A Beginner’s Guide to Successful Email Marketing
With so many tempting marketing options (most notably, social media and SEO), email can seem redundant. But, that is not the case, at least not according to some latest findings.
A 2018 analysis shows that email marketing still steps ahead of its contemporaries like social media and affiliate marketing. This is mainly because the number of email users surpasses that of social media and search engines by a substantial number.
But, there is one massive problem – most people do not know how to (properly) implement email marketing. So, if you are a newbie to email marketing, here’s everything you’ll need to get started.
Establishing your boundaries
Before you get started, keep one thing in your mind – you are a guest in their inbox. Unlike other forms of marketing channels, email gives total power to the audience. They can easily unsubscribe if they see something they don’t like.
The bottom line is: behave like a good guest and respect your audience’s requirements.
Get permission
Obviously, you cannot get started on email marketing without first getting your audience’s approval. It is important to get started with your audience on the right foot. There are many ways of asking permission. Some of the standard tactics are:
- Free downloads
- Free eBooks and white papers
- Email series
The important to remember is to clearly convey what the email (permission) is for and its consequent benefits.
Feed them with great contents
Getting permission isn’t difficult! What’s difficult is to follow it up with genuine content that can keep them interested. This is the make-or-break part of your email marketing. As mentioned before, users can unsubscribe from the email listing with just one click. So, if you want to make the most of the user’s permission, create great content.
Implement a strong and convincing call-to-action along with authentic and consistent content. Also, we highly advise against making absurd promises that are difficult to implement in the long run.
Know when to pitch your product
The last thing you want is to end up on the spam folder. Many novice companies bombard their audience with one sales pitch after another. You can only imagine how that can be annoying.
On the contrary, plan well ahead before pitching any product to your audience. If possible, analyze the metrics and understand the interests of your audience, and offer something relevant. It is much better to let your audience anticipate sales pitches once a while, rather than overwhelming them with junk emails.
Segment your audience
This simply means dividing your audience into different target groups. Segmenting your audience allows you to get a better picture of where to invest your resources. Usually, companies segment their users based on factors like their engagement frequency and their interests.
Segmentation gives you the power to zero-in on the interests of the users, so you can tailor your emails and target specific users. For instance, some users may be interested in hearing only about new (product) updates. On the other hand, some may want to hear about both the sales and product updates.
Thus, by segmenting your audience, you can make a clear distinction of which emails to send to which users.