what is email marketing and how is it used?

email marketing is wildly
underused

Whether you’re a SAAS business or a clothing brand with a fast-converting e-commerce site – chances are, you’ll have several marketing channels running in silo to bring you leads. You might have PPC Ads hammering the return page or Facebook Ads popping up on the news feed – and you’ll have an on-site blog with well-optimised pieces.

the basics of email marketing

But what about email marketing… do you send them? And if you do, are your emails receiving clicks & opens? Whatever your level of experience in email marketing, sometimes it’s worth going back to basics to ensure the success of your email campaigns.

let's get started

In this guide, we detail the very basics of creating, setting up, and sending email campaigns. Email marketing is seriously underused and underestimated – it’s time to find out what this trusty channel can do!


Step 1: Your Goals

Every business has a slightly different set of goals that they’d like to hit once their email marketing efforts gain traction. When done properly, email marketing can:
 
✔ Make potential customers aware of your brand and why they need your products/services
✔ Increase your lead volumes
✔Push more visits to your website
✔ Generate direct sales (e-commerce brands)
✔ Improve activity on your other channels or increase traction on cross-channel campaigns
 
So, your first step is to choose which goals you’d like to hit. This will determine step 2: influencing the open, click, and conversion rates to meet your goals.


Step 2: the why

First up – the why! What are you advertising, and why? Why will people care enough to open, read, and click on your email? No matter if you have a hard offer to drive sales or a soft newsletter to pull web visits, your communication needs to have a real purpose. It helps to split this into actions; what can I do to make my contacts…
 
•Open the email?
•Read it?
•Click a button within it?
•Either convert or come back to convert further down the funnel?
 
For example – opening the email > write a short, intriguing subject line about your product or service, and with appropriate personalisation. If you don’t have answers to the above, then you may reconsider the content you’re sending out.


Step 3: Your email content

Successful email campaigns depend on so many variants – from the copy and call-to-actions to the time of day you schedule them for. While we recommend testing at some point, you’ve got to start somewhere. So your starter tip is to make sure your email content is grammatically correct, that the links work, and that they display well. As long as you are communicating your message effectively – you can worry about the fancy stuff later.
 
A couple of things to check:
 
•You’re using a reputable email marketing software like Spotler, Mailchimp, Dotmailer, or Dynamics
 
•Your design is clean. If you prefer using HTML, you’ll want to use a drag and drop builder with pre-existing blocks. If text-only email marketing templates are for you – make sure your paragraphs are snappy and the font is the same size
 
•You send tests. Check how your emails look on desktop and mobile, check the links work, make sure you don’t go straight into Junk
 

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