Email marketing is an easy and cost-effective way to engage with customers. By keeping in contact with customers and sharing valuable content with them, emails help us build long lasting relationships with our users. In this article, I want to go over 4 steps on how to get started with email marketing.
Step 1: Grow your Email List
To begin an email marketing campaign, you first need to have an audience to send content to. We can grow our audience in multiple ways:
Have a Subscribe Link on your Site
Placing a link in on your websites to join your email list is an easy way to gain an audience. Your link should be somewhere where users will notice it, such as the header or the footer of your site. You could even a section devoted to your email link on your homepage. Beyond your site, it doesn’t hurt to put your email link in other common places your users may visit, such as social media or your linktree.
Create and Advertise Lead Magnets
Lead magnets are valuable pieces of content that attract users to join your email list. A lead magnet could be a short guide on a topic you have expertise in, a useful template, a tool, or so forth. To receive a lead magnet, users exchange their email address, so creating it’s important to make your lead magnet attractive. The key to a good lead magnet is knowing what your customer needs. Successful lead magnets provide help to your target audience’s pain points, making your email list enticing to sign up for.
Just like your subscriber link, your lead magnet should be shared in places where traffic is common, such as social media, blog posts, your linktree, and so forth.
Note: Your opt-in message is key
Getting users to see and click your subscriber link or lead magnet is one thing, but getting them to opt-in is another challenge. For both, you will either want to have a dedicated landing page where users share their information, or a popup or embedded form in your site. Alongside your form should be an explanation as to what users gain when they join your email list. This explanation is important to showing your users that your email content or lead magnet is worthwhile.
Step 2: Create Valuable Content
Once your have a list of emails, you can start creating content to send to your subscribers. Just like with the content on your site or social media channels, your content should speak to your users. What do your readers want to know? What do they need help with? Sharing content such as advice, updates on your business, promotions, and so forth can help make your emails interesting to read. Afterall, we get so many emails daily, so making sure your content is worth opening is important.
Note: As your lists grow, you can personalize content
With a large list of subscribers, you may have a variety of types of readers with different interests. With the help of email software, you can send content to subscribers depending on factors such as previous purchases, form responses, and other user input. Personalized content helps us accurately share content that speaks to each individual reader.
Step 3: Be Consistent
As with your blog and social media content, successful email marketing requires consistency in the frequency of your content. Create an email schedule and stick to it in order to keep your readers engaged. When determining your email schedule, determine what days and times your target audience tends to be checking their email. A general rule of thumb is to send emails around 11AM on Tuesdays.
Note: Email Software can help automate the process
Email software can help make the scheduling process easier. Through email software, you can create, schedule, and send emails to your subscribers. Email software can also help in identifying trends, conducting split testing, and providing access to templates.
Step 4: Measure & Improve
With the help of email software, you can collect statistics on how well your emails are doing. Metrics such as open rate, bounce rate, and clicks can help you understand what kind of content your readers want to see. Your readers interests may change overtime, so keep track of these metrics if available to keep up with what they want to see.
Where can I start in using Email Marketing for my Business?
Want to get started in email marketing? At BCS Engineering, we use AWeber to keep our customers informed. With the help of email software, you can create and schedule emails, divide customers into email lists, and track how well your emails are doing! Check out AWeber and other email marketing software out there to start your email marketing journey!
