Create your first email marketing campaign

You’ve finished creating your marketing plan and want to include email marketing as one of your marketing channels? Here’s everything you need to know when getting started with email marketing.

What is email marketing?

Email marketing is a way to keep your customers up to date with your company by sending bulk emails.

Most people that have access to the internet also have email addresses, so email marketing is a great way to contact a bunch of your customers at the same time!

You can also create email templates that will be automatically sent to your customers based on what services they have applied for.

Benefits of Email marketing

Here are some of the top benefits of an active email marketing campaign

• Sharing regular updates with your customers, shows them your company is active and builds trust.
• Email marketing is a great way to share your company’s latest updates and promotions - ensuring that your customers don’t miss out on any of your services.
• You can send emails to specific customers based on their interests.

Disadvantages of Email Marketing

Here are some of the disadvantages of email marketing:

• Spam filters can prevent important emails from being seen. If your email marketing is not set up correctly, your messages may go to a potential customer's junk mail folder.
• There are several ways to view an email. More and more people are using smartphones to view their emails. If you don’t ensure that your emails are correctly displayed on most devices some customers might miss out on important information.
• Most email marketing tools determine the cost per email by the amount of text, links, and images you add to your emails. The more details you add to your emails - the more expensive it will be.

Tools to get you started with an email marketing campaign.

The easiest way to get started with email marketing is by using an email campaign tool. Mailchimp and Zoho are two of the top-rated email marketing tools available:

Mailchimp

Mailchimp is the most well know and user-friendly email marketing tool available. Mailchimp allows users to draft, schedule, and send emails in bulk to custom mailing lists.

You can create a specific mailing list on Mailchimp based on your customers’ interests and past purchases.

Mailchimp is a premium service so it can be quite costly.

Find out more about Mailchimp

Zoho

Although Zoho is known for its CRM tools, Zoho also offers excellent email marketing tools.

You can use your existing customer database on Zoho to quickly create a mailing list.

Zoho’s email marketing tool can be complex if you haven’t previously used any of their tools, luckily they offer training sessions and online support.

Find out more about Zoho Email marketing

Create your first email marketing campaign.

Once you have selected your ideal email tool and created your first mailing list, the next step would be to determine what type of emails you would like to send in bulk:

1. Targeting specific users
2. Sending Newsletters

Targeting specific users

Most likely, not all of your users will require the same services or products so setting up a custom mailing list for them is extremely important (You don’t want to send them updates about a service they didn’t sign up for).

By determining the type of emails you want to send to the person that signed up, adding them to a pre-defined mailing list should come naturally.

For example, if you sell different types of products and a customer purchased headphones from your website, you’d want to add them to an electronics mailing list.

This way you’d ensure that they will only receive updates or promotions on products that they might be interested in.

Sending Newsletters

All of your customers should be added to a general newsletter mailing list.

A newsletter mailing list is used to send important updates regarding your business or services to all of your users at the same time, regardless of what they have previously purchased from your business.

You can also use a Newsletter mailing list to automatically send scheduled emails offering your customers coupons or discounts to entice them to give your business/website another visit.

You can follow this in-depth guide on how to create an email marketing plan through MailChimp.

How to create an eye-catching email

Subject line

Keep your subject line as simple yet interesting as possible. You should be able to explain what your email is about in no more than 9 words.

Here are examples of good subject lines:

• Save 50% on this hot and cozy wool jacket!
• Winter specials ending today, don’t miss these deals.

Mailchimp also has an AI tool that’ll scan your subject lines and offer suggestions as to how you can improve them.

Body

The body of your email is used to elaborate on your email and why you’re contacting the user.

Your emails should be short, and to the point. Make sure that the reader understands what they’re looking at and would automatically know what to do next.

The best way to do this is through the use of Call-To-Action (CTA) prompts.

What are CTAs and how do they work?

Call-To-Action (CTA) prompts are used to instruct your readers/customers on what they should do next.

An example of a CTA is adding a “SIGN UP NOW” button to your emails that will direct a user to a specific page on your website.

This saves up a lot of space on your emails as you wouldn’t have to write down every single step the reader would have to follow just to get to your website to view the product you’re advertising.

Adespresso has a list of great CTA examples.

Footer

The footer (bottom) of your email should be used for additional information that might not be important to the reader right away.

Some of the information you’d add to your footer:

• Company registration details
• Address
• Unsubscribe link
• T’s and C’s

MailChimp also offers a whole bunch of pre-made email templates.

Tips to keep in mind when creating an email marketing campaign:

Combine your current marketing strategies with email marketing

You can share information on your social media pages and direct customers to your newsletter signup page.

How to prevent spam

Spam filters might cause your customers to not get your emails/newsletters. The best way to avoid this is by getting them to manually accept a manual mailing list invitation.

You can follow this guide to learn more about bypassing spam filters.

Only send emails when you have to

Your emails might become marked as spam if a person’s filters pick up that you are constantly sending emails that remain unopened.

Make sure to only send emails to customers that might need the service/product that you are advertising. Also, avoid sending daily newsletters.

Moosend has a great email marketing calendar that you can use to schedule your emails.

By using email marketing tools, you can create an ongoing relationship with your customers and promote your products and services in a timely and exciting way.