Email Marketing: A Beginner’s Ultimate Guide
Find out everything you need to know from how to build your email list to how to improve your open rates.
Email Marketing: An Ultimate Guide for Beginners
Email is considered to be the grandfather of all communication mediums. This medium of communication has seen numerous mediums come and go.
There are 4 billion email users globally as of 2020, with over 300 billion emails transmitted daily. That is quite a lot.
By following this definitive guide, you will be able to understand:
- Reasons why email marketing is the most effective type of digital marketing.
- How to build your email list
- How to convert your leads to customers.
- How to improve your open rates.
What is Email Marketing?
Email marketing is a form of digital marketing used for communicating with prospects, leads, or customers through emails.
Newsletters, event invitations, informational emails, and welcome emails are common ways marketers use to communicate with their customers or audience.
Email marketing is a type of direct line that can perform different profit-based actions. These actions include educating and convincing a lead to buy your products.
Email marketing has the highest ROI on investment compared to other marketing tactics. Social media, content marketing, and the rest do not have a chance.
Since we have understood the basics of email marketing, let us move to the next part: importance.
Why is Email Marketing important?
Email marketing has proven to be the best marketing channel out there. It nurtures your way into customers’ hearts and makes them raving fans.
The first marketing email sent in 1978 resulted in $13 million in sales.
I am not here to bore you with millions of stats. I am here to show why email marketing should be the top priority.
I am going to show three reasons why you should choose email.
- You do not have to worry about any algorithm changes.
Email is not like other marketing channels like SEO and social media.
It does not change algorithms regularly. This affects how businesses get in front of customers.
With email being different from other mediums, it is safe to say you can use the tactics provided in this article.
2. You can use your emails to drive traffic to your website.
Social media has a feat in this. But with email marketing, you can use your personal connection with them to drive traffic anywhere you want.
3. With email marketing, your lists are yours.
On social media, you do not own your audience. You could get suspended or blocked at any time if a rule is broken.
This could make you lose your audience, but with email, there is nothing like that.
I could as well include some statistics.
- The average email subscriber is worth $48.87.
- An email newsletter open rate is 20 times higher than that of Facebook engagement.
- For every $1 spent on email marketing, the ROI on it is $42.
Since we all understand the hype behind why email marketing is the best for sales.
Let us get down to how to get started with email marketing.
How to Get Started in Email Marketing
You can’t just jump into creating email campaigns and sending them out.
Email marketing has different parts that make it whole. I am going to break everything down and simplify it.
Create a Marketing Strategy
Always have a strategy for every marketing journey you embark on. This is Marketing 101.
Email marketing is very effective. You can’t just jump into it without a strategy. Without one, you will probably not have an audience or make sales.
I will equip you with the best and most proven strategy, even though you are starting as a beginner.
These six steps below are all you need to become an effective and powerful email marketer.
- Your target audience
- The right tools
- Create your goals.
- Build your list.
- Segment your list
- Measure your results.
There are a lot more, but these six should get you started.
Let us dive deeper.
Identify your target audience.
A target audience is a specified set of people willing to buy your products.
These people need your products or want you to solve their problems.
Know your buyer persona, and tailor your products and services to their needs.
Get yourself the right tools.
Your email marketing strategy would be incomplete without the best tools. These tools help you create, send, manage, and track the metrics of your email campaigns.
An Email Service Provider (ESP) can do the above and more. An ESP helps you create an email campaign with lots of templates at your disposal.
It also tracks how your email campaigns are doing, and with that, you can adjust your campaigns to your customers’ needs.
Create attainable goals.
With how effective emails are, their open rates are low. The average open rate for emails is 21.5%.
This rate also varies across industries. Knowing these stats will help you create a realistic and attainable goal.
Build your email list.
The email list contains the customers who have permitted you to send emails. The email list might comprise their name, age, sex, date of birth, etc.
Numerous people started their email list with just a few people before growing it to hundreds of thousands.
Don’t know how to build your email list? We will look at that in the next section of this article.
Segment your email list
Now that you have your email list full of your target audience, you will want to segment them.
Nothing beats sending emails to the right people. To avoid sending irrelevant emails, split your list into groups based on similarities like age, sex, location, etc.
Measure your results.
Measure everything about your email, from open to unsubscribe rates.
ESP has made all these metrics available; your job is to be keen about them. Make small changes to your email. Check the kind of effect it has on your metrics.
Bad? Let it go.
Good? Stick with it.
Now that you know what it takes to create an email marketing strategy.
Let us look at how to build an email list.
How to Build Your Email List from Scratch
There are a lot of ways to grow your list organically. Don’t choose otherwise.
We will focus on squeeze pages, lead magnets, and exit intent pop-ups.
Create Squeeze Pages
A squeeze page is a web page made to capture potential customers. Just like its name, it squeezes information out of a visitor by limiting or restricting access to content.
It serves as a gateway to collect information from visitors in exchange for something valuable.
It has a disadvantage, which is a high exit rate, but that should not bother you. Your purpose for using a squeeze page is to capture leads and turn them into customers.
Not comfortable with them leaving your site? Include a link to browse other pages on your website or products on the squeeze page.
If you have used HubSpot before, you would have seen one of their squeeze pages. They have a ton of it.
Capture leads with a Lead Magnet.
A lead magnet sounds straightforward: it is something used to attract visitors and prospects to be added to your email list.
Your lead magnet can be in so many forms, most especially free.
People love free things.
Let me ask you a question. Do you love to give out your email? I am guessing the answer is no. It is the same for your audience; they are protective of their email and would not give it out.
When you get their email, give them something valuable in return.
Do you have something valuable in mind? If so, there are different forms your valuable offer can take.
- Ebooks
- Video
- A Course
- Webinar
- Template
- Whitepaper
- Coupons
- Discount on a product
The lists are endless as long as they are valuable.
What Makes a Lead Magnet Effective?
Yes, your lead magnet might be invaluable in many ways, but it might not convert those leads to your audience. We are going to take a look at several factors that will make your lead magnet convert.
- Your lead magnet has to be free. When your leads see a price tag, they will turn back no matter how mouth-watering your offer might be.
- Easily usable: you might think offering them something extensive might make them convert, but think again. Use something easily consumable. For example, a quick guide is better than a 100-day breakfast recipe.
- Actionable: you might want to offer them something they can apply at that very moment.
- Relevant: Knowing your target audience and their personas will help you here. Once you know what is relevant to them.
After you have come up with your lead magnet, present a way to get their information.
Creating an effective opt-in form
After your lead magnet, an opt-in is the next step. An opt-in form is a way to get your prospects’ information, thereby adding them to your list.
Your opt-in form has to be attractive because if it is not, they won’t even get to see your offer (Lead Magnet).
Let me walk you through the steps of creating a great opt-in form.
- Attention-grabbing Headline: The headline has to grab their attention and clearly define the offer. For your description to be great, it has to be brief and straight to the point, with no confusion.
- Make it simple; you have worked so hard just to send them off with a complex form. Keep it simple.
- Attractive: Your form should be attractive. You can include an image of what you are offering. Use colors that are pleasing to the eyes.
- A captivating CTA: Your Call-To-Action (CTA) is your subscribe button. It does not need to have the word subscribe on it; you could put a more natural text. Get your free ebook looks more natural.
According to Optinmonster, there are 14 high-converting places on your website where you can put your opt-in form.
- Splash page
- Welcome gate
- Floating bar
- Your site’s header
- Blog archive page
- Within your blog posts,
- Your sidebar
- In a timed lightbox pop-up
- In a scroll box
- Your footer
- About Us page
- Resource pages
- On a designated sign-up page
- In an exit-intent pop-up
Now that you are ready to create your lead magnet, it is time to move on to the exit-intent pop-up.
Exit-Intent Popups
I know what you are thinking. Isn’t pop-up annoying? Yes, it is. Hear me out here. Pop-ups are different. We are not talking about those that attack you once you land on a webpage.
This exit-intent pop-up only appears when something of value is offered if you want to leave a website. It does not interrupt visitors when they are reading your content. That can be so annoying.
If the visitors find your content helpful, they are more likely to subscribe.
With the Optinmonster case study, they were able to increase their conversions by up to 125% with an exit-intent pop-up.
How to improve your email open rates
After working hard to establish a list, it does not make sense if your open rates are not high.
It is good that I am here to provide tips on increasing your open rate.
There are many factors involved with open rates. We will take a look at them one after the other.
Avoid the spam filter at all costs.
Many people starting on their email marketing journey get caught in a spam filter. I am here to help you avoid that at all costs.
This list contains some helpful tips.
- Get their permission first before sending them an email.
- Use an Email Service Provider to avoid getting on the spam bucket list.
- Send your email through a verified domain.
- Send your emails from a good IP address.
- Include your location.
- Do not use click-bait headlines.
- Always include an unsubscribe button.
Time your emails effectively.
First, I would love to put this out there: there is no perfect time to send emails. You just have to figure out the best time to send emails.
In most of the ESPs, there is an A/B testing tool. With this tool, you can figure out the best time to send emails. It will take a while to get, but when you do, apply it to your future emails.
In some studies done, Tuesday has the highest open and click-through rates. Saturday is the best day for conversions.
This does not mean you should send out emails on Tuesdays and Saturdays, but it can be a place to start.
Delete your inactive members.
You should remove inactive members after a while. Having a lot of inactive members who do not interact with your emails can make your emails end up in spam.
Before removing them, you can send them one last email to engage with them. If you get no engagement, delete them from your list.
I know you struggled a lot before getting those subscribers, and it will hurt to lose them. You can wait for 4 to 6 months before deleting inactive subscribers.
A killer headline
A headline is the first thing your subscribers see; you need to make it catchy at first glance.
Here are some tips that can help you with a great headline.
- Make them curious but not clueless.
- Include numbers; this drives them to click.
- Do not make it boring.
- Write in a friendly tone or manner.
Other open-rate tips include
- Use humor; it works great.
- Optimize your email for mobile. 67% of email opens are mobile.
- Use storytelling; it never goes wrong.
- Always do your best to write amazing content. That way, they will eagerly await your email.
And we are done with improving open rates.
Let us jump right to the email service provider.
Choosing an Email Service Provider (ESP)
Your email marketing arsenal is incomplete; it is missing the best weapon, an Email Service Provider.
The email service provider allows you to do a whole lot. It also prevents you from entering that spam list you dread.
The email service provider handles all the technical stuff. It makes creating and sending out bulk emails easy.
Let us name a few, shall we?
Mailchimp
Since I started email marketing, Mailchimp has always been right in my face. Of all the recommendations I have come across, Mailchimp is right there.
Mailchimp is easy to set up as an ESP and has easy-to-use features. It is for beginners.
Mailchimp is regarded as the best free email service provider because it offers a free plan for the first 2000 subscribers.
Convertkit
Convertkit is the best ESP for creators like professional bloggers, authors, musicians, etc. A great choice if you are just starting.
The price is free for the first 1000 subscribers. Anything exceeding 1k attracts fees.
Constant Contact
For those in the e-commerce sector, constant contact is the one for you.
They allow users to create email designs with killer templates using a simple drag-and-drag method.
You can try out constant contact by using their free 60-day trial. Anything after 60 days attracts monthly fees.
Hubspot
Do you want ready-made templates? Hubspot has you covered. Hubspot is a CRM platform, but they are also one of the best email service providers.
But with Hubspot, you can send up to 2000 emails for free per month.
