Email Marketing 101

“An email campaign is a sequence of marketing efforts that contacts multiple recipients at once. Email campaigns are designed to reach out to subscribers at the best time and provide valuable content and relevant offers. Using email campaigns allow you to build deep and trusting relationships with your customers.”

Sendplus.com

Overview

In short, email marketing is the most cost effective method to help promote your brand to your customers, prospects and interested parties that are on your mailing list. It’s lead nurturing at its best and will increase your sales. Plus, the content possibilities are endless, including:

• Sharing your company news
• Selling your product(s)
• Notices of sales
• Holiday messages
• And much more!

Building Your List

Your goal is to build a list of engaged subscribers – i.e., customers and prospects that are interested in your company or product and who will pay attention to your messages. Sound difficult? It’s not, it just takes some time and thought. Mailchimp suggests you:

• Create a signup form on your website
• Use a sign-up sheet at events and in your store if applicable
• Drive sign-ups through social media
• Make your emails easy to share
• Create a contest or offer a discount or prize for new subscribers

Your Email Campaign Plan

You have your list ready and it’s time to begin your email campaign. First, decide the purpose of the campaign. Is it a product announcement? An overview of your services? Is it one of a series of email campaigns (also known as drip campaigns)?

Once you have made that decision, it’s time to think of your email content. Make your copy concise and interesting. Don’t make the mistake of sending emails that lack worthwhile content. It’s a sure way for people to lose interest in your emails.

Now it’s time to focus on the design of your email. Design your email to reflect or compliment the email’s main message.

There is a lot involved in successful email campaigns, including testing, measuring its performance (opens and clicks), etc. The above is a brief overview of the basics. Successful email marketing has a lot of components. It’s a good idea to work with a professional marketing company for all aspects of your email campaigns from the design to the content to the frequency. You’ll find the emails are more successful resulting in sales thus justifying the expense of hiring a professional!