Your email marketing strategy can contribute directly to the success of your overall marketing strategy. In this article, we’ll cover what an email marketing strategy is, why you should consider one, and how to get started with your first email campaign.
What Is Email Marketing?
Email marketing is a type of digital marketing. It involves sending educational and promotional emails to your list email subscribers. Email marketing can help you achieve a number of different business goals. For example, it can help you to increase brand awareness and build relationships with potential customers. It can also help you promote your services and make people aware of your special offers.
What Are The Main Benefits?
Email marketing is a great way to reach and connect with potential customers. According to Hubspot, many businesses consider email marketing to one of their top three marketing channels. This is probably because email marketing is considered an ‘owned’ marketing channel. This means that as a business owner, you have complete control over your email strategy. You can decide exactly what content you want to send out. You can also decide exactly when you want to send – ensuring that your potential customers all receive the right message, at the right time.
How To Create An Email Strategy In 5 Simple Steps
Are you thinking about launching your first email marketing campaign? If so, it can help to have a solid email marketing strategy. Here are some steps that you can take to make things easier :
- Identify the context for your campaigns: Before you start sending emails, it’s important to take some time to think about what you want to achieve from your email marketing campaigns. You might want to ask yourself questions such as: Who are you sending emails to? What are their needs, preferences, and pain points? What can you offer them? How will you get them to subscribe to your emails? And are there any legal and ethical guidelines you need to follow? This will enable you to decide on the context and purpose of your email marketing campaigns.
- Define your objectives and goals: After you’ve decided on the context for your campaign, it’s time to start thinking about your goals. You need to decide on some targets for your email marketing campaigns and start to think about how you will measure them. To do this, you can try using the SMART framework. This involves setting targets that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. For example, a SMART goal could be: “We will achieve an email open rate of at least 20% in our first three months by using personalized subject lines and segmentation.”
- Choose your email marketing tools: Now that you’ve got your targets in place, you can start thinking about which email marketing service provider you might want to use. In order to implement your email marketing strategy, you’re going to need to the right tools and platforms. This means carrying out a bit of research and deciding which service provider would best suit your budget, resources, and goals. You’ll need to find one that allows you to create, send, and track your email campaigns – as a minimum. If you’re not sure where to start, you could try looking at Mailchimp, HubSpot, and Campaign Monitor – all of which have good deals for small businesses.
- Build and segment your email list: The next step is to think about who you want to email. In order to run email campaigns, you’ll need to a list of email subscribers. If you’re business is already up and running, you can start by asking your existing customers to sign up for you emails. If you’re business is still in the start-up phase, you can try using different marketing tactics to get people to subscribe to your emails. The most important thing to remember is that (in nearly all cases) you need to ask permission to send someone an email. Once you have your list, it can also help to segment your email list into smaller groups based on their demographics, behaviour, and interests. This will help you send more relevant and personalized emails to your audience.
- Create and distribute your email content: Great content is an essential part of any email marketing startegy. You need to create content that aligns with your objectives, goals, and segments. You also need to distribute your content in a way that engages your audience. To do this, you can try using different types of emails and formats. For example, you can create emails for different stages of the customer journey, such as welcome emails, newsletters, promotional emails, and transactional emails. You can also try changing up different elements of the email design such as the subject line, images, and messaging.
- Analyse and optimize your performance: The beauty of email marketing is that you can track and measure almost everything. For example, you can track metrics such as the open rate, the click-through rate (CTR), and the conversion rate (CVR). You can also track the bounce rate (BR), the unsubscribe rate (UR), and the total ROI (return on investment). Once you have started collecting some initial data, you can also carry out tests to try to improve your email performance. For example, you can also use A/B testing tools to experiment with different versions of your emails and see what works best for your audience. By analysing and optimizing your performance, you can start to improve your email marketing strategy and achieve your goals more effectively.
Final Thoughts
Email marketing is essential for any small business. It can be an easy way to reach and engage with new audiences. It can also be a great way to connect with and retain your existing customers. For more information about email marketing for start-ups and small businesses, visit my blog.
