Ever wanted to do email marketing but were unable to do so? Was it because you lacked the knowledge? The Purpose of this blog, “How To Do Email Marketing Campaign” is going to show you how.
What Is Email Marketing?
Email marketing involves sending emails to promote either products or services to a list of contacts, who have given you their permission to receive emails from you. Hence if someone has not given you permission to send them emails, you must not send them emails. This is very important.
When Should You Use Email Marketing?
This will purely depend on what your objective or objectives are. With that said, there are many ways to use email marketing. You can use email marketing to:
- Build relationship
- Boost brand awareness
- Promote your content
- Generate leads
- Market your products or services
- Nurture leads
Types Of Emails In Email Marketing.
- Informational Emails
- New Content Announcement Emails
- Product update Email
- Newsletter
- Event invitation
- Transactional Email
- Thank you Email
- Welcome Email
- Lead nurturing email
Email Marketing Strategies.
Without strategies, majority of businesses both online and offline, will not survive. This is also true of email marketing. Email marketing is one of the most effective way to do marketing. However, it also has much competition. In view of this, you have to put in place strategies that will enable your message or brand to be seen and not be lost in a crowded mailbox.
Hence employing strategies in your campaign, will not only make your message or brand to stand out, but will also contribute to the success of your marketing campaign. What are some of these strategies?
Define and know your audience. This is very crucial. For example, do you know what the needs of your targeted audience are? Do you know and understand the problems or issues that they are dealing with? You see, only when you know and understand your audience, will you be in a better position to tailor your content in such a way that it will address the specific needs and concerns of your targeted audience. By so doing, you put yourself a step ahead of the competition.
You Don’t Want To Be Viewed As Sales Person
Another strategy you can use in your marketing campaign, is that you mix up your messages. You don’t want your subscribers to view you as a sales person, always promoting stuff to them. Rather you want them to view you as a people person, as such use your emails to build rapport with your customers, by sharing your knowledge, giving them something that they can value. In fact statistics shows that 40% of customers want their emails to be informative rather than promotive.
It is also imperative, that you keep your list engaged. You should on a regular basis send emails to your list. Why? Because if you are not in contact with them on a regular basis, they might forget who you are and your business will suffer. Let us illustrate it this way. You have a friend but he seldom ever communicates with you, you will not view that as a warm relationship won’t you agree? In fact you may have even forgotten about him. So this should impress on you, the need to keep in contact with your list.
Email Personalization As A Strategy
Here is another strategy that can have a positive effect on your email marketing campaign. This is also critical for your success. What is it? It is email personalization. Compared to emails that are not personalized, research indicates that personalized emails have 26% higher unique open rates and 41% unique click rates.
This should not surprise us should it? Life’s experiences teaches us that, when we treat others with respect, when we are sincerely and genuinely interested in them as individuals, they will respond well to us.
And personalization can help you build a good relationship. But you have to do so with great care, because you don,t want to pry into their private affairs, or cause them to become suspicious of your intent. If done correctly, email personalization can be a very good strategy. In fact statistics proves this to be true. Statistics indicate that 71% of consumers claim personalized experiences influence them to interact with emails.
Here is another strategy that must not be ignored, considering the significance of smart phones in modern society. Virtually mobile phones are ubiquitous. And more than half of website traffic is mobile and this trend is said to continue.
Mobile Friendly Emails
In view of this, you have to take advantage of this trend , other wise you could be losing lots of money if you are not sending mobile friendly emails.
There are few things that you can do to make your emails mobile friendly.
- Create one column mails
- Place important text centered
- Have an easy-to-tap call -to-action button
- Use bigger fonts
- Display small images
- Watch your subject line length
- Use pre- header text
- Keep your copy concise
- Incorporate SMS in your campaign
- Test your emails across multiple devices
Another strategy that you can employ, that will contribute greatly to the success of a campaign, is by creating a way for your visitors to sign up. You can do so, by putting an opt-in form on your website.
You can give away things for free, in exchange for subscribers email address. Of course whatever you offer, must be of value to them. Here are some ideas of what you can offer in exchange for email addresses.
- Templates
- E-Books
- Articles
- White paper
- Report of Study
- Webinar or course
As we progress in this blog, we are going to be repeating some of these strategies
Another strategy you will also have to employ, is to keep your subject lines not only short but also relevant. Email subject lines with 6-10 words, are those with the highest open rate.
Segmenting your email list is also essential for the success of your campaign. Email segmentation is the process of grouping your list of subscribers into smaller sub-lists with common characteristics. Segmentation will enable you to target your emails to specific groups, for example by demographic information, purchase history etc.
Why Is Email Marketing Important?
Do you know dear reader that either are more than 4 billion active email users? Yes you heard me right. It is worth repeating. I said over 4 billion active email users, and this trend is only going to continue. 
What is amazing also is that these users are active. With such huge numbers and active users, this is why building a successful email marketing campaign is so vital.
And look at this impressive statistics. It is said that 99% of email users check their email at least once per day. And what about the open rate? The open rate is around 20% and the CTR is 3.7%. Statistics also show that 60% of users subscribe to a newsletter to get messages, compared to only 20% that follow the same brand on social media. Email marketing has a 440% ROI. The return for $1 could be as high $44.
So again we see the importance of email marketing, and the opportunity for success it offers to you, provided of course if you do your marketing campaigns the correct way.
Allows You To Build Relationships
Another key importance of email marketing, is that it allows you to build relationships with customers. There is no other platform, that will allow you to build relationships with your audience, not even social media, as email marketing. It gives you the opportunity to keep in touch with your subscribers, through your valuable and relevant content and be rewarded for doing so.
Let me ask you this question. Which do you prefer? Something that you have little or no control over or something that you have total control over? I am sure you will choose the later, that is something that you have control over.
With social media platform, you have no control. Your business can easily be shut down for even the slightest violation of the rules and regulation. This is not the case with email marketing. As mentioned with email marketing your list is yours and you can market to your list when ever you want. This cannot be true of Facebook or Twitter, where your followers are owned not by you but they are rather owned by the platforms.
Also having a huge list can in fact increase the resale value of your business. This is again another reason why email marketing is so important.
Email marketing has proven to be a great selling tool. It is the most effective marketing channel, way ahead of SEO and Social media. It can be personalized and automated, making it possible for you to be efficient and effective in your campaigns. 
Enables You To Measure Performance
Another key significance of email marketing, is that it enables you to measure your performance. This is very critical because if you cannot measure performance,then you have no way of knowing where to make improvements or adjustments. Being able to measure performance can contribute to an effective email marketing campaign.
You can utilize emails to gather insights and feedback from your audience, you can do so by way of surveys. or request audience opinions. And you can utilize the results to create better contents, products or services.
It can also help you reach a global audience, and no other form of marketing has a greater reach than email. It can be used to drive more traffic to your blog or website.
Another importance of email marketing is that you can use it’s platform, to automate some of your marketing tasks, such as scheduling the day and time your emails are to be sent or use automation to set up a welcome email. Clearly then, email marketing is very important.
How To Do Email Marketing Campaign
For some, the thought of doing something new can be a terrifying experience, this including email marketing. But should learning how to do email marketing frighten you? We have just outlined, the importance of email marketing and that if done correctly it can bring you much financial gain.
So with that in mind then, we need to push over our fears and do our utmost, to learn how to do email marketing campaign.
So you want to do email marketing? I applaud you for such a desire. Have you heard of the expression the money is in the list? That expression is really true.
But for you to start making money by way of email marketing campaigns, you must first have a list. With that said, the beautiful question for you is , do you have a list? No worries, if you don’t have one yet we are going to show you how to build a list.
What Is Email List?
Email List is a database of email contacts who have expressed interest in receiving marketing information from you.
And before you can start building your list, you have to first sign up for an email marketing tool. There are many email marketing tools or email service providers(ESPs)
The most popular are:
- Aweber
- Get Response
- Mail Chimp
- Hubspot
- Sendinblue
- Mail Poet
- MailMunch
For some of these platforms, you can sign up for free, but with limited access. But they all give you the opportunity to upgrade. The price packages vary from platform to platform. So you will have to do a price and feature comparison to see which will best serve you.
So what does an email service provider do? They do many essential things that will help grow your business:
- Add users to your list using a number of methods
- Send emails to your targeted audience
- Easy to build forms, landing pages and CTAs
- CRM platform with segmentation capabilities
- Provide you with reports on how many people open your emails and interact with them
- Automate many email marketing tasks, such as sending a welcome email to your subscribers or other emails based on their actions
- Helps design and execute automated email marketing campaigns
Build Your Email List, A Way To Do Email Marketing
I am assuming that you have joined an ESP provider, it is now time to build your email list. How do you build your list and what strategies can you use to build your list? First though you don’t want just about any kind of persons on your list, for the sake of having a list.
You have to be selective in your list building efforts. You have to know , who you want on your list, so that you can deliver exactly what they want and need.
There are many ways to build an email list. However there are two major and effective ways you can build your list. You can build your list, by using what is known as lead magnets and opt-in forms.
For your lead magnets, you have to use something that will attract prospects to your email list, and free offers can do the trick. Just as a bait can attract a fish, the offers must be attractive enough to draw prospects.
Offers Must Be Relevant And Of Value
With that in mind, your offers must therefore, be relevant and of value to your targeted audience. Only when your offers meet these criteria will people be willing to give you their email address, for your offers.
What are the types of lead magnets or incentives that you can offer to people in exchange for their email address?
- Newsletters
- Free downloads
- Free White papers or e-books
- Up date lists like new releases and product
- Report or study
- Templates
There are so many other things that you can use as a lead magnet. You just have to use your imagination and creativity. Just remember that, your magnet must be something of value and relevant to your targeted audience.
Create An Opt-in Form
Now that you know what a lead magnet is and what it does, it is time now to create what is known as an opt-in form. What is exactly an opt-in form? An opt-in form is how you get a prospect’s information, which you can add to your list, and you can place this form on your blog or website.
Certainly, you must have a clear purpose, when asking for an email address. This is where you can use a specific call- to – action or benefits they will receive by providing their email address. To create an enticing opt-in form, you want your form to be attractive, and has a header that grabs the attention of people. Also, it must be relevant to your offer. Make your form simple and not complicated or else the desired result will not be achieved.
Additionally, it is vital that you set your form for double confirmation. This will help you avoid any problems. Not only that, studies also show that customers prefer confirmation opt-ins.
Create Quality Content
Something else is needed, that must not be left out. No matter what techniques you use, to add subscribers to your list, you will not succeed if you do not provide on your website quality content that is of value.
An effective email marketing campaign requires 3 key elements. We have discussed 2 of these key elements, what is the third element? The third element is clearly defined goals. In any undertakings in life, to succeed, one must have goals is that not true? This can also be true of running an email marketing campaign.
As I have shown, your success will also depend on your having well defined goals. What are some goals that you can set for your campaign?
- Drive sales
- Boost brand awareness
- Generate and nurture leads
- Keep customers engaged
- Increase customer loyalty
You now have your email list in place. However, before you can start emailing your list, there are certain other things that you must know and take into consideration, if your campaign is to be a success. Some of these elements we discussed in the strategies section, but I feel they are worth repeating.
Other Elements To Take Into Consideration
You have to think about your subject line. Create a subject line that can capture and grab attention. It must appeal to emotion, ambition and benefits.
Equally important, is the need to be aware of when to send your emails. Due to the fact proper timing will contribute to the success of your marketing campaign.
In regards to personalization, your email should have a friendly tone. Use the the subscriber’s first name, and be conversational, write as if you are talking to a good friend. Your aim should be to build a good relationship and trust and personalization will help you do that.
In regards to your copy, aim to write or provide relevant and quality content that will address the specific needs of your audience. You must have the interest of your targeted audience in mind as you create content.
We also did discuss the need to make your emails mobile friendly. This is very important, because study tells us that 55% of emails are opened on mobile devices. In view of this, If you want to have a successful email marketing campaign, you have to optimize your email campaigns for mobile devices.
Automation, A Way To Do Email Marketing
Before you can automate, you must first segment your list, that is breaking up your large email list, into sub categories. There are many creative ways that you can segment your list. List can be segmented based on:
- Geographic
- demographic
- Open rate
- Awareness
- Purchase history
- Interest
- New subscribers
- Inactivity
Segmentation enables you to send the right emails to the right people. It makes it easier to personalize your message, and build good relationship and trust. Your email service providers have features that will you segment your list.
After you have segmented your list, you can send automated emails that are highly targeted. In fact, you can do so by using auto responders and workflows.
Auto Responders And Workflows
What is an auto responder? In essence an auto responder is a simple but effective email marketing tool, which permits you to send a series of scheduled follow-up emails automatically to your subscribers. Above all, it is triggered by user actions, such as joining a newsletter, signing up for a webinar, downloading a cheat sheet, abandoned shopping cart or buying a product.
Workflows unlike auto responders, can change the course of your automated series, based on what your subscribers will find useful. It has the ability to adapt. Workflows also allow the marketers the opportunity to send messages to the right people all the time and help guide them through a customer journey.
Within each workflow will include different nurturing emails, designed to influence the subscribers closer to converting.
Clearly, email marketing automation can be a huge contributor to the effectiveness of your email marketing campaign. And as mentioned some where in this blog, there is no need to be apprehensive about setting up your email series, virtually all the email service providers have features that will help every step of the way.
Also , in terms of designing your email, initially you do not need to hire a designer to do your design, especially if you are just starting out and funds are limited. Most ESPs have some form of drag and drop email editor. You can use them to create clean, simple designs. Without using custom templates, you can utilize pre -made email templates with stunning results. Most email service providers have templates available, you can choose the one you like and personalize it.
Write A Good Email Copy
My next advice, is that if you want to have an effective email marketing campaign, you write a good email copy. Why is this so important? It helps you to not only build trust and good relationships with your audience,but it also puts you a step ahead of the competition. Do you know that on average, people receive 126 new emails every day?
In this regard what should this tell you? That there are lots of people vying for the attention of the customer or potential customer. What should this motivate you to do as a marketer? It should motivate you to write good, relevant and quality emails won’t you agree? By writing emails that provide value to your targeted audience, you will always have their ears and you will be a step ahead of your competitors.
This should impress on you, to really spend some time on the email copy. Here are some tips that you can utilize, that will enable you to produce a quality email copy.
Tips
- Leverage story telling
- Write to instill curiosity
- Always offer value
- Write clear conversational copy
- Use psychology to your advantage
- At least show your personality, I don,t mean an ugly personality but a good one.
- Make it easy to read
- Use short paragraphs
Certainly, what use is a good copy, if it can’t be opened and read. As a matter of fact, some of the points I am going to bring to your attention, have been noted earlier. Even so,I feel these are worth repeating, especially as it relates to people opening your emails. You have to make your subject line intriguing enough, that will compel people to click and open.All in all,it must be brief at least 50-60 words, appealing to emotions and ambition. And don,t forget to personalize your subject line.
Monitor The Campaign Results
In fact it is also a good practice to monitor, the campaign results. This is essential, because it will show you areas where improvements can be made in your future campaigns. And many email service providers have analytics dashboards that provide you results in regard to the following:
- Open rate
- Click through rate
- Unsubscribe rate
- Bounce rate etc.
A/B Testing Is A Way To Do Email Marketing
In addition, to run successful email marketing campaign, you have to do A/B testing, by creating two versions of your email, the campaign monitor will send them out to your two test subscriber lists. This can help you to determine, what kind of email messages can generate higher user engagement and conversion rate. The version that wins is the version that you will send to the remaining subscribers. What are things to test with A/B testing?
- The length of the email subject line.
- The format of the email
- Length of email body
- Frequency of sending emails
- Placement of your sign up forms
- Offers used as an incentive
- The authentication method used to verify the validity of emails.
And most of the email service providers like Aweber, have features that will allow you to do A/B testing.
Vitally important also is that you make absolutely sure that your emails follow local rules and regulations, including CAN-SPAM. To be in compliance, you have to:
- Include your valid physical posted address in every email you send out
- Give recipients a clear and obvious way to unsubscribe
- Use clear “From to” and “Reply to” language that shows who you are
Conclusion
I hope dear reader you enjoined this blog, “How To Do Email Marketing Campaign”. Moreover, not only did you enjoy it, but most importantly, I hope you found some value in it. Value that you can utilize to help you create an effective, successful and thriving email campaigns.
What are some of the things we learned in this blog as it relates to email marketing? We learned the definition of email marketing. It was discussed that it involves sending emails to your list of contacts. Further,we also mentioned some email strategies that one can employ, which can contribute to an effective email marketing campaign. Some of these strategies were:
- That you keep your list engaged
- That you personalize your emails
- That you make your emails mobile friendly
- That you create opt-in forms on your website
- That you keep your subject line short
- That you segment your list
Importance Of Email Marketing
Furthermore, we talked about the importance of email marketing. Do you remember some of the points we discussed? Let us do a quick review shall we. We said that there are over 4 billion active users and such huge numbers gives you the opportunity to achieve your financial goals. In comparison to other platforms, it is relatively inexpensive to start but has a high ROI. Additionally, we said that email marketing is important because you can use it to build relationships with your customers.
And to do email marketing, we said that you have to:
- Have an email list
- Sign up with email service providers
- Have clear defined goals
- Segment your list
- Write quality email copy
- Automate the process
Above all, I want to take this time to thank you sincerely dear reader, for reading this blog. I hope you found it to be informative and practical. And I sincerely trust that if you apply some of the points discussed, you will be able to create a successful and effective email marketing campaigns.
I would appreciate it if you would please give me your feedback or suggestion as to how I can improve. Additionally, I will also be grateful, if you can share this blog with friends.
Sincerely
Sten