How To Get Started With Email Marketing And Make It A Success

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Email marketing is one of the best digital marketing strategies available for business owners. It allows you not only to convert prospects into customers but also build stronger relationships with one time buyers to turn them into loyal returning clients. It’s an essential component of every business’ arsenal, which is further cemented by the fact that 3.9 billion users check and use their emails each day. (1)

 

However, email marketing campaigns that lack strategy will only be seen by your audience as a waste of time. Ever wondered why the internet is now full of articles about how to unsubscribe from annoying emails? Blame marketers that keep on flooding users’ inboxes with emails that don’t provide value at all.

 

Cost-effective marketing

 

Despite so many campaigns that produce little to no results, email is still the most cost-effective way for business owners to promote their products or services, communicate with their audiences, and help them achieve their business goals. In terms of ROI, email marketing outperforms other marketing strategies like social media marketing, especially for B2B businesses. (1)

 

If you want to know how to get started with email marketing and run campaigns that work, you’re in the right place. Check out this brief but comprehensive email marketing success guide.

 

Step 1: Work with an email marketing service provider

 

Some businesses, especially start-ups and smaller companies, still use personal email accounts when communicating with their leads and customers. While there’s nothing wrong with this, especially if you’re focused on cutting expenses where possible, personal emails have fairly noticeable limitations that could impact your marketing efforts. There’s a reason why email marketing software is the second-most commonly used technology by most marketers. (1)

 

Most business management software systems on the market now partner with email marketing service providers to allow their clients to manage everything in one place. There are a number of industry specific management systems that offer this, such as Jobber’s HVAC business software which is specifically tailored to support businesses within the field service industry. 

 

Our research has identified the top 3 email marketing service providers to be the following: (2)

  • Mailchimp
  • HubSpot
  • Campaigner

 

Step 2: Build an email list

 

Here are some ideas for building your email list organically if you don’t already have one:

 

  • Create an opt-in form for newsletter subscriptions.
  • Host giveaways that require customers to submit their email addresses.
  • Promote your email list through your social media pages in exchange for features or shoutouts.

 

As you can see, the best way to gain customer emails is to offer something compelling to customers. This holds true, whether you’re a product focused e-commerce business or a service provider. (3)

 

Step 3: Segment your email list

 

The most successful email marketing campaigns are the highly targeted ones. That’s because all email marketing KPIs, including deliverability, open rates, transactions, and revenue, perform better when using a segmented email list.

 

You’ll want to segment by: 

 

  • the subscriber’s industry (automotive, software, etc.); 
  • company size (number of people employed in the business, annual revenue); and
  • sales cycle (specific stage of the customer journey) 

 

Demographics and interests are also good segmentation factors that you can use for your campaigns, as well as a host of other factors that are more specifically related to your business. (4)

 

Step 4: Write compelling, personalized copy

 

Personalization in email marketing is using customer data to craft personalized messages. It’s one of the secret ingredients to a winning marketing recipe, but a whopping 70% of brands still fail to take advantage of it in their campaigns. Don’t commit the same mistake. Personalize your emails to stand out against your competitors. (5)

 

The power of personalization cannot be underestimated,  and this can be evidenced in the research highlighted by Forbes where 80% of companies that implemented personalization, reported an uplift in their bottom line. (5)

 

Get started with personalization using these tips:

 

  • Collect all the necessary pieces of information in your email sign-up form.
  • Include valid contact information in your email signature.
  • Personalize subject lines with the recipient’s first name, where appropriate.

 

Final Thoughts 

 

There you have it, your best email marketing practices. Remember to measure your success. To do that, take a look at analytics. How many people from your recipients opened your email? Did they click your link/links? The good news is that many email marketing platforms already provide these reports. All you need to do is to tweak your campaigns based on the insights they are telling you. Now’s the time for you to start leveraging email marketing in your business to stay competitive in a world that’s becoming increasingly online.

 

References

 

  1. The Ultimate List of Email Marketing Stats for 2020,” Source: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/email-marketing-stats?toc-variant-b=
  2. The Best Email Marketing Software for 2021,” Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/e-mail/5813/the-best-email-marketing-software-for-2020
  3. 10 Effective Ways to Get More Email List Subscribers,” Source: https://neilpatel.com/blog/get-more-email-subscribers/
  4. Why List Segmentation Matters in Email Marketing,” Source: https://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/32848/Why-List-Segmentation-Matters-in-Email-Marketing.aspx?toc-variant-b=
  5. 50 Stats Showing The Power Of Personalization,” Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/blakemorgan/2020/02/18/50-stats-showing-the-power-of-personalization/?sh=5b864efb2a94