A beginner's guide to email marketing hits some of the most important topics a person should know before launching into the world of email marketing.
Email Types
Companies use email marketing for a number of different purposes. The first requirement if you are going to start generating emails is to decide what kind of campaign are you wanting to run. Making this determination will create for you the framework for generating content, setting up your CMS and scheduling your delivery. Below we have listed 6 of the most common types of email.
Welcome Emails – Set up an automated email that welcomes new customers or subscribers when they join a list.
Reminder Emails – Set up automated emails that get sent to customers to remind them of upcoming important dates, like service due dates for their car, or that their payment plan is expiring.
VIP Offer Emails – You can set up emails that automatically send a series of special offers to your clients best customers once they’ve reached VIP status by reaching a certain spending threshold, or another trigger you define.
Lead Nurturing Emails – Set up a series of automated emails that get sent to people who make an inquiry about your client’s products or services, educating them on why they need what your client offers and increasing the chance they’ll become paying customers.
Event Reminder Emails – Set up a series of automated emails in the days leading up to a specific event being organized by your client, reminding attendees that the event is coming up and increasing the chances they’ll attend.
Abandon Cart Emails - Set up in conjunction with your store Abandon Cart emails entice potential customers back to your store to close out the sale. Many stores offer an additional discount coupon to seal the deal, however this is not requirement. Sometimes the convenience of picking up where you left off is all a customer needs to check out.
Subject Lines
Subject Lines are almost as important as the content. The only reason I say "almost" is because sometimes a subect line writes itself and the simplest subject line is all that is needed to get your audience to engage. However a poorly written subject line will see far less activity and subsequently your efforts are wasted.
Create Visual interest - Caps, Emojis [expected Content] are ways to attract views
Straightforward beats clever
A great subject line opens a loop that can only get closed by reading the email.
Make it useful and Relevant - A subject line makes a brand impression even if its not clicked
Keep it Short - emails with subject lines of 28-39 characters got better results than emails with longer subject lines.
Email Marketing Steps
For something as ubiquitous as email it seems counter intuitive to list so many parts of the email marketing process. As you know there is nothing stopping you from writing an email and sending it to a list of people. However, when we approach email from a marketing standpoint we expect a return on the investment of our money, but especially our time. To get the best results we recommend accounting for each of these 7 steps in the email process.
Create an email marketing strategy
Set up email lists and integrate with other apps
Provide a reliable email marketing tool
Design and Develop email Templates
Create and send campaigns
Set up automated customer journeys
Report on campaign success
Final Checklist
Before you click send its always good to do one final check. Loaded within this list are some other tips that you can put to use as you craft your first email campaign. Email is considered by most people to be a more personal means of communication. Because of this you will see that the main focus of this check makes sure that your content is formatted to be received well.
Does my subject line grab attention and create interest?
Is there a single, clear call to action in the top part of the email?
Can my readers easily tell who this email is from?
Is this email warm and personal?
Does this email look good on my phone?
Is this email easy on the eyes?
Did I proofread the copy and test the links?