Email marketing may be one of the earliest methods of digital communication nevertheless, it is still preferred by many people.

No doubt, there are modern ways of communicating with your fans and customers which are commonly used these days. We have social media, live chat, and many others. However, with a user base of over 4 billion people, email continuously tops the chart.

Furthermore, as a marketer, email marketing is supposed to have a space in your toolbox because email marketing has an ROI of $38 for every dollar spent, which makes it highly advantageous.

Nowadays, Email marketing is still ranked the most effective marketing channel, thereby superseding other platforms such as the almighty social media, SEO, and affiliate marketing amongst others

What could be the justification for this? It is hard to believe that with all the attention drawn towards new channels, a decades-old technology is still said to be one of the most effective marketing strategies.

Irrespective of the increased use of social media, people still use email more than every other platform. Besides, what’s the need for marketing to someone if they’re not present?

The Data below is proof that most people are surprisingly on email platforms—and the number increases every year.

Moreover, with email marketing, you don’t have to bother about algorithm alterations tanking your capacity because the links are yours.

This is why  constructing a thriving email marketing operation is  the most important thing to do more than anything else,

But here is the issue—most people don’t really know the right way to do it. Just look around you, such people may be in your email box.

This article will give you clues and tactics for carrying out excellent email marketing campaigns.

What is Email Marketing?

We define email marketing as an act of posting promotional messages to people in bulk quantities. The essence of this is to make sales or generate leads and it may include advertisement.

Don’t forget: You are the Visitor in Their Inbox

These days there are advertisements, interruptions, and pitches in every nook and cranny and people are gradually getting overwhelmed.

Maybe you might be of the opinion that your email contains a special message but to the reader, your email is just another one out of millions—and not in a useful way.

This is why it’s essential to always have this in mind and act accordingly, using appropriate manners.

Getting into someone’s inbox can be likened to being given a dinner invitation and if your host demands that you take your shoes off, you respectfully do so.

The same thing is applicable in email marketing, so before we kick off, I’d simply like to call your attention to be on your best behavior throughout and always remember… you’re a visitor in their inbox.

Now, we can discuss how to strategically build your email marketing from scratch to the top.

The workings of Email Marketing?

As we stated earlier, Email marketing is one of the best strategies, in no small part, because it’s slightly intuitive and mostly automated.

Basically, there are three important elements that make up a successful email marketing campaign:

1. An Active Email List

If you must pull off an effective email campaign, an active email list is highly required. An email list is a  list of email contacts who have indicated interest in getting marketing information from your brand.

Email lists can be built in different ways but one of the fastest ways is to apply the trade-by-barter strategy which is creating an offer that you know your target readers will be interested in, maybe a coupon, in exchange for their email addresses.

2. An Email Service Provider

A software known as an email service provider (ESP) or email marketing platform helps manage your email list. It can also be of great help in planning and effecting automated email marketing campaigns.

As an ESP user, you are permitted to automate actions caused by the responses of your target audience. By doing so, you have personalized each discussion with them thereby increasing your rate of conversions and engagements.

3. Simply Defined Goals

With the use of email marketing, you can achieve a wide range of business goals. For instance, you can make use of email marketing to:

• drive sales
• increase brand recognition 
• create and sustain leads
• keep customers occupied
• Improve customer loyalty and lifetime value

To accomplish an efficient email marketing campaign, your email list, Email service provider, and goals must be in alignment. Once you are done with this, work can proceed.

Firstly, divide your email list in accordance to subscriber demographics or actions.

Secondly, build an email or group of emails intended to prompt consumers to do something (your goal).

Lastly, use your ESP to send emails and automatically supervise the campaign.

Pros and Cons of Email Marketing

Every marketing channel has its pros and cons and email marketing is not left out. Let’s shortly take a look at the more significant ones:

Advantages of Email Marketing

Email Is based on permission

Once you gain access to the email of your customers, of course with their permission, this automatically increases the possibilities of engagement and conversions because you didn’t barge in on them. Just imagine it to be that you have been given the key to their house. Don’t forget to use it wisely. 

Gives You Immediate Access to Your Audience

You can interact with subscribers directly on their calendars.Also, people check their email daily so hopefully, they will check yours. 

Makes you in charge

Unlike other platforms, email makes you in charge. On other platforms, once anything goes wrong, sadly, you lose every single. It means that all your hard work is a waste of time and resources. But in email, the relationships already established with your subscribers are yours. 

More Personalization Abilities

You can build more personalized or extremely targeted campaigns with the use of demographic or psychographic data. According to Research reports, segmented and personalized campaigns improve income by as much as 760 percent.

Calculable

It is very important to calculate the effectiveness of a marketing campaign and to do that easily, use automated email marketing 

Scalable

Are you aware that email marketing campaigns can scale without either putting pressure on your resources or reducing quality?

Disadvantages of Email Marketing

Competition is tough

How do you manage to stand out in a cluttered inbox? This can be quite a challenge but the answer is simple- be creative to get the attention of your subscribers 

You will need to Get an Email List

As an email marketer, your email list should be ready if you want your campaign to be effective.

Critical Rules and Regulations to Navigate

There are so many rules overseeing the use of email for marketing objectives. Popular examples are GDPR, CAN-SPAM, and CCPA. All of these rules indicate that you can’t send unsolicited emails.

Sadly, subscribers are capable of reporting your email as being spam although they were the ones that subscribed to the list. Your sender reputation takes a hit because of this

Issues of Delivery and Deliverability 

Delivery and deliverability are one of the major issues you must tackle as an email marketer. There is no assurance of your email getting to receivers’ inboxes. 

How to Automate Your Email Marketing

The automation process differs from one ESP to another. Nevertheless, there are common procedures to automating your email marketing.

Describe Your Segments

To kick off an effective marketing campaign, list segmentation is very necessary. Group your subscribers using the data you have.This enables you to build campaigns that are more personalized. 

Create an Effective Workflow

After segmenting your email list, the next thing to do is create a well structured workflow. These are sets of emails to accomplish the objective of the campaign.

Find Out The Right Triggers

By now your workflow is ready, the next thing is to deduce the triggers that will set off the following email in the arrangement. Instances of triggers could be customers unlocking your email, clicking on a link, or not opening it at all within a fixed period.

Best Strategies For Email Marketing 

Strategy is a key word you must not compromise in order to succeed with email marketing,the way you design your campaigns inclusive. These are some of the useful email marketing strategies you can apply.

Employ the Right List Building Strategies

To succeed in your email marketing campaigns, you must pay close attention to the quality of your email list. To create such a list, you must utilize list-building strategies formulated to entice your target audience. 

Exercise Good Email List Hygiene

Additional crucial email marketing strategy is exercising good email list hygiene. Deleting passive subscribers and email addresses that are no longer in use will guarantee you have a good sender reputation.

Engage Your List 

Send emails to your list regularly in order to keep your subscribers occupied. Nonetheless, periodic emailing could lead to subscribers forgetting who you are which results in low conversion rates.

If some of your subscribers become inactive, you can choose to run a re-engagement campaign to remedy the situation.

Concentrate on One Objective

Construct each campaign and email to concentrate on one objective. The mentality of trying to kill two (or more) birds with one stone is not applicable to email marketing. It can only distract your audience and decrease your conversion rates.

Interpret and Track the Right KPIs

There is more to Email marketing other than emailing your subscribers some  emails. It also includes following the performance of your campaigns. To achieve this, you must interpret and track the right key performance indicators (KPIs).

 7 Top Email Marketing Tools All Marketers Should Know

To achieve a successful  email marketing campaign, you need to take advantage of the tools used for email marketing so as to enhance your processes. These are the most used seven you Need to know:

Email Service Providers (ESP)

 ESP is one of the most significant email marketing tools you need. Here are top ESPs:

• Constant Contact: We recommend this because it is most suitable for ecommerce email campaigns, all thanks to features such as automated products recommendation and emails with shoppable features. Plans commence at $20/month.
• Sendinblue: Small businesses running simple email campaigns should use Sendinblue .It has a robust set of features with a CRM, live chat, and SMS etc. Plans commence at $25/month.
• Pardot: B2B email campaigns need a platform mainly formulated for the B2B buyer journey. Pardot matches the bill flawlessly. Regardless, to build high-growth email campaigns using Pardot, be ready to pay at least $1,250/month.

Tools for Email Delivery

The deliverability of emails means the ability of an ESP to successfully place emails in your receivers’ inboxes. A wise email marketer is one who has an email deliverability tester in their toolbox. See some of the top ones:

• MailGenius: MailGenius examines your emails for conceivable spam triggers. It can be used to run deliverability tests to guarantee your emails get to their intended recipients’ inboxes. Luckily, the MailGenius tool is free .
• GlockApps: GlockApps reveals the results of your delivery in real-time, including whether your email reached  the Inbox, Spam folder, Gmail’s Promotional or Social tabs, or if it never landed in the email at all. It is free for Personal accounts and prices go up from there.

Tracking and Testing

Testing and tracing the campaign performance enables you develop optimized iterations of your campaigns. Which of the email marketing tools are best for tracking and testing?

• Litmus: Litmus can be used for testing and tracking your emails in established web clients and well known mobile devices.

Tools for Email Personalization 

Improve your personalization game  by using a personalization tool not just using your recipients’ name

• Hyperise:  Hyperise remains the best tool when it comes to personalizing email marketing campaigns. It enables you to add dynamic, personalized images to each of your emails, incorporating profile images from social media settings.

how to write email marketing copy that yield good results

whatever your email marketing objective is, it all depends on email marketing copy. That is why you should be the only one to write your emails. But to do that you need to do the following:

understand your audience

the first step to formulating obliging email marketing copy is understanding your audience. this will enable you to segment your list better and design hyper-targeted email copy.

formulate a difficult-to-ignore subject line

 one of the most crucial elements of email copy is the subject line as it serves as a deciding  factor for your readers whether to open your email. to write a difficult-to-ignore subject line:

• make use of keywords
• make it advantageous to them 
• employ the use of active voice
• personalize as much as you can

Ensure you get the preview text right

Email preview text emerges instantly below or beside the subject line. restricted to a maximum of 140 characters (dependent on email client), it works as an elevator key to persuade people to unlock your email. An optimized preview text is simply an expansion of your subject line and strengthens your value suggestion.

Ensure it is simple to read

people are occupied. this is why you should write your email copy in such a way that it’s easy to read and comprehend. you can achieve this by:

• ensure you use short sentences and paragraphs
• avoid irrelevant and sophisticated words
• use bullet themes

once your readers can easily read your emails, they’ll most likely be interested in them .

utilize storytelling

stories are a powerful tool to capture attention and pass your message across. this is why you should incorporate storytelling in your email copy.

Apply psychology to your motive

human beings are made to respond in certain ways. apply psychological triggers to propel your readers towards fulfilling the objectives of your campaign. instances of such triggers include:

• fear of missing out (FOMO)
• colour psychology
• social evidence

if applied well, these triggers can assist you craft efficient email copy.

steps of email marketing step 1: create your list

you need people to send emails to before you can begin sending out emails. how do you build your list? begin by augmenting a banner or form to your website simply soliciting people to subscribe.

then, proceed with these tips.

1. give an incentive

imagine email addresses to be a currency: you wouldn’t want to give away money for free. The easiest way to get email addresses is by offering incentives.

There are different ways you can achieve this. some choose to give something out for free while some simply give a newsletter or updates of products.

You can give a checklist, ebook, white paper, or other asset that is downloadable as well. Another great way to encourage people to share their email addresses is organizing contests or giveaways.

Summarily, it’s crucial to have an obvious purpose when asking for an address.

At this point, a strong call to action is very important, and copywriting comes to play.

Your credibility should be ascertained, explain what the emails are for, and get people eager to receive them.

Simply mailing “enter your email for updates” is in no way going to excite anyone. Rather, share specifics.

By sharing a typical call to action or what they stand to gain if they provide their email address, you can lure more people to subscribe.

some traditional ways to persuade people to sign up are:

• email series
• free downloads
• unrestricted white papers or ebooks
•  lists of updates, such as new releases and product updates

whatever that incentive may be, let it be clear and persuasive, and don’t be afraid to publicize it.

2. adhere to email marketing laws and regulations

you have to make sure your emails obey local rules and regulations, including CAN-SPAM and GDPR.

Don’t panic due to all the legality—just ensure you don't purchase email lists and contemplate using double opt-in options so people can know what they are getting into. Lastly, make it simple for people to unsubscribe.

Email marketing step 2: produce excellent content

Email marketing is synonymous with anticipations, and it’s left for you to set them.

If you have a strong call to action, and you consistently follow up, then you can say you have had a successful email campaign.

Nevertheless, if you already promised to send one email a week and instead decide to send them daily, then you’re putting yourself up for a downfall.

Additionally, if someone is awaiting daily updates or vital product updates and you don’t deliver, then they are liable to be just as angry in that case, too.

This is the reason for the first follow-up email and it is important to the success of your email marketing endeavors.

Take advantage of the options to create an automated welcome sequence given to you by an email service provider. 

The first follow-up email should be sent instantly as a way to introduce yourself and narrate what you want to do with the email address of your new subscribers.

it’s reasonable to be long-winded and thorough than it is to be fast and discreet, but if you can pull off quick and short, then good for you.

 Henceforth, it’s now a matter of meeting up to their expectations.

Don’t pitch immediately 

you do not have an email list just for pleasure—your duty is to engage clients and make sales.

Changing from an email list that gives lots of freebies into a list that pitches an offer in exchange for money can be a sensitive change to make.

In order to effectively achieve this, it’s a decent suggestion to think about your pitching in advance.you wouldn't want to surprise everyone all of a sudden with a pitch.

Your campaign will be more successful if people anticipate sales pitches every now and then.

If you plan on selling often, strive to put yourself in the shoes of the reader.

Ask yourself if your emails are consistently in line with the expectations you’ve established. possibly, recognize what the customer has indicated interest in before, and send related offers subsequently.

If you send random offers, you will probably lose consent to keep doing so.

Furthermore, every business has needs unique to it, and there aren’t  difficult and quick rules as to how frequently you can pitch or deliver content.

Never forget that an email list is an approval asset and it’s preferable to make a mistake on the side of caution than to follow it lightly and recklessly.

How to write excellent email newsletters.

Let us look at the difference between a promising newsletter and a terrible newsletter.

The first indication that you’ve gotten a bad newsletter is that you don’t remember asking to receive it.

Generally, this occurs when a business either fails to retain a traditional email habit or manually includes someone to their list after collecting a business card or personal email.

Ensure everyone remembers you and the best way to make them keep you in mind is not to allow your emails to lapse for a long time.Try sending one email at least once in a month, or once in a week if possible.

The most influential newsletters are defined as those that do a tremendous job of blending messaging and updates.

For instance, while the email may contain a list of product updates and images, it’s neutralized by a private message or thoughtful memo.

Leverage your newsletter as an opportunity to improve your relationship with the reader/customer instead of pitching to them.

Conserve the pitch for extraordinary updates, offers, and notifications.

Be Careful When Using Email Automation

If you’re just beginning with an email list, make use of Email Automation carefully. It's easier to visualize you’ll have time to privately respond to every fresh subscriber.

Once you start fetching more than a few subscribers, it becomes almost impossible to respond to everyone.

But How Do Top marketers appear to do this same thing?

The secret is simply email automation.

This automatically delivers emails that you plan in advance.

By slating a set of emails to deliver in advance, you can avoid “disappearing” for any duration of time.

Repeatedly, companies schedule a series of emails—ranging from some days to some months—that automatically deliver, heating up anyone who indicates interest for your list.

In that way, when the need to announce a new product or sale arises, you can rely on the certainty that they are paying attention.

Because you’ve built up that connection with them over several weeks or months, you’re much more likely not to annoy your readers.

Step 3 of Email Marketing is Analytics and Segmentation

By now you must have understood the basics behind a successful email campaign. It is time to talk about how to take things to another category.

Particularly, using segmentation and analytics to improve your broadcasts and produce reasonable results than a basic campaign.

How Can You Understand Email Analytics?

Of course, we’ve talked about the importance of analytics in web copy, and email is not in any way different.

All email service providers I have worked with give complimentary analytics.

Although they’re all significant, the three most important are open rate, click-through rate, and unsubscribes. Let’s explain each one and see what you can learn from it.

Firstly, your open rate clarifies the number of people that open your emails. It depends on a single hidden tracking pixel that loads when anyone opens your message.

When looking at the rate at which your message is opened, you will discover how well you’ve built your relationship with readers. It simply means people are delighted to read your emails and open them promptly.

If your open rate happens to be low, it simply means you have many unengaged subscribers. All you need to do is work harder on delivering value and regulating expectations. These are some tips on *how to raise your open rate*

Secondly, your CTR,or click-through rate indicates the number of persons who clicked on a link (if any) in your email.

If you have low CTR, it is okay to say that   your message is either not targeted adequately, or simply not getting through. If that is the case, prioritize enhancing your copy.

Lastly, your unsubscribe rate informs you the number of people that have clicked the “unsubscribe” button underneath your email.

If the rate of your unsubscribe happens to be high in comparison  to your opt-in rate, then you’ve exceeded the point of building value and writing good copy… you seriously have some work to do.

Virtually you’ve developed a sieve and people that signed up finally leave. If this is your case, try to investigate when people are leaving and make an effort based on those leaks.

If your subscribers are leaving after a particular automated email, then re-work it. Also, if they're unsubscribing after marketing messages, then re-work the way you throw out offers.

If they leave early on in your email funnel, it means you need to check your initial call to action so that it’s in unity with what you’re sending.

Email analytics are important because you just need to pay close attention and you will find very specific clues as to what you’re doing wrong.

How Can You Segment Your Email Marketing List?

If the term Email segmentation is foreign to you, then it is the process of splitting up your email list into further targeted groups.

These are some ways to segment a larger list:

• Customer list (when comparing them to leads that have not bought any of your product)
• Newsletter subscribers
• Daily email list (when comparing them to the weekly, the bi-weekly, the monthly, etc)
• Demographics, like age, location, or job title
• Interests, like marketing or sales topics

 Splitting your list bestows you the ability to send more intentional targeted communications just like targeting in paid ads.

For instance, some customers need to hear about new editions while some are interested in both product and sales updates. Sales team leads might be interested in hearing about details of a new sales but not a new marketing tool.

Besides, you can send special emails to buyers just to say thank you for their purchase.

With the help of segmentation, you can send a broadcast just to those that didn’t open your previous message (find out their reason), or to those that indicated interest (a second pitch).

You can choose to divide test messaging among various groups to A/B test titles, content, or best strategies.

As you now know, segmentation is no rocket science,it is so much work, which is why most email marketers don’t take the time to do it very well.

Once you do, you’ll instantly distinguish yourself from the pack.

What Is The Worth Of Your Email List?

One of your most useful resources is your email list and if you learn how to use it very well, it will pay off many times over.

With time, you can begin to track how much resources people on your list spend on average. This will open your eyes to how much your email list is worth.

For example,10,000 people in a list can spend $50,000 on a campaign, and if you run two of those campaigns in a year, you could evaluate it out and it is safe to say that each of the subscribers is worth $10 a year.

When you calculate it this way, you will easily see how losing numerous hundred subscribers could be harmful to your bottom line.

 Conclusion of Email Marketing

Now you've seen that ignoring email marketing isn't the best, it's time to reconsider your strategy.

Email marketing gives enormous returns for marketers who are ready to learn how to do it the right way. 

Firstly, don't forget you’re a visitor in the inboxes of your subscribers. Always remember that your emails are invariably just one click away from losing their interest forever. Therefore be respectful, and deliver value.

As you begin, you will have to seek permission which is the right thing to do. In this period of new data protections, like the EU’s GDPR, it’s also a valid requirement.

You’ll want to fulfill the promises you make by providing people with what they’ve asked for and send emails regularly to meet up with their expectations.

There’s no procedure for improving email automation. This has everything to do with what works best for you and your company’s voice and style.

In conclusion, you can proceed to email segmentation and analytics when you’ve understood the basics. You can start sending different types of emails to various groups of people so you can provide more useful emails.