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Ultimate guide to email marketing

Ultimate Guide To Email Marketing

Email marketing is an effective way for businesses to connect with, engage, and keep customers. Email is low cost, personalized, and delivers awesome return on investment. This guide to email marketing will give you the basics, including tips for building an email list, making effective email campaigns, writing compelling stuff, measuring how well you’re doing, and more.

Building Your Email List

The key to good email marketing is putting together a quality email list. Here are some ways to do it:

  • Offer folks something free like a discount, ebook, or webinar if they subscribe. This motivates people to give you their email.
  • Promote your subscription form everywhere – website, blog, social media, ads, etc. Make it super easy to find and sign up.
  • Use pop-ups or subscription forms in your content to grab emails as people engage with your stuff.
  • Import contacts from your customer relationship management system if you already have customer emails.

The main thing is getting permission and explicit opt-in. This leads to higher open and click rates.

Creating Effective Email Campaigns

Once you have subscribers, you need to engage them with valuable stuff delivered through campaigns. Here’s what to focus on:

  • Start with a welcome series to establish trust and share helpful content matched to their interests.
  • Send regular newsletters, product updates, special deals, etc. Figure out the best frequency for your audience.
  • Trigger campaigns when users do specific things like abandon a cart or view a product.
  • Segment your list based on user traits and behaviors. Personalize content for each segment.
  • Test different subject lines, formats, images, call-to-action buttons, send times, etc. Tweak based on open and click rates.
  • Make sure emails look good on mobile and avoid spammy text like too many exclamation points.

Writing Compelling Email Content

Your email content will determine how campaigns perform. Some tips:

  • Provide practical information readers can benefit from – tips, how-to’s, case studies, product features, etc.
  • Use short paragraphs, bullet points, headings, highlights, etc. Make it easy to scan.
  • Grab attention with subject lines that create curiosity and interest.
  • Use a conversational but professional tone. Active voice. Relatable language.
  • Personalize when possible with names, locations, etc. Segment-specific content works better.
  • Include images, GIFs, and videos to add visual appeal.
  • Drive action with clear calls-to-action – sign up, shop now, read more, etc.

Measuring Performance

Analytics give you visibility into what’s working. Track these metrics:

  • Open rate – percent opening the email
  • Click-through rate – percent clicking links
  • Bounce rate – percent bouncing due to bad addresses
  • List growth rate – how fast your list is growing
  • Unsubscribe rate – percent opting out of emails
  • Sales from emails – revenue generated from campaigns

Use A/B testing to optimize subject lines, content, design, send times, etc. Refine based on data.

Conclusion

Email marketing is key for engaging customers. You can get awesome results by nurturing subscriber lists, creating compelling content, and constantly testing and improving your campaigns. Use these tips to step up your email marketing game. With a solid strategy, you can build strong customer relationships through email. Programs like ActiveCampaign can help with this. Check out the 4