How To Start An Email Marketing Campaign In 5 Minutes

Start an email marketing campaign today, it should be a thing of now rather than later.

This has become imperative due to the fact that the strategy is very effective and also advertising costs are going up.

Data shows that In 2020, e-mail marketing revenue stood at $7.5 billion, and by 2023, this figure is set to cross the $10-billion threshold. 

And there are $4.14b email users in the world and over $319.6bn emails are sent out on a daily basis and this is resulting in more than$ 8.49bn in revenue.

So, if you are not taking advantage of this huge revenue advantage in the email marketing space I really don’t know what you are waiting for. 

Oh maybe you don’t know how to go about it? Well you are in luck as I will be showing you the exact steps you need to follow in this post.

1. Define your target market.

Defining your target market will be one of the difficult but yet very rewarding and necessary steps in this process.

This is critical because if you don’t know who your target audiences are then you will end up trying to target everybody, and this is a waste of time and resources and lead to poor results.

To determine who your market is, you have to take into consideration the price of your product or services.

Because if your product is a high ticket product, then there will be no need wasting time on low income earners.

So, after determining who can afford your product based on their income bracket, then you can proceed to specify the geographical location where you want to target.

However, if your product or service is deliverable globally, then the need to localize your market may not really arise.

Also read: What is Email Marketing? and how to maximize it

More so, after deciding on all the above considerations, then you proceed to create a marketing strategy that will attract them to your business. 

Your marketing plan should focus on the perceived needs and wants of the target market 

However, one of the easiest and cheapest channels to reach out to prospect these current times is through social media, but you can also employ other online ads and marketing channels that are convenient for you.

Once you have created a marketing plan, the next step is to choose an email service.

2. Choose an email marketing platform.

Choosing an email marketing platform can be quite daunting because of the different options that are out there like GetResponse, MailChimp, Zoho Mail and many more

However, there are certain criteria’s that have to be put into consideration before deciding on which platform to use.

Cost

The cost of the email services varies, some are free while others come with a price. It is important to decide from the get go which one you want to go for.

Free plans usually have some limitations, but be prepared to upgrade in the future to a paid version.

Sometimes, the free version might have a limit to the amount of email addresses you have on the platform.

Interface

After deciding on the platform that you can afford, the next thing is to check the interface to know if it is easy for you to navigate.

Some email service providers may actually have a good service and good pricing, but the interface on the dashboard may be difficult to navigate through.

So you have to make sure that you are comfortable with the design of the interface and that it will not affect your productivity.

Templates

Templates play a great role in making it easy to write elegant emails, so it is better to look for an email service provider that has a variety of templates that you can choose from.

When thinking of designs, looking for service that has flexible designs that are mobile friendly will make your emails appear consistent of all devices, either on large screens or mobile 

However, depending on the service you choose, some may not have ready to use templates, so you will have to design one for yourself or source it from some other sites.

Tracking  

Sending out well written emails with good design templates (at least as you thought) won’t do much good if you can’t track the effectiveness of the email marketing campaign.

Choose a provider that has a good dashboard with all the necessary data that you need to understand your campaign success.

Having a good tracking dashboard should be something to look out for, because you need to know the open rates, how many clicks you are getting, the bounce rate, unsubscribes and how many social shares your emails are getting. 

These important stats will further guide you on the changes and improvements that you need to make to make the conversion rate better.

Automation 

Having an automated system makes it possible to have a drip mail that can be sequenced to deliver at the particular time that you desire and to a specific list.

Because you want to be on top of your game when it comes to email marketing campaign, it makes logical sense to look out for that feature in any email service provider that you intend to use.

This will help make sure that you have a solid work flow and that your email campaigns are scheduled correctly to avoid mixing up messages and wrong email sequences.

However, most providers have this feature, but you still need to confirm its availability or if it is locked in the paid version, in case you decide to make use of a free version.

Availability 

Service availability is non negotiable when it comes to having an online presence or running an email marketing campaign.

Because of the era in which we live now, going offline for even a second can be pretty damaging to any brand and can lead to the loss of thousands if not millions of dollars.

According to Acronis; Downtime is a killer and nearly 80 percent of companies estimate downtime costs them at least $20,000 per hour or more, and more than 20 percent estimate it costs them at least $100,000.

Having an email service provider that will guarantee uptime all the time is a unique selling feature to go for.

When choosing a provider, find out about their service uptime and downtime, and because it will be very hard to guarantee 100% uptime, so if a service is able to have at least 95% uptime it is still feasible, but not lower.

 Storage and Archiving 

Running out of storage is not something you want to deal with because it can be frustrating.

You never want to run out of storage, however, due to the number of emails that you will be dealing with, it will eventually get to a time where you will have more emails than you bargained for.

At this time, having a service that has a large storage and also an archiving system that will enable you to archive some of the important emails that you don’t want to delete will come handy.

Some systems have a full-fledged archive system, while some others don’t, but the important thing is to have a large storage that ensures that you don’t have to delete any important email just because of space.

Moreover, some providers also have a backup and recovery system that will ensure that you don’t lose all your data incase of any system failure.

Choose a provider that offers a cloud backup system, because this is safer than locally backed up data on your system.

3. Decide your email marketing content. 

Email marketing is one of the most effective and cost effective ways to not just connect with and update your customers but also to get them to take action quickly.

Also read: How to Start a Successful Dropshipping Business

With the right email marketing campaign, you can begin to build connections with your prospects to the point where they will now feel confident to patronize you.

Below are some ways to model your email content for effective results.

Make your email relevant to your audience.

Always make sure that your email content is in tandem with what the interests of the customers are.

Sending unrelated messages to a prospect or customer that does not add any value or elicit a positive response from the prospect is going to be a waste of time and effort.

People are generally quick to start ignoring emails especially when they don’t find it valuable.

Send out regular updates

It’s important to send out regular updates so as to keep people informed on what is happening and what to expect next from you.

The regular updates and reach out will ensure that you are top-of-the-mind, when ever they decide to buy or use any service that is related to yours.

Make your email interesting

Emails need to be interesting and engaging to encourage people to keep opening and reading your emails always.

When your customers or prospects stop finding your emails interesting, they will not be motivated to stay updated with what is happening about your products or services.

4. Prepare your email campaign.

To prepare for your email marketing campaign, there are certain things you need to consider to guide you as you put together an effective campaign and these includes;

Decide on your campaign goals

If you don’t have a goal it will be difficult to tell when you are making progress or losing resources.

To be able to measure your progress and results, you have to first decide what the campaign goal is even before starting off.

The goal could be that you want to get new leads into your sales funnel, increase your website traffic or grow your email subscription rate.

Whichever one you are after, it is better to know from the get go before even before starting.

This will help you know when you are moving off course to  immediately get back in line to achieving the said goal.

Structure a plan to guide you

Setting a goal is one and having a plan on how to achieve it is another, so you need to structure a road map and how to go about achieving the goals that you have set.

This plan will help you decide on which path to follow and what to do exactly to be able to get to the goal of the campaign.

With this plan you will be able to track your progress along the way and of course also make adjustments where needed. 

Design the email campaign

After deciding on the goals of the campaign and a plan on how to achieve it, the next step will be to actually design the email campaigns itself.

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This is the stage where you put together the content and layout of how you want the email to show up for the customer or prospect.

In designing the campaign , you will include all the necessary information that you need to get across to the readers and also in what fashion you want the email to appear.

This is the critical part where you really have to convince the readers to do what you want them to do.

To achieve this you will make sure to add a call to action within the email.

A Call-to-Action is where you will direct the customer to click on or what they should do to get the item, service or further information that you are offering.

Remember that content should always be crafted with the audience that you are targeting in mind.

A better way to connect with people when you communicate with them through email is to write as if you are in a conversation with them.

Writing from a conventional stand point makes it easy for people to relate and want to work with you.

Finally, after crafting the email, the next thing is to launch it.

5. Launch Your Campaign

This is the final stage after you must have gone through all the above processes.

Launch the campaign!

After launching the campaign, you have to monitor the process and results like we talked about above and then make any necessary adjustments if needed.

Good Luck.