Email Marketing 101: Learn Email Marketing in 10 Minutes
Email marketing is a growth strategy that can greatly improve your bottom line and keep your business moving forward throughout 2023. In this Email Marketing 101 guide, we’ll cover how your small business can trim its marketing expenses while driving sales and long-term growth.
Here’s what you need to know.
What Is Email Marketing?
Email marketing is the process of sending one or more promotional emails to a group of people who have given their email addresses. Usually, these emails can be sent as a one-time event or as a series of emails, as long as they are for the same product or service. You can also send these messages to those who have already bought from you in the past.
Email marketing is a cost-effective way to stay in touch with your customers and remind them to buy your products and services.
Why Is Email So Useful?
Email is a very useful tool because it can be a form of communication, a form of storage, and a network-building tool. Email’s ubiquity and instantaneous communication make it a great medium for reaching audiences. Email is also a great form of storage because you can archive important emails and files that you don't want to lose. Additionally, you can seamlessly embed pictures and videos in your messages.
Email Marketing 101
Learning how to get started with email marketing is easy and only involves a few simple steps:
- Purchase a subscription to an email marketing service (email autoresponder service)
- Create email campaigns that educate and inform your customers
- Begin collecting emails through your website, social media, advertisements, squeeze pages, and other marketing collateral
- Keep testing and improving your emails for better results (higher conversions)
Step 1: Purchase an Email Marketing Service
There are several email marketing services available. We’ve put together a review of the best email marketing services available for small businesses. Select the one that works best for your business.
Step 2: Create Email Campaigns
An email marketing campaign is nothing more than a series of emails written to engage your subscribers. The more you provide them with quality content, the more opportunities for sales. The goal of each email is to get your potential customers to take action and become customers.
Step 3: Collect Subscriber Emails
Collecting emails is as simple as following the steps provided by your email autoresponder service provider. Each has their own instructions for adding an opt-in form to your website, social media sites, and wherever else you market online. You’ll just follow those instructions, and as traffic flows to your site and other adverts, interested persons (potential customers) will submit their name and email address, and it will automatically be added to your email subscriber list, located in your email marketing account.
Step 4: Test, Test, Test
Testing different versions of your emails will ensure responsiveness increases and more sales are made. This is called A/B testing and is done by simply segmenting your list into different pairings where you can test one version sent to one group compared with another version sent to a different group. The email template that converts best then becomes the one you send out to future subscribers. You can then continue optimizing (testing) your emails to further generate growth.
Bottom Line
People check email regularly. Email marketing is one of the least expensive ways to market your business on a consistent basis. As you send out regular emails to your subscribers, you build long-term relationships with them, and they become customers for life. This is a growth strategy because people buy from companies they know, like, and trust — therefore, they keep coming back again and again. A single email can create instant sales for your business.
If you’re not using email marketing, chances are you are losing out on too many missed sales opportunities. Take the first step today and select the best email marketing service for your small business.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Who will be receiving my emails?
Your emails are for your target audience. Think about your audience when drafting your emails. The more informed you are about your audience, the easier it will be to write for them.
2. What are my goals for this email campaign?
Every email campaign has an intention behind it. Decide what yours is and make sure that every email, perhaps every word, is used to satisfy that intent.
3. What's the best time to send my email?
Most modern autoresponder email service providers have a time feature built into their platform to ensure that your subscribers receive emails at the right time. Deciding the best time to send out an email takes a little time and some patience. It’s best to test different times of days for sending out emails. In general, most people check email sometime before 10 am and often just before the end of the business day. Statistics show that most people check their email at least once a day, though most people check several times a day.
4. What are the most prominent subjects in my industry?
Knowing your industry ensures that you can stick to topics that matter and are the most important to your audience. Try not to talk about topics that are off topic and unnecessary to your target audience.
5. What are the most popular words in my industry?
Every industry has its own industry specific terminology. Sticking with what’s most popular ensures that you connect more precisely with your audience. This also lets them find your email easier when they are going in and searching for a topic that may be important to them.
6. What kind of content will I need to include in my emails?
Include information that is relevant to your audience and that is beneficial to them. Include helpful information that is clearly stated in terms they will understand. Ensuring your content holds their attention and pertains to their needs is the best type of content to include in your email marketing campaigns.