this world of constant change if businesses want to have even the slightest chance of getting ahead of their competitors, they have to keep up with all the latest trends.
Knowing how hard finding the right information must be, we make it our mission to share valuable and detailed insights, which can be implemented immediately.
Today, we are offering you a crash course to yet another topic, fundamental for successful daily operations of modern businesses: Email Marketing and Automation.
By the end of reading this article, you will know what email marketing is, how it works, and how you can use it to attract new customers and maintain your current userbase.
Sounds good, right?
Then, let’s hit the books.
Explained in simple words, email marketing is marketing your products and services to your customers – through email.
It is entirely possible that when you read the short definition, you confused the term with spam messages that fill up your inbox.
However, note that between email marketing and spam there is one fundamental difference: the former is not unsolicited, and it actually converts your page’s visitors or one time customers into leads that, if you do things right, will stay with you a long, long time.
Okay, now that we covered the basics and you have some idea about what we will be talking about – it’s time for the fun part!
In this section, we will cover everything you need to know in order to build a successful email list.
Note that we will be talking about building your own lists. Another option is buying email lists, and many people consider this a “smart” shortcut as it saves time and effort, but it actually does not add value to your business and just wastes your money.
People who have not specifically given you permission to email them, will see your messages as spam anyway – which means that they will most probably not even open your emails, much less buy from you. So, instead of taking the easy way out, we recommend putting in the effort to find your own customers.
And, in order to do that, you need two things: an opt-in form and an email marketing service.
When it comes to opt-in forms, you can either hire a developer or use a program such as OptinMonster to create them yourself.
The variety of email marketing services, on the other hand, is huge.
To make things easier, let’s take a look at our top three choices according to the features they offer, and the prices of the plans.
We start with GetResponse for a reason – it’s an all in one email marketing software that is by far the most affordable. It offers email marketing, landing pages, CRM, and webinar hosting features. One of its key selling points is the autoresponder functionality. For all of this, you pay as little as $15 per month for a basic email plan for 1000 subscribers – a price which increases along with the functionalities you wish to add to your daily operations. The good thing about GetReposnse is that it is fully functional both for small email lists, as well as for enterprises that have lists that exceed 100,000 subscribers. Also, when you take into consideration both the number of subscribers on your list and the number of emails you can send out, this solution is far cheaper than the competitors’. If you pay up front, then you can take advantage of the 12 or 24 months up-front discounts this software offers.
MailChimp is one of the most popular email marketing services available on the market. Its simple design and intuitive interface make it the most frequent choice of email marketing beginners. As far as the pricing goes, it has both free and paid versions. For up to 2000 subscribers, you can get a free plan. However, the bigger your list grows, you will have to start paying more and more – with plans starting from $10 per month. The problem here is that you get quite a limited number of functionalities for the price you pay. Another feature that asks for a paid plan is using autoresponders (we will discuss autoresponders more in detail later in the article). Lastly if you need to get priority support, the MailChimp Pro version can give it to you – as opposed to the ordinary support through the contact form (one of the most negative features of the service) that the users of the free plan get.
HubSpot is anything but just an email marketing software – it offers a wide range of options for medium and large businesses, and with its tracking and analytics capabilities, helps them with optimizing their content to attract and maintain leads and increase their conversion rates. That, of course, comes at a price. The cheapest plan is $800 per month and includes 1000 subscribers, after which, users have to pay an extra $50 per month for every additional 1000 subscribers. Apart from the monthly rates, new users have to pay a one-time setup and training fee, which costs $3000.
After you choose the email marketing service that fits your needs and budget, the next step is growing your email list.
This is where marketing rookies make the biggest mistake they could ever make: they just create an opt-in form, put it on their site, and hope for the best.
Sorry to break it to you, but that’s not how things work around here.
If you want people to give you the permission to fill up their inbox with your content, you have to give them something in return. You have to create “an offer they cannot refuse,” an offer that, in the marketing world, is called a lead magnet.
Now, what is something that people would never refuse?
The answer is simple, people like freebies.
You can offer whatever comes to mind (a free trial, case study, a list of tips, a free consultation, an eBook, a free webinar, etc.), as long as it meets the basic vital criteria: it has to bring value.
Other than that, keep in mind a couple of other things, as well.
First, keep it short and sweet. Your consumers want something that is easily readable and immediately receivable and applicable.
Next, what you are offering needs to actually work and create improvement in your consumers’ lives.
And finally, although it can be packed in any form possible, the content has to be relevant to your consumers.
Now that you have everything in place, you need to work on the appearance of your opt-in form. No matter how great your content is if you do not know how to “sell it” you will not notice any results.
So, how you can make sure that your opt-in form is the best it can be?
Think simple!
Let’s say you did everything we told you to do so far. Is that the end of it?
Not even close.
The next thing you should do, once you collect all the email addresses from the consumers interested in your products and services, is to segment your list.
In other words, you should make sure that your emails are sent to the right people, so you can boost your email open rates and click rates, and avoid unsubscribers. Not everything you offer will be valuable for everyone on your list, and if people who are not interested in a particular offering keep getting emails related to it, they will start considering your messages as spam, and probably unsubscribe.
Conversely, when you segment your list, your emails will be more powerful, and you will no longer struggle to pick the correct subject line and content that will ensure that the users engage with your emails.
An autoresponder is every sequence of emails which is created in advance and sent automatically to subscribers when triggered by a particular event: subscribing to your newsletter, downloading your eBook, buying a product, etc.
Autoresponders are extremely powerful as they automate the process of nurturing your leads and turning your prospects into repeating customers by sending them the right info at the right time. As you create them beforehand, once you are done with writing your series, you are done for the time being and can focus on other aspects of your business and daily operations.
Automating the process only works if you manage to write a compelling series that you would send out at the correct time. How can you make sure that your series converts?
Follow the steps below:
What is it that you want to accomplish with your autoresponder series? Generally, there are many goals that an autoresponder could have, but a couple of them are more frequent than others. Such is the “welcome” email sequence sent to new subscribers, an email that acts as a lead magnet, promising to deliver information in a series of emails, the sales funnel sequence, and the promotional email sequence which is sent to buyers whom you want to turn into returning customers.
After you have decided what kind of autoresponder you will create, it is time that you outline and draft your sequence. Decide on the number of emails you will send out and on their frequency.
If we tell you that there is a general rule about how long a sequence should be – we would be lying to you. A good rule of thumb is to follow your goal: a sequence, after all, is created to accomplish something. Once you achieve what you wanted, the series should end as well.
As far as the frequency of sending out the emails goes, it depends on your goal too. Usually, businesses send educational emails every two to three days. Sometimes, if there is an offer that your users would not want to miss, the number of emails may go up to several a day.
What matters is not the number or the frequency, but the value you provide. Which is why it is crucial that you find a good balance between your educational and value-adding emails and your sales emails. The former should outnumber the latter.
Next comes the hardest part of creating an email sequence: the actual writing. This is the part where everything we taught you about building an email list comes together.
Good emails are highly “you” focused and always address the problems of the customers and their needs, instead of boasting about the greatness of the offered products. Not all customers will be interested in the same things, so personalized emails are the way to go. This is, as we already mentioned, accomplished through email list segmentation. Finally, even if the content of your email is great, if you do not get the subject line right, it all goes down the drain. Compelling, smart headlines will entice curiosity and skyrocket your email open rates.
The last step is the same as with every project – after you set up the process, if you want to reap the benefits, you need to monitor the results, and tweak your content according to it. Generally, you should look out for the open rates; the unsubscribe rates and the click-through rates of your emails. If the numbers are not as you wish them to be, go back to the previous steps and check if you have done your best creating a high converting series.
Statistical data shows that more than 90% of consumers use or check their emails daily and that those who receive email offers spend around 140% more than people that don’t. Although you might think that the past years, social media is the big thing, email has never (and will probably never) lost its leading status for making sales.
As email automation simplifies the process and decreases the effort you have to put into nurturing your contacts, personalizing your offerings and creating new leads, there no reason not to start working more on creating your list and learning how to write emails that convert.
Lastly, make sure you choose the right email marketing automation software that fits your subscription numbers and the features that you need, as well as the size of your business.
There is no need to pay more, if a cheaper plan cuts it.
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