Email Marketing for Beginners - A complete guide

Email marketing is a vibrant way for a marketer to communicate with consumers. It helps them connect with people on an individual level, providing them an opportunity to insight into their brand. Email marketing comprises business mails, surveys, and promotional offers that are tailored according to the customers' preference.

If you are interested in creating more awareness of your brand, email marketing can be a handy option. Email Marketing is a rather personal form of marketing. Therefore, its impact is more significant. However, if you are doing it without learning about email marketing, you might find yourself in hot water. But don’t worry! We got you!

Here’s a detailed guideline for you to learn everything about Email Marketing. If you are a beginner, then it is advised for you to learn the basics before hopping on the bandwagon.

1. What is Email Marketing?

Email marketing is the way of marketing where the emails are used to connect with the audience. With adequate email marketing, you can send information back and forth and prospects to help you in your market growth.

People who look forward to your brand and your products can be part of your Email broadcast to communicate with them about your business. It is also a channel that helps the buyers learn about the business before making a conscious buying decision.

If your email broadcasting list is comprised of your target audience, then your chances of creating an echo of your brand are much higher. Email marketing can be a significant path for your business concern to marketing if used the right way.

Email marketing ought to be the first channel of communication on the web. Therefore, it can be said to be the first and most effective way of marketing.

Benefits of Email Marketing

Before you contemplate the idea of investing your energy into email marketing, it is important to learn about the benefits of it and how it can help your business to grow.

Here are few benefits that will support your decision of getting into email marketing

1. Cost efficient

Let’s face it! No business in their early days wants to spend more than they earn and, this is fair. Therefore, for something useful and equally cost-efficient, people opt for email marketing. To run a strategic campaign on email marketing, you can quickly get a low-cost subscription to many viable applications. Mail Chimp is the most cost-efficient and easy to manifest application that helps beginners with their marketing campaigns.

2.  Autonomy

Email marketing allows you to express your vision in your emails. It is a platform that supports autonomy. The autonomy to choose your desired designs, layout, segments, and flow. The independence to choose promotes creativity, and this is your golden chance to showcase your talent through an email.

The only thing that you can’t control completely is the deliverability of the emails, but if you do follow a good strategy, this must not be a problem.

Plan your workflow, manage your communication, and reflect your brand in your words. Remember, a place sitting in front of a laptop screen is visualizing you through your email. So, give your best shot, and the rest will fall into place eventually.

3. Authenticity

If your email broadcasting list is organic, then your chances to reach your target audiences increases. You know who you are communicating with. It clarifies the work since it has the right audience that will support your business and ideas. However, if you have not made your list with an organic audience, all these efforts might go in vain since you do not target the right audience.  For better clarity, you can run A/B surveys to understand your business's statistics and whether it is achieving your desired goals.

4. Easy to use

Email marketing is easiest of all. All it takes is to plan a precise campaign that will cater the objective of your brand. There are many options available that can create your templates, landing pages and your pamphlets in a fraction of time therefore, you don’t need to stress over the things you don’t know how to do. Rather, you can find an alternative that will work for you while you invest you all energy in creating a unique campaign.

5. Owned medium

Conventionally, digital marketing is categorized into three main segments, paid, earned, and owned. Email marketing coins itself as an owned medium. It means that you are your own boss and you have the complete autonomy to decide. In fact, with passing time your broadcasting list becomes greater and provides much value to your business. It is a medium that is sharing your words with the people who wants to hear you which means you are navigating all your energy in the right path.

Using email as your medium hits the desired audience unlike social media where your stream your content in a vague platform and you are unaware of the audience it is targeting unless you are monitoring it and modifying it every time.

3. Lead Magnets

Since you have ample information about email marketing, it's time for you to learn about the tactics that will help you generate leads, create awareness, and build an audience.  Your audience needs something to hold on to. You are supposed to intrigue them with your sound reasoning to convince them about your brand.

Most of the people sign up for your email marketing because they expect something in return. Business is all about reciprocation; therefore, if you want to gain something, you have to pay the price for it. That's what lead magnet is all about. A lead magnet is an appreciation you give to your audience in return for their favour, allowing you to slide into their private inbox.

Studies suggest that marketers have noticed the highest conversions with video. It means that you plan your campaign according to your audience's nature. If your audience is dealing right with visuals, you must avoid writing a long paragraph. Lead Magnet is precisely listening to your customers since they favor you and expect the same in return. You can always learn more about it and how many ways will help you in the lead magnet.

4. Optin Forms

It is an HTML form that is integrated on the websites that enables the users to sign up. This is a major contributor that helps in capturing leads.

There are different ways through which you can use optin forms. The only difference between them is its appearance and how it is presented to the audience to the audience in more than one way.

The most prominent web forms include:

1. Popups Forms

2. Scroll Forms

3. Embedded forms

4. Click Forms

These forms are integrated in the website to encourage the visitor to sign up which will help in recording their emails. Embedded forms are most likely to be overlooked therefore, it is important to use pop up forms because marketers claim it be most effective.

While you design a web form, make sure you are choosing the correct form of lead magnet since it then helps you target your audience more effectively.

Another major dynamic to it is making sure that you are not enforcing your forms on your audience since people don’t enjoy forceful actions. It will discourage them and you might lose a potential email. So, keep it moderate don’t positionally discourage them with your work.

5.  Landing Pages

Every business’s objective differs. Sometimes few of them decide to showcase everything they have to the visitors whereas, a few of them want to keep them excited to look forward. Landing pages play a major role in collecting emails; other than that; it has several manifests; however, collecting emails of the right audience from it can be a good option. Squeeze pages are primarily made for the visitor to enter their email addresses; this section of the landing page contains ample enough information that is required for the marketers to use for email marketing.

A squeeze page is a relatively small page that consists of few elements such as a unique and vibrant body that will hold the audience’s attention; other than that; it has the options that will help the visitor to register their information, which you can use for your email marketing list.

4. Paid Ads

Like squeeze pages, there are other ways to drive traffic, in which one of them is paid Ads. Paid Ads gives you an opportunity to collect emails without making them visit your page. There are many options available on Facebook that generate lead Ads. In google, it is called lead form Ads, and even on LinkedIn, you can find Lead Gen Ads.

Every platform has its own ways of supporting your objective; however, you should study your brand before opting for your medium for Lead Ads. I suggest you go for Facebook if you need an interactive community, LinkedIn if you are looking for a professional, and Google if you are interested in the mass target audience. In any case, you will be able to collect emails from thousands of people who will align with your interest and with your business.

5. Types of Email

The sky is your limit when it comes to emails. As mentioned earlier, in email marketing, you have complete autonomy in doing anything and everything. You can choose different types of emails to target another kind of audience. Your objective helps you design the kind of email you are interested to send in. Here are a few of the types that you can use accordingly in your emails for better target and improved results.

Newsletters

I am sure you must have received a news letter in your life time since it’s that common in email marketing. Most marketers use it to communicate with the customers by sharing the new offers and receiving updates over it.

These types of emails are usually sent to promote any new product or the service. Since, newsletter is easier to use, most of them emails are sent in the form of newsletter.

Triggered Emails

Triggered emails have the most higher engagement rate. Their average opening ratio is around 44%, and the click rate is 10%. It is one of the highest clicked emails compared to newsletters, but what makes it so effective?

Triggered Emails excited the audience since it holds the element of suspense in it.  An email with an attractive opening can hook many customers since it will make them click on the emails. For triggered email, marketers often go for hook lines, graphic and intruding content, which will force the viewer to open it.  The triggered emails are informative, relevant, and interesting.

Blog updates

Have you seen how you keep getting Quora’s blog after you sign up there? Well, it’s because of their blog update in the form of emails. It is considered one of the most viable options in email marketing since it allows the brand to reflect itself in the form of a blog. People tend to read blogs quite often; therefore, there is a possibility that they might end up clicking your website.

6. Don’t (s)

1. Learn the basics

Everyone likes a well-crafted email. If you lack basic knowledge of writing an email, this might get you in the spam. Learn how to write, design, or create a sufficient email and then plan your work accordingly.

2. Don’t spam

No one wants to wake up to your 100 emails trying to sell a single product. Spamming develops agitation in people, and there is a possibility that they might block you for that. Therefore, go gradually with your marketing, and you will see the results in the long run. No person will be your loyal customer in one day, and the earlier you learn it, the better you can strategize.

3. Choose the right time

An email sent at 3 am won’t be read. Therefore, it is essential to choose your time wisely for emails. Learn about your audience and then hit them at the right time.

Final Words

Email marketing is not something very complicated. If you are right with your audience and are investing your effort and time, you will surely achieve what you want.