With the rise of social media, artificial intelligence, and chatbots, it may seem as if email marketing is dead. However, it`s still one of the most profitable online marketing.
If you have an email list, your marketing success is not determined by search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC), or social media marketing (SMM) skills. You can market your products or services directly to your subscribers.
Email subscribers are loyal clients, who are easy to convert.
However, you need to be skilled to benefit from this marketing method, and that`s what you will learn from this article.
Build an Online Presence
Despite their location, people can find you if you have an online presence. That`s what makes it easy to build your email list.
To facilitate that, develop a website where you can market your products or services.
The good thing is you don`t have to be a web developer to create websites. Moreover, you can use the free plans if you don`t have money for the paid ones.
All you need is to sign up for the service and the software provides steps on how to create the sites. Some of the efficient web development platforms include
However, if you use the free plans, to look more trustworthy, use a custom domain. This will make you look professional and easily impress clients.
The free website domain is too long and easy to forget; plus it makes your business look unprofessional.
Here is what a free domain looks like: themailscheme.wordpress.com. If you buy a custom domain, it will be themailscheme.com, which is professional and easier to understand.
Custom domains cost $10–$15 per year, and you can buy them from companies such as
Also, ensure to create social media accounts and join various groups aligning with your business. This is where you will market your blog content and landing pages and offer incentives to convince people to sign up.
There are various social media platforms to choose from, including
Create a Professional Email Address
With the high rise of spammers, it`s difficult to convince people to subscribe to your email list if you use a generic email address. You need to use an email address that represents your business and makes you look professional.
Avoid the free emails, and invest in the paid ones if you want your business to thrive. If for example, your business is kibakingonyo.com; your email address can be sales@kibakingonyo.com, not kibakingonyo@gmail.com.
That is how the audience will know they are dealing with a genuine business.
To create a professional email address, use email provider software such as
What`s better, these programs also offer email management services to enable you to collect your emails in an organized manner.
Provide Valuable Content
After creating your websites and social media pages, create content so people know what you sell.
Ensure the content aligns with people`s search intent and audience persona, which you can know by doing keyword research.
To do keyword research, put yourself in the place of a searcher, and brainstorm the words they may use searching. For instance, you can use the phrase “best laptops for freelance writing” if you have a laptop-selling business.
Then paste the keyword in the search engine and search. Below the search results, you will see a keyword list, from which you can take insights and create a better keyword.
Afterward, use keyword research tools to measure the keywords' performance. These tools will help you get more keyword suggestions, search volume, and difficulty.
Here are the best tools you should consider:
After getting your keywords, ensure to incorporate them in your blog to make it SEO-optimized.
Targeting the keywords people use when searching for content relevant to yours helps it rank and attract readers.
Moreover, ensure the content succinctly answers your audience`s problems. If you create content that answers people`s queries it will be easy to get them to buy your products and services and sign up for your email list.
Also, don`t forget to share your content on social media to draw more clients and increase traffic.
Offer Incentives
When making purchases, people want goods whose values surpass their money, and gifts and bonuses are the ways to satisfy them.
If they get value from the offers, they can be assured of getting high quality if they buy the goods. That`s why apart from offering valuable content, you can also offer
- Free e-books
- Free courses
- Product update
- Service or product discount
However, ensure to offer these incentives through your emails. So, for people to get these offers, they will have to subscribe to your email list. This makes it easy for you to grow your email list.
You can offer these incentives through
Creating Landing Pages
It is a page that a person lands on after clicking an ad on social media or a link in an email.
You can promote a landing page on your website or social media to entice people to subscribe to your email list.
You can also promote it to your subscribers to get them to buy goods or services or read your blog posts.
For instance, you can offer product and service discounts, giveaways, or downloadable assets like free e-books or courses.
Whenever people are convinced and take the offer, they submit their email addresses through the landing page. Then you will use the email addresses to market your goods.
For a landing page to be effective, ensure to use clear, simple language, and be brief.
The landing page design and language used should align with the products or services you offer, and fit the audience persona.
Furthermore, put a clear and compelling call to action that moves people to perform your desired action.
For example, instead of saying “Subscribe now,” say “Grab your free money-making e-book.” That way, people will know exactly what to expect after subscribing.
Here is an example of an effective landing page:
 |
| Image source: ConvertFlow |
To build landing pages, use software like
What`s good about these tools is that they provide step-after-step guidelines for how to set up your landing page.
See how to build landing pages here.
Creating Opt-in Forms
Like landing pages, you can use opt-in forms to ask for email sign-ups or market your products.
For someone to get the offer, they need to, first, subscribe; thus, increasing your email list.
However, its difference from a landing page is that an opt-in form is permanently built on the website.
Therefore, you need to place it in a place where it will be easily visible to the website visitors. This could be on the sides, or the top part of the site.
Besides, use attractive colors aligning with the offer and engaging language that lets the audience clearly know the benefits they`ll get for subscribing to your email list.
An effective opt-in form looks like this:
 |
| Image source: uplers |
To build opt-in forms, use tools like
All you need to do is sign up for the software, and you will get an easy directive on how to create your opt-in form.
Do Cold Emailing Marketing
Not everyone will show interest in your goods or services—not because they are not in need. Others might not be aware of your products or services' importance to their businesses.
That`s why it`s better to email even people who might not have shown interest in your services or products and explain how you can help them. If they convert, you get a subscriber—a client. That`s what cold email marketing entails.
Here is how you can do it:
Research a company that you think can benefit from the services or products you offer.
Then craft an email pitching your services or products, and make sure that you are sending it to the right person in the company.
Chances of being replied to will be lower if you send your emails to the human resource manager than when you send them to the marketing manager.
However, if you have tried and can`t find the right person to pitch you can try your luck with anyone that you find.
For your email to be effective, address a person by their name. Sending a message and addressing it to “To Whom It May Concern or Dear Sir/Madam” is unprofessional and will make you sound like a spammer.
Be clear and brief in your mail. Remember, you are sending these emails to busy people. Writing an unreadable chunk of text that is filled with grammar mistakes will lead your mail to the trash box.
Here is a sample of a perfect cold mail:
Hi Samantha,
I came across your company (mention the company) when I was doing some research on the best mail service providers. I appreciate how you have been providing services to your customers for the past eight years helping them scale their businesses.
I am Kibaki Ngonyo, the marketing manager at The Mail Scheme Company. We recently launched a (whatever product you have) free software that could help your business (mention how helpful it can be to them).
Here is a link you can test it out (paste the link).
Let me know what you think about this.
Best Regards,
Kibaki (Your Signature)
When somebody is interested, you`ll give them access to the software by having them subscribe to your mailing list. So, you`ll get their email in exchange for the free software. Then later you can send them emails promoting your services.
Conduct Email Segmentation
After collecting subscribers, send them promotional messages. However, ensure that you send messages to the right person according to the service or product through which they subscribed.
For example, if you offer online marketing services, and someone subscribes through a social media marketing offer, ensure to send them content related to that. Otherwise, you will annoy them and lose them.
That`s what email segmentation means—dividing email subscribers according to their interests. It enables sending targeted messages, helps increase open rates, and boosts the chances of making sales.
To segment your email list, you can use email builder software like
All you have to do is to log in to your preferred tool. Then click the campaigns section, follow the simple steps, and segment your emails.
Send an Introduction Email
After someone subscribes to your email list, send them an introduction email. This is to confirm and thank them for subscribing to your email list.
In all of the email service providers, there is an option to create an automated welcome email, therefore, it`s better to use it.
After the introduction email, you can send a follow-up email that introduces your business and lets the subscribers be aware of what to expect.
In the follow-up email, you will tell them about the sequence of emails they should expect, while allowing them to unsubscribe if they want.
That will let the subscribers know that you are about helping them overcome their obstacles, not to get them to buy your goods.
Fulfill Your Email Promises
Ensure the products or services you provide are related to what people subscribed for.
If you promised to help them make money online, ensure the content you send them can do so if they implement it. You will quickly lose them if you send content on how to make money farming, instead.
Besides, don`t promise to send daily updates and then send them weekly or monthly. And, if you promise to send weekly, don`t bombard people with daily messages, that`s another way you may lose them.
Don`t Pitch Them Quickly
The purpose of collecting email addresses is selling your services and products, but be wise about it.
Don`t send an introduction email and start advertising in the second one. That way you might put people off. People will take you as pushing them to buy your goods.
Slowly, build a relationship, and later in the third or fifth email, you can send promotional emails incorporated with educative content. Sending only promotional content will make you sound pushy, too.
Use Email Automation Tools
You can reply to every email subscriber when starting. However, as the email list grows, it`ll be overwhelming.
Your email marketing campaigns will start getting more complex, and it will become difficult to follow up on every subscriber. That`s when email automation tools help. They enable sending scheduled emails automatically.
You only need to plan your series of emails for a few days or a month, and they will be automatically delivered to subscribers or anyone who signs up. This makes it easy to market your products or services.
To automate your email campaigns, use marketing software like GetResponse.
You only have to log in and click on the automation option. You will find simple steps that you can follow to automate your email series.
Read this GetResponse review to learn more about its offers.
Understand Email Analytics
You can`t understand a business performance if you don`t track its progress—in email marketing, it`s no different.
After creating your email campaign, you need to follow it up to know whether it`s succeeding or failing.
This is possible through tracking how your subscribers interact with your email campaigns, which you can know by examining the
- Open rates
- Click-Through rates
- Unsubscribes
Open Rates
Open rates explain how many people open your emails. This is seen through a tracking pixel, which loads when one clicks on a message.
Open rates show how well your relationship is with your readers. When these rates are high, it means that people are excited about your emails.
When they are low, maybe you are not writing catchy emails that entice them to open, or you might be providing low-quality content.
Click-Through Rate
The Click-through rate shows how many people clicked on a link in the email (if there are any).
If the click-through rate is high, it means you`re providing value and people love your content. If the click-through rate is low, it may be because you don`t target the right segment, or you don't provide a valuable copy.
Check for anything that you might be doing wrong and improve, and your click-through rate will go high.
Unsubscribe Rate
The unsubscribe rate tells you how many people unsubscribed from your email list.
Your unsubscribe rate should not be high compared to your subscription rate.
If the unsubscribe rate is high, then your copy or services and products are helpless to the subscribers, and you should work hard on that.
They could leave after a certain automated email or early in your email funnel. It`ll be great if you tailor a better call to action that harmonizes with your emails.
Increase Your Business Income with Email Marketing
Email marketing enables communicating directly with your customers and enticing them to perform your calls to action.
What`s better, it`s not complicated to do.
All you need is to create a website and social media accounts. Then create content and start marketing your services and building your email list, and you will succeed.
Which is your best email marketing tactic and what results has it given you? Let`s chat in the comments below.
0 Comments