To start producing sales in your company as a small business owner, you must build brand awareness. Funding marketing strategies like PPC and Facebook advertisements can be out of your price range if you have a tight budget. Although SEO is fantastic, it might take a little longer. However, there are situations when a straightforward email marketing campaign can be a successful way to increase conversion and revenues.
Probably, you are aware from reports that email marketing offers the highest return on investment of any marketing channel. You probably can’t wait to start utilizing email to increase sales and earnings for your company. You probably want to know:
- How precisely do I begin?
- Which actions do I need to take?
- How can I create a list?
- How do I measure my progress?
With the help of this comprehensive guide, you can successfully create an email marketing campaign and grow your small business.
How to Execute Your Small Business Email Marketing Campaign Step by Step
Without an experienced team, planning and implementing an email marketing campaign may seem immensely burdensome. Nonetheless, if you approach it step-by-step, it’s fairly achievable.
The greatest methods for creating a campaign that works, launching it, and ultimately increasing your revenue utilizing this tool are listed below. We’re not claiming it’s simple, but it is perfectly feasible.
How precisely do I begin?
A plan must be in place before starting an email marketing campaign. To determine whether your campaign is successful, you need targets and measurable goals beyond simply “I want to send out some emails.”
Here are some examples of goals you would want your email marketing to accomplish:
- Inspire visitors to your website
- Encourage people to subscribe to your newsletter
- Publicize a new good or service.
- Provide a coupon or discount
- Offer client service
Every email that you send needs to have a purpose. In this manner, you may evaluate the email’s effectiveness and adjust your strategy as necessary. Here are the following steps to run a successful email marketing campaign:
STEP 1: Find a trustworthy email service provider
It would be best if you first chose a reputable provider to start an email marketing campaign. Given that this one tool will be the focal point of your whole campaign, this is not a choice that should be made carelessly.
Your selection process will have an impact on the following:
- Amount you spend
- How simple the software is to use
- What outcomes can you anticipate
- How long do you spend reading each email?
- What kind of client service do they provide?
- The number of your subscribers
- Do you send emails frequently?
We advise you to test out a few different email marketing tools before making a final choice. This can help you locate the greatest fit for your company and better understand what to plan.
A few of the most popular providers are:
Constant Contact
AWeber
MailChimp
GetResponse
STEP 2: Create a plan and set measurable goals
The second step is to develop your email marketing strategy. This includes figuring out what kind of content you’ll send, how often you’ll send it, and to whom you’ll send it.
Ask Yourself Questions
- What services or goods do I wish to advertise?
- Who is my intended audience?
- Where are my leads in the buying process?
- What is the objective of each email (for example, to improve website traffic, obtain memberships, or increase sales)?
- What sort of call-to-action ought I to use?
- How frequently should I email people?
Making your email’s content and appearance will be much easier if you have a plan. Each email must serve a function that supports your overarching objectives.
You can assess the success of your campaign using the targets you have set. Choose goals you can measure, such as clicks, unsubscribes, and conversions.
STEP 3: Collect email addresses
Getting the email addresses of individuals that may be interested in what you want to say is the third step in creating your email marketing plan. This is the hardest step because it takes time, creativity, and persistence. But in this case, quality matters more than number. Therefore, it’s okay if your list grows slowly as long as it includes those individuals (often referred to as “leads”) who can become your clients.
There are several methods for doing this, including:
Add a sign-up form to your website:
Placing a sign-up button on the homepage of your website is the greatest approach to growing your email list. Offer a deal on your goods or services or a useful ebook to entice website visitors to subscribe or book a demo.
This makes joining your mailing list simple for folks already interested in what you offer.
Add a call-to-action to your email signature:
For example, “Sign up for my newsletter to remain updated on my recent articles!”
Purchase a lead list:
You can also purchase lead lists from reliable suppliers.
STEP 4: Create great content
Starting to write the content for your emails is the fourth stage. Each email should serve a specific purpose, as was previously stated. This means that each email’s content should align with its intended use.
What Kind of Content?
When you’re thinking about what kind of content to include in your emails, consider the following:
- Do you like sharing content besides blog articles, pictures, or videos?
- Whom are you trying to reach? What do they find interesting?
- What tone do you wish to establish? formal or casual
- Before sending out your article, make sure to proofread it.
- Typing errors might give you an unprofessional appearance.
STEP 5: Set up your email list
Setting up your email list with your preferred provider is the fifth step. Included are all the email addresses you gathered in step 3, along with any other relevant data (such as names, birthdays, and anniversaries).
Your email list may be effectively managed with MailChimp. It is simpler to provide targeted material to particular audiences by segmenting your list into various groups.
For Instance, You may create a lead list with two groups, one for children and the other for adults, if you sell products for both children and adults. Then, you may send tailored emails with age-appropriate material to each group. By segmenting your lists this way, you may try various subject lines and content to determine what resonates with each group.
STEP 6: Design your email template
The email template design is the next step in developing a successful small company email marketing campaign. This will ultimately save you time and give your email campaign a more polished appearance, although people may also quit reading your material if they don’t think it’s impressive and link it to your items.
What should your template include?
Your logo: Place your company’s logo at the top of the email.
Images: Including images in your emails can improve their aesthetic appeal and serve to break up text-heavy information.
An obvious call-to-action (CTA): The CTA should be visible and put in a prominent area.
Company Information: Include your company’s contact details, including your website, phone number, and mailing address. Your audience will trust you more as a result.
Social media links: Include links to your social media profiles in your email to connect them. As a result, your audience can follow you on social media and spread the word about your content to their contacts.
STEP 7: Test Your Email Campaigns
It’s time to send a test email after you’ve created your email template and gathered the required data. This is important since it enables you to check for errors and preview how your email will seem to others.
Some text may be too small, or a picture may not appear as you planned. You can make the necessary adjustments by sending a test email before a larger audience sees your email campaign.
How do I know if my email is working?
1) Make a new contact in your email provider’s account and enter your email address.
2) Utilizing the template you created, send an email to this new contact.
3) Verify that the email looks planned and that all links function.
4) Modify your template as necessary.
5) When you’re happy with your email, you’re ready to distribute it to everyone on your list!
STEP 8: Analyze your results
Tracking your email’s performance after you’ve sent it will help you learn from your successes and mistakes.
Factors to Measure Success of Email Marketing
There are a few important metrics you should monitor:
Open rate: This is the proportion of recipients who read your email out of all who received it. A healthy open rate is 20% to 30%.
Click-through rate (CTR): The proportion of recipients of your email who clicked on one or more links is known as the click-through rate (CTR). A respectable CTR ranges between 2% to 5%.
Bounce Rate: The percentage of emails that could not reach the recipient’s inbox is known as the bounce rate. A bounce rate of 2% or less is ideal.
Unsubscribe rate: This is the proportion of recipients that choose to leave your email list after reading it. The ideal unsubscribe rate is between 0.5% to 2%.
What gives an email its value?
It’s an excellent sign if you see that your open rate, click-through rate, or subscribe rate is high. It indicates that readers are interested in and value your email.
However, if your bounce rate is significant, it may indicate issues with your email list or that your emails are being misconstrued as spam. A high unsubscribe rate may indicate that your audience is uninterested in the content you offer or that your email is irrelevant to them.
No matter your results, it’s important to take the time to analyze them and figure out what you can do to improve your email campaigns.
Bottom Line
A fantastic technique to interact with your audience is email marketing. This technique is especially important for small businesses because it is one of the least expensive and straightforward ways to create brand recognition, establish a personal connection with clients, and boost sales. It is affordable and, most importantly, efficient.
Additionally, learning email marketing is not that tough. You’ll be able to develop your little campaigns even after reading only this one guide; the rest is practice.
Related Article: Why Email Marketing is Important for Small Businesses?
FAQ’s
Q. What’s the ideal length for an email campaign?
Response rates for emails with 50 to 25 words of text are frequently over 50%. But don’t make it too brief. A 25-word email may perform similarly to that are 500 to 2000 words long, with an average response rate of under 45%.
Q. How frequently should I send emails for marketing?
Sending emails twice a month, then weekly, would be a smart strategy. Consider sending emails twice a week if you have excellent content, dynamic offers, or frequent promotions. Keep an eye on these initiatives.
Q. What percentage of emails should be opened in 2022?
The open rate is the first indicator of an email campaign’s success. A respectable open rate range from 17 to 28%. That is not all, though. Before launching an email campaign, marketers must take into account a number of elements that affect open rates.
Q. Why is it necessary to test with email clients?
It’s crucial to test your email before sending it to a large number of recipients to make sure that any attached photos, graphics, and links work as intended. It also enables you to go back and correct any spelling or grammar mistakes in your written content.