailchimp you can also set delivery times based on the time zones of your contacts. Mailchimp offers a free custom domain and can also be integrated into WordPress, Shopify and many other platforms. If you need additional support for your email senders, custom branding, and advanced features, Mailchimp pricing starts at $ 9.99.

Sender

Sender is a free email marketing tool. It supports you in creating newsletters without knowledge of HTML. It offers a good selection of templates that you can use to adapt images, videos and text to your specific needs. With the sender, you can also personalize email newsletters for each recipient for better impact. With the free plan, you can serve 2,500 subscribers and send 15,000 emails per month. The paid plan, which starts at $ 10 a month, offers more robust support.

ConvertKit

ConvertKit is a subscriber-based marketing tool and starts with a $ 29 base plan. It helps you track your audience’s interests and purchases using tags and segments. Allows you to view the history and profile information of individual subscribers by clicking on any subscriber in any part of your list. It also helps you design f fully customizable landing pages with customizable templates that you can use to expand your email lists.

Other email marketing tool vendors you can choose from include iContact, EmailBrain, SimplyCast, Conatctology, and others.

A good email marketing service makes the process a lot easier. Any email marketing tool should help you do the following:

  • Manage your database list of subscribers. Keep your subscribers here
  • Give you registration forms to add to your website so potential subscribers can sign up.
  • Automatically send confirmation emails and handle the confirmation process for new subscribers.
  • Automatically remove those who log out so that you no longer send them messages.
  • Providing user-friendly templates for composing email messages
  • Cover the process of sending (sending) marketing emails.
  • Provide reports and statistics so you can improve your email marketing.
  • Automate some messages

3. Create a list

Creating your email address list is not an easy task, and you need to get the information and permission from the person or company you want to communicate with. You can create your lists of regular customers and interested prospects who know your company well enough to recognize your emails.

Collecting information without asking permission can cause recipients to think twice about subscribing, delegate their email to spam, or have legal implications. Make sure you comply with the CAN SPAM and GDPR laws. Your prospects and customers must agree to provide their email address so that you can submit your offer.

Use a registration form for your potential subscribers and invite them to register for promotional information about one or more categories of products or services. This shows that you have your consent to contact them. For the avoidance of doubt, you can also use a double opt-in option. In this case, a user signs up for an email marketing list and a subsequent email is sent to the user that contains a link that they can click to confirm the subscription. Show your subscribers how to whitelist your emails and ask them to add them to their email address book

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More importantly, always back up your updated list on your PC and, if possible, have a printed table ready for additional protection. Nothing is as painful as losing the list that you have carefully created. Data breaches or PC malfunctions can easily wipe out months or even years of hard work. Losing your list can mean that all of your efforts to connect with your customers have gone down the drain.

4. Compose your messages

Let's face it, we all have a lot of emails in our inboxes. Sometimes we just scan them through, sometimes we don't even open them. You must create and plan content for your email marketing campaign before sending your first email. Just like with any other social media content platform like YouTube, Twitter or Facebook, you need to know what you will be updating subscribers with. Make sure you develop an email strategy for your company. Developing a strategy may take some research and time, but it will pay off in the long run.

A great email is all about engagement or talking to customers. As such, you must write while speaking. Write your email as if you were speaking to only one person. This way your emails get higher opening and click rates. Start your email conversation by dropping the reader in the middle of the action. By breaking through the chase, you pull the reader straight into the discussion in your emails. This way they get their attention and know exactly what to do or get out of the emails.

Details

Always make sure that your subject line, email body, and video stand out from your first email. Presentation is key here, make sure you don't go overboard with graphics that take too long to load. Your emails should be clear, concise, straightforward and tempting enough to motivate readers. You need a content strategy for your email subscribers that is both engaging and helps them take action. In the case of email click rates in particular, your subject lines determine whether they are tempting enough to justify a click. Always try to stand out from both the subject line and your content.

Your email should be informative, pique curiosity, be humorous, and be both friendly and talkative. You should also have a single, unambiguous call to action. If you are tempted to save so many calls to action in a single email, there is a risk that your most important call to action will be overridden.

Try as much as possible to avoid spam triggers like Buy, Discount, Earn Extra Money, Incredible Offer, Free Money, and others like these. This can lead to your emails being sent directly to the spam box.

Start your email with salutations to the person in question. Your message should be based on your recipient's understanding of its values, problems, desires and preferences. Remember that you are having a conversation where there is no pitching. For better results, try integrating your email marketing efforts into your social media reach. You can use chat platforms in your social media tools, blogs, and articles on your website to get more people to subscribe.

5. Send email messages

Believe it or not, there are good times to email to get the best answers regarding email open rates and email click rates. The best days to send email are on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Studies show that Thursdays have the highest opening rates with an average of 18.6%. Wednesday ranks second with an average of 18.3% of the news read. With an average of 17.1%, Sunday has the least impact on opening rates in all industries. According to a study, the best time to send an email is 11 a.m. EST.

Imagine, as your customers, the days on which they have time to think about your offer in order to better determine when emails should be sent.

6. Review reports and optimization processes

Your email marketing campaign analytics and metrics can give you valuable insight to track the progress of your marketing campaign. Two common email metrics are open rate and click rate.

An open rate refers to the percentage of people who opened your email from the total number of recipients. This usually means that your subject line reaches subscribers. Subscribers are familiar with your name and brand, and recipients associate you with either an emotion or a value.

Similarly, a clickthrough rate is the percentage of people who clicked a link in your email out of the total number of people who opened it. This shows how people react to the content of your emails. A positive answer includes clicking on your website for more information or offers.

Good opening and click rates lead to more visitors to your website and sales. A good way to test your messages is to perform A / B tests on your email marketing campaigns. A / B testing refers to sending one variant of your marketing campaign to a subset of your subscribers and another variant to another subset of your subscribers. The goal is to find out which variation of the marketing campaign delivers the best results. Once the test is over and you've found the best campaign, your marketing platform will automatically send that version to the rest of your list. Learn how to use all of the tools available with the platform you have chosen.

7. Expand your list

To get the best results, you need to expand your email list further with a working subscription list. One of the best ways to make a big impact on large subscribers is to offer a lead magnet. A lead magnet is a free gift that you give to recipients in your mailing list. With a lead magnet, you can attract people by making tempting offers. To encourage attendees to register, you can offer freebies such as free trials or samples, a free e-book, a free report, donation help, or a free video training series. You can also use your website and social media channel to encourage customers to sign up.

8. Carry out list hygiene

Always remember that email lists are expanded and contracted. The bigger your email list gets, the more money you have to pay for your email service. What matters is how committed your email list is. After a while, users may decide to stop opening their email. In fact, you can waste resources on unresponsive recipients.

For this reason, it is important to always monitor and update your lists by deleting people who no longer open your emails. Keep your email list up to date and filled with dedicated subscribers. Your VIPs are the ones who open your emails most often.

9. Segment your list

It is important to note that you have to divide your subscribers into smaller groups based on your specific criteria in order to make them more personalized and relevant. Not all customers and their needs are the same, so you should be able to identify and segment your recipients depending on whether they are new to your company or have previously purchased. The goal is to prevent irrelevant messages from being sent to everyone and to run the risk of your emails being sent to the purgatory. You may want to include a check box on your registration form if you want to receive emails with discounts and offers, as well as others for new product launches.

Avoid sending irrelevant messages to anyone who may end up in the spam box. In fact, less than 50 percent of companies don't use targeted email marketing technology at all. This doesn't match the goals of your email marketing campaign and misses opportunities.

For better impact, personalize the emails to your recipients. The more you personalize your marketing emails, the higher the rewards for your business. According to a study, marketers investing in advanced personalization efforts can get more than $ 20 in return for every dollar invested. They also generate more than 17% more sales than marketers who rely on more basic methods.

This will help you better target your target audience (s), depending on whether your goal is to attract, acquire, or retain the individual segments and to move into advanced marketing automation.

10. Automate

Another advanced practice is to set up automation. You need to keep the leads warm and keep the marketing touches on your list to keep track of when they're ready to buy (again). But you are busy and may not always have time. This is where automation comes in and an autoresponder comes into play. Autoresponders are simply a series of emails that are sent automatically when triggered by a specific action. As an email marketer, you can use your lead magnet to offer an e-book in which customers have to log in to your subscription platform. This way you can send an email series to increase customer loyalty.

Email Best Practices

There are many tips for email marketing campaigns, but certain practices should be followed. For example, experts recommend the following best practices:

  • Think Like Your Customer – If you think like your customer, you better understand why the customer has subscribed or bought from you. Then you can better meet your needs with brand association
  • Write good subject lines – Your subject line determines whether the recipient opens your emails or not. S Object lines should have a call to action and make the recipient so interested that he can click on the email and open it.
  • Make your email mobile friendly – Most emails are opened on phones today. So it's good to make sure they look right and are easy to read on mobile devices
  • Send emails at the most effective time – The best time depends on the industry, the purpose of the email, and other factors. Check the metrics to see when people open your email.
  • Offer email-exclusive content – Send content that is only available to subscribers. It encourages new subscribers and delivers something unique
  • Offer the option to refuse to receive future emails.
  • Emails should contain your physical address.
  • Subject lines of emails do not mislead
  • Your emails must clearly state that this is a request.
  • Send a welcome email to all new subscribers on the email list.
  • Send reminders regularly to confirm whether subscribers are still interested in your emails.
  • Be transparent while describing the content of your email and the typical frequency of your sign-up process.

Email Marketing Laws

When email marketers use sent email, they need to give their subscribers the option to unsubscribe from their mailing list by being transparent about how to unsubscribe. It is extremely important to know in advance what subscribers can expect from subscribing to a mailing list. Nobody likes to be cheated if they receive unsolicited emails that just fill their inboxes.

You must comply with spam laws. Always pay attention to how you got your subscriber's email address. The CAN-SPAM and GDPR regulations are strict when it comes to enforcing illegally received email addresses in order to protect individual data protection rights. This includes purchasing an email list from a company that allows you to save the email addresses as a data file. Collecting email addresses from websites and other online directories; Use an email address collection service (unless confirmed by each subscriber).

Further literature

You can find more tips in the following articles:

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