Published on October 24th, 2018 | by Sunit Nandi

A Guide to Email Marketing

Marketing directly to your consumers is a great way to bring in more business. But, do you know what email marketing is and how it works? Find out, right here.

Reaching consumers directly is never easy, unless you’re willing to stand in the street and hand out flyers… But, there is a way in which you can directly market to your consumers without leaving the confines of your office – email marketing. Yes, this particular form of digital marketing is an excellent way to market your products/services to your audience, but how does it work?

In this guide, you’ll find out everything you need to know about email marketing. We’ve spoken to the pros, digital marketing agency Revive.Digital, about the basics of email marketing to help you understand everything about it. We’re going to explain, what it is, how it works and why it can be so beneficial for your business. Find out all you need to know about email marketing, right here.

What is Email Marketing?

Digital marketing terms aren’t as cryptic as they may seem. Because essentially all email marketing is, is marketing through email… Through tools like MailChimp, Constant Contact and others, digital marketing can reach consumers through mailing lists, marketing products, services, offers, blogs and so on. It’s a great way to bring in more business through already ‘loyal’ consumers, because once they’ve used your business once, and they have consented, you can keep their mailing info on your email marketing list. We have to stress that you must have permission from users to hold their email marketing data. You can’t send ‘spam’ emails to users if you have not consented to providing their mailing address to you.

How Email Marketing works

So, when it comes to utilising email marketing, the basics are fairly simple. We’ll talk you through it, step by step.

1. Your Mailing List

Like we’ve said above, you should never send marketing emails to those who have not consented for you to use their email address. We cannot stress this enough. In order for you to even begin to think about email marketing, you need to first have the right mailing list. So, you can work on growing it through including sign-up/data consent forms on your website, campaigns through social media to get users to sign up to your list and more. Once you’ve got a mailing list, you can begin to market through email.

2. Choosing your Tool

So, unless you want to manually email everyone on your mailing list (which we don’t recommend), you’re going to need to find the right email marketing tool for you. There’re so many choices, but it’s about finding a package plan that works for your business. Factors like the size of your mailing list and business come into play, as you don’t want to be overpaying for 10,000 subscribers when you have a mailing list of 200. Similarly, national businesses will need a larger plan to reach more than a local business. Do your research on the tools available, and of course utilise free trials (it will save you some money whilst you grow your mailing list and email marketing plan).

3. Creating your Emails

Now you have your list and tools, it’s time to think about creating your email. It’s easy to get it wrong, but we’ve got some tips to make sure you don’t! It’s key to not only send your email, but to make sure people open it too. Which is why you need to have some compelling copy in your subject line, to make sure your subscribers are clicking through and opening your email.

A good email should be made up of three parts. Copy, design and navigation. Compelling copy is what will lead people to click and scroll through your email. A good design and layout conveys professionalism and is attractive and engaging for the eye. Finally, navigation need to be clear, buttons for link clicks or ‘discount’ codes must be laid out logically to bring consumers through to your website and buy into your products or services.

Why Email Marketing?

Like most forms of digital marketing, email marketing is beneficial because you can monitor data and metrics to see the effectiveness of it. There’s a wealth of powerful tools behind each marketing email, including who has opened it, who has clicked the link and so on. You can see how your email marketing campaign is working. It’s also one of the direct forms of marketing, where you can specifically target people on your mailing list, reaching out to them directly. Most people check their inboxes on a daily basis, which means making sure your emails are going through to their inbox is a great way to market to consumers. With so many free trials available, starting of your email marketing strategy couldn’t be easier.

Tags: email marketing, guide, marketing

About the Author

Sunit Nandi I'm the leader of Techno FAQ. Also an engineering college student with immense interest in science and technology. Other interests include literature, coin collecting, gardening and photography. Always wish to live life like there's no tomorrow.