By investing in an email marketing channel you’ll be able to leverage your business semi-automatically with the help of specialized online platforms. Check out the article to get to know about the crucial steps you need to make to be up-to-date and take advantage of all the opportunities email marketing platforms offer.
Keep it simple, and stylish and start automatization as soon as possible – these are the brief instructions we are talking about in the article. So dive into our material to create your first email campaigns like a professional!
5 Steps for Starting Email Marketing in 2023
It’s never too late to start email marketing if you have denied this digital activity. And it’s definitely one of the first steps of your digital marketing campaign if you have just started your business. The thing that truly doesn’t change is email marketing effectiveness! So, jump in, it’s time to get started. Below are the top tips to implement and form your current email marketing strategy for 2023.
1. Decide on a convenient email marketing platform
Besides such platforms save your time incredibly, email marketing service providers also leverage your efforts to the next level. Why? That’s because these are the only tools to make massive message deliveries to large groups of contacts at once.
In addition, you get an opportunity to build professionally designed emails with lots of thematic templates performed by email marketing platforms. Also, you can segment your audience and personalize your emails. And after the bulk email delivery is done, you’ll get access to its analytics. Experiment and try various approaches using A/B testing features, pop-ups, or sign-up forms that email platforms are offering.
The reasonable question is “what is an approximate price for such a powerful email marketing service?”. You may calculate an average marketing value on your own picking data from all platforms available or check out email marketing pricing & plans – Selzy, one of the trusted email marketing service providers adaptable for any business.
2. Build your email list
In the beginning, use all of your existing contacts to form the list. Start with those business contacts that you already have; those people to whom you send emails regularly or who are constantly contacting you.
Forming your list completely from scratch, encourage your web resource visitors to sign up. It’s convenient to put a sign-up form next to a register or an order form.
In common, loyal people will be the first ones to sign up.
Whatever you decide, don’t consider the option of buying an email list from a third party or company. Doing that you automatically become a spammer because people who receive your emails just don’t know you and they aren’t interested. And a spammer’s reputation will affect your brand and your email deliverability so in the end your email IP is very likely to be on the blacklist. Facing the truth: good email lists are not for sale.
3. Select an appealing design for your emails
If you are not a professional designer then an email marketing platform provides you with numerous stylish templates for you to find your brand’s proper visual reflection.
It’s important to choose a responsible theme adjustable for any device so it will look beautiful on every type of smartphone.
We recommend using minimum textual information: the main title should be meaningful, eye-catching, and in big font. Then the information comes according to the hierarchy – after the heading goes the subheading, and the smaller the font the less important the text. So people on the run can quickly catch the main idea from the bigger font.
To serve something fun and new to your subscribers’ inboxes you can use not only attractive images in your emails but also GIFs, embedded videos, cinemagraphs, and animations. Even B2B companies can allow themselves to think out-of-the-box, without limiting themselves to a completely official approach and discreet minimalism. And there comes A/B testing as a must.
4. A/B testing usage is crucial for email marketing
To understand what the preferences of most of your customers are, A/B testing (also called split testing) is indispensable! Whether you are going to try putting emojis in the subject lines, change your tone to a conclusive and considerable, add animated features or GIFs, or try another positioning of your CTA on the email page, you must use A/B testing!
The point of A/B testing is to send two different versions of an email to two sets of your subscribers. Then you analyze how the two variants performed, and which one your clients interacted with (opened and clicked) more. After choosing a winning version you send it then to the remaining group of customers.
To get the most certain results, test no more than one element at a time. And it’s important to make A/B testing within one customer segment, so people whose reactions you are comparing have similar tastes and preferences.
The results of split testing can show you:
- which subject line is more attractive and has a higher open rate
- whether the people prefer emojis or are frustrated with them
- which text on a button interests customers more so they click on it
- what visual elements seem more appealing to the customers
- which preheader variants result in higher open rates, etc.
5. Use automation after the main processes are adjusted
After you’ve figured out the visual form of your emails, your brand tone of voice in the texts, the quantity, and the occasions when your customers should receive this or that email from your business, it’s time to make less manual work addressing it to the marketing platform.
For example, you can organize an automatic drip campaign which means a set of marketing emails that are sent by schedule. When a customer takes an action on your website (for example, filling out a sign-up form or registering an account, making a purchase, etc), a “follow-up” email is automatically sent to his/her inbox. And after 3 days or after 1 week this client receives one more email from your marketing platform with a reminder on an abandoned cart or asking for a product review or offering complimentary products. It’s so effective with zero humans involved in the process!
Wrapping It Up
Building long-lasting relationships with your clients – that is a number one task for email marketing, which it copes with perfectly well. Loyal customers buy more and buy regularly, so that’s the basis of a prospering business.
As you can see, with the use of modern email marketing platforms the goals of communicating, informing, drawing attention to the brand, and stimulating sales are achieved now semi-automatically.