Beginner's Guide to Email Marketing

Email marketing campaigns are one of the most effective ways to reach out to customers and promote your creative products. If you're just getting started with email marketing, it's important to know the basics of how to create an effective campaign.

It's important to follow best practices in order to get the most out of email marketing. In this blog post, we'll share some of the best practices for email marketing so you can make sure your campaigns are successful.

1) What is Email Marketing?

Email marketing is an effective way to stay in touch with your customers and promote you business.

Email marketing is a form of internet marketing that takes advantage of the global reach of email, one of the first types of networked computer applications. When you create a email marketing campaign, you send advertisements or other informational messages to a group of people who have opted in (given permission) to receive them.

Email marketing can be used for a variety of purposes, including building relationships with customers, increasing sales, or simply delivering content to subscribers. Email marketing can be done either by sending out mass emails (also called blast emailing) or by targeting specific groups of customers with more personalized messages.

2) Benefits of Email Marketing for Your Business

Email marketing allows you to communicate with customers directly, providing them with information about new products, services, and sales. Additionally, email marketing can help you build customer loyalty by providing valuable content and offers.

Email marketing is an excellent way to keep your business top of mind with customers, and it's a great way to stay connected with past customers. Additionally, email marketing can be an effective way to increase sales, as well as keep track of customer behavior.

When done correctly, email marketing can provide significant benefits for your business. It's important to follow best practices to make sure you're getting the most out of email marketing. In this blog post, we'll share some of the best practices for email marketing so you can make sure your campaigns are successful.

3) What are Your Marketing Goals?

If you plan to start an email campaign, you need to first determine the goals of the campaign.

• Are you looking to increase brand awareness?
• Drive traffic to your website?
• Sell a product or service?

When you are setting out your goals, make sure to keep them SMART - specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-bound. Additionally, make sure you have a plan for how you will measure the success of your email marketing campaign.

4) How to Create a Subscriber List?

After you know your campaign goals, you need to build a list of subscribers. You can obtain subscriber emails in a variety of ways, including:

• Collecting email addresses on your website
• Offering a subscription form on your social media profiles
• Running a contest or giveaway and requiring an email address to enter
• Partnering with another business and offering a mutual opt-in agreement
• Adding a sign up link to your email signature
• Including an email sign up form in your marketing materials

The best way to create a subscriber list is to offer something of value in exchange for an email address. This could be a free ebook, report, or coupon. A subscriber list will allow you to send your email marketing messages to a group of people who have opted in to receive them.

5) Who is Your Target Audience?

Once you have a list of subscribers, you need to make sure you only send them content that they will be interested in. Segmenting your list into different groups based on interests or demographics can help ensure that each subscriber is getting the most relevant content possible.

This will also allow you to send more targeted and relevant messages. You can avoid spamming people with information they don't care about, and instead focus on sending them content that they will appreciate.

Make sure you have your customer's permission to send them emails before you start your campaign. The best way to do this is to include an opt-in form on your website or in your marketing materials. This will ensure that only people who are interested in receiving your emails will sign up for your list.

Additionally, make sure you include an easy way for people to unsubscribe from your emails if they no longer wish to receive them. This will help prevent people from marking your emails as spam, which can hurt your reputation and deliverability.

6) What Type of Content Will You Send?

The content you send in your email marketing campaign should be based on your campaign goals. If you're looking to increase brand awareness, then you'll want to send informative and educational content.

This could include a variety of things, such as:

• Blog posts
• Videos
• Images
• Product info sheets
• Coupons or discounts

If you're looking to drive traffic to your website, then you'll want to include links back to your website in your emails. Make sure the links are easy to find, and that the content of your email supports the goal of the campaign.

If you're looking to sell a product or service, then your emails should focus on that product or service. Include information about the features and benefits of the product, as well as any special offers you may have.

Make sure the email design is appealing and easy to read, and that the content is persuasive.

No matter what content you provide, always make sure it is valuable content that is relevant to your customers.

7) When to Send Your Emails?

The best time to send an email marketing campaign will vary depending on your business and your audience. If you're selling a product or service, you'll want to send your emails during the times when people are most likely to be buying.

This could vary depending on your industry, but generally, you'll want to send your emails during the following times:

• Weekdays between 9am and 12pm
• Monday through Thursday between 3pm and 7pm
• Friday between 3pm and 6pm
• Saturday and Sunday mornings

If you're not selling a product or service, then you'll want to send your emails at times when your audience is most likely to be engaged. For example, if you're targeting a business audience, you'll want to send your emails during the work week.

If you're targeting a consumer audience, you could send your emails on weekends or in the evenings.

You'll need to experiment to see what works best for your business. Once you've found a time that works, stick to it and be consistent.

8) How Often Should You Send Emails?

The frequency of your email campaigns will also vary depending on your business and your audience. If you're selling a product or service, you'll want to send emails more often than if you're just trying to increase brand awareness.

Generally, you'll want to send email marketing campaigns at least once a week, but no more than three times a week.

If you're not selling anything, you can send emails less often. Try sending them once or twice a month.

Again, you'll need to experiment to see what works best for your business. Be sure to track the results of your campaigns so you can see what's working and what isn't.

9) Email Marketing Tools

There are a number of different tools and tips you can use to improve your email marketing campaign.

There are a number of different tools you can use to improve your email marketing campaign. You can use these tools to manage your email list, automate your email campaigns, and track the results.  Here are a few that you may want to consider:

MailChimp

Mailchimp does have a free plan, which includes up to 2,000 contacts, with 10,000 sends per month and a daily limit of 2,000. However, the features are limited and if you exceed the 2,000 contact limit, your email campaigns or testing emails are placed on hold until you upgrade to a paid plan.

Unfortunately, the pricing has increased significantly recently, so it definitely is not for everyone.

Moosend

Moosend has a 30 day free trial. You may send as many emails as you want and establish as many mailing lists as you wish. It’s perfect to try out email marketing tools while you are still growing your business.

Moosend's Pro Plan is the perfect plan for small businesses. This plan starts at $7/month and is billed annually ($9/monthly). When you need a good product but are on a tight budget, this should definitely be on the top of your list.

Constant Contact

They do not have a free plan, but Constant Contact's Core plan starts at $9.99/month and Pro plan starts at $45/month, respectively. You get 15% off for 12-month plans. Both plans offer a 60 day trial (no credit card required) and have a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Benchmark

Benchmark is an ideal solution for inexperienced marketers, especially those who have never used email marketing software before. It is easy to use and provides all the features and tools you need to get started quickly.

The free plan includes unlimited subscribers, but it’s limited to 250 emails/month.  Their free option has no time limit and accepts an email list of 2,000 contacts. For a paid plan, pricing starts at $10.50/month billed annually ($15.00 billed monthly) for unlimited emails per month.

GetResponse

GetResponse is an ideal solution for inexperienced marketers, especially those who have never used email marketing software before. It is easy to use and provides all the features and tools you need to get started quickly.

While GetResponse offers a free trial, it’s limited to 500 subscribers. If you decide that GetResponse is right for your business, you can upgrade to a paid account, which starts at $19/month ($15.58/month billed annually).

10) It's Time to Give Email Marketing a Try

Email marketing is a great way to reach out to your customers and promote your business. It can be used to increase brand awareness, drive traffic to your website, or sell products or services.

The most important thing is to make sure your content is relevant to your customers and provides value. Be sure to experiment with different content, timing, and frequency to engage your audience.

There are a number of different tools and tips you can use to improve your email marketing campaign. For example, you can use A/B testing to test the effectiveness of different subject lines, email content, or call to action buttons. You can also use email automation to send specific types of content to specific subscribers at specific times.

Now that you know how to set up your first email marketing campaign, it's time to check out the best subject lines for your email marketing.

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