Email Marketing For Companies: How To Get Started The Right Way! (Ultimate Guide)
There is no doubt that email marketing is the best form of marketing in this modern day and age.
The main reason why most blue-chip companies continue to flourish is that they have a huge database of customers i.e. email list.
Thus, if big companies like Amazon, eBay, Target, etc. are doing email marketing, then there's no reason for you to ignore it.
With that being said, lm going to discuss some of the common topics regarding email marketing – so as to shed some light to you.
Some of these topics includes:
So without wasting much time, let me dive straight into more detail.
What Is Email Marketing?
In simple terms, it is a form of marketing where you communicate with your customers via email.
We're all aware of newsletters since we receive them on almost a daily basis from various companies.
But the main difference here is that we're discussing email marketing from the sender's point of view – rather than the receiver's viewpoint.
Big companies like Amazon uses this form of marketing a lot i.e. for promoting new products, discount promos, you name it!
The main reason being that the average person checks his/her inbox on a regular basis i.e. at least 3 times a day.
This is not the case with other forms of communication like FB messenger – where an average person may spend some few days without checking his/her messages.
Thus, most companies prefers to communicate with their customers via email – due to high open rates (than any other communication platform).
With that being said, let's quickly discuss why email marketing is the best form of marketing i.e. compared to Facebook messenger, Instagram DMs, or any other related platform.
Why Email Marketing Is The Best Form Of Marketing?
First and foremost, email marketing allows you to create an audience that you own and control.
Now let me explain this point in just a few sentences;
When you have some followers on social media, you have less control over those platforms since you don't own them.
For this reason, people on those platforms are owned by these social platforms – not you.
You might have millions of followers on Instagram – but you should always remember that those people are owned by the Instagram platform.
Also, it does not take much effort to tap the ‘follow' button – so its easy for people to follow you on socials.
But if you build an email list, you own and control that audience since you can email them at any time.
Also, email marketing gives you a more direct line of communication with your audience – unlike other platforms.
For this reason, your messages has high chances of being seen by your customers – since they lands directly in your customers' inboxes.
Also, most people checks their emails more often than they do with other platforms.
This increases the chances of your messages to be seen by your prospects.
Also, email marketing helps to maximise your profits through repeat purchases.
The reason being that you can send a promotional email to your list at any given time – without asking for any permission.
For example, if you build an email list for promoting product A, you can use that same list to promote other similar or complimentary products in the future.
Thus, this allows you to maximise your earnings per customer – since a single customer can buy over and over again.
Lastly, email marketing helps to automate your business.
If you’re someone like me who likes to live the passive income lifestyle, then you might need to automate your business.
With email marketing, you can ‘feed’ some automated emails in your autoresponder – which can run in the background.
This allows you to send promotional emails on autopilot without having to actively work in your business.
For example, let's say that you have a traffic source like YouTube or a website, you can embed an opt-in form – where people can signup to join your list.
Instead of manually sending emails to those people, you can have some pre-loaded swipes in your autoresponder – which can send on autopilot.
Thus, this allows you to work ‘on' your business rather than ‘in' your business.
Now that we've justified why email marketing is the best, let's quickly dive into how you can get started with this form of marketing.
How To Get Started With Email Marketing?
Most people gets overwhelmed when they hear about email marketing – but they get stuck when it comes to how to get started.
I always hear statements like ‘I don't have an email list so l can’t do email marketing'.
But you should always remember that everyone starts at zero.
Even the so called ‘gurus' who have huge lists had zero subscribers at some point.
The key is to reverse engineer how they built their lists – so that you can follow their strategies to build your own list as well.
With that being said, let's quickly discuss the step by step process which you can follow to build your own list from scratch.
NB: There are many ways to skin a cat. For this reason, there's no single strategy that is official.
You can use any strategy which looks ‘easier’ for you.
Steps For Getting Started
1. Sign Up For An Email Marketing Software
In order to get started with email marketing, you must have an email marketing software which is designed to facilitate the process.
There is a ton of great softwares which are designed to facilitate email marketing, but my favourite one is called GetResponse.
With GetResponse, you can send newsletter as well as automated emails – without too much hassle.
GetResponse also comes with great templates which you can use to create opt-in forms – where your customers will submit their email details.
This software is also characterised by a decent delivery rate – meaning your emails have higher chances of landing directly in your customers' inboxes – rather than the spam folder.
Thus, you definitely need to check out this software if you want to get started with email marketing.
Can l Use My Gmail Account For Email Marketing?
I always get this question more often – since most people thinks that they can do email marketing using Gmail.
But the truth is, Gmail was designed for sending and receiving friendly emails i.e. simple communication emails.
But if you want to send business related emails, then you definitely need an email marketing software since Gmail was not designed for that.
Also, Gmail has a tendency of blocking promotional emails – since they regard them as spam.
For these reasons, you might need to forget about Gmail if you want to do email marketing.
2. Create A Freebie/Lead Magnet
Now that you've signed up for an email marketing software, it’s now high time to create a freebie or lead magnet.
This is the resource which you will use as a ‘bait' for getting people's email details.
It can be something like a pdf guide, cheat sheet, free course, or anything relevant to your industry.
The main reason why this works is that most people likes free staff – thus, they’re more than willing to give you their email details in exchange for a freebie.
Thus, you should definitely find something that you can give for free – so as to entice people to give you their emails.
You can use some PLR products as lead magnets – and you can find these products at sites like IDplr, Master Resale Rights, or any other related platforms.
3. Create An Opt-In Or Landing Page
Now that you've got your lead magnet, it’s now high time to create an opt-in or landing page.
This is just a simple 1 pager site where people can submit their emails in exchange for your freebie.
You can create a stunning landing page using GetResponse – since this software comes with a ton of premade templates which you can easily customise using the simple drag and drop editor.
You just have to add an image of your freebie on your landing page then you just write a simple headline like;
Want To Know The Secret For Losing More Weight In Less Time?
Submit Your Email And Get A Free Copy Of Our Detailed Guide!
Because those people are interested in that topic, they will give you their emails in order to get access to your resource.
You can find a ton of free tutorials on YouTube on how to build a landing page.
4. Load Email Swipes In Your Autoresponder
The next crucial step is to load your autoresponder with email swipes.
This allows you to send automated emails on autopilot without having to manually do the process.
If you're an affiliate marketer, you can utilise some email swipes which you get from the vendors – since most vendors provides free swipes to their affiliates.
However, if you’re a company, you can choose to hire a copywriter who can write these emails for you.
You can find great copywriters on platforms like Fiverr – which is a marketplace for talented freelancers from all corners of the world.
Thus, you can choose to hire a freelance copywriter who is really good at crafting highly converting emails.
Just an advice;
Don't bomber your subscribers with promotional emails only.
Instead, you should try to strike a balance between promotional and educational emails.
Failure to do so may result in low open rates or even high unsubscribe rates in some cases.
Also, don't send too many emails at once since this might scare away your subscribers.
Instead, try to send 2 or 3 emails per week – so as to give your subscribers some time to breathe.
Also, your subscribers will be keen to open your emails if you send a limited number of emails than if you send too many emails every week.
5. Getting Traffic
Assuming you've completed the backend process of setting-up your email marketing system, it’s now high time to start driving traffic to your list.
The key is to drive traffic to your landing page – and when those people opt-in, their emails will be stored in your database – which will be filled with automated emails.
Thus, you'll only be focusing on getting traffic and the backend staff will take care of itself.
Most people gets stuck when it comes to getting traffic since they don't know how and where to get it.
But the truth is, traffic is already available out there – you only have to find a strategy for channelling that traffic to your pages.
If you have a platform like a blog or a YouTube channel, then you can take advantage of the free organic traffic that you get on your platform.
But if you don’t have any organic reach, then you might need to run paid ads i.e. Google Ads, YouTube Ads, Facebook Ads, Solo Ads, etc.
You can read this article if you want to learn more about getting traffic.
Should You Buy An Email List?
‘10k tier 1 list for only $40’
‘50k US list for only $120’
‘Pay me $150 and l will build a targeted list of US, Canada, & UK, buyers’
I think you have seen these statements on the internet.
Most people gets excited when they see such advertisements on social media, Fiverr, or Classified Ad networks.
Most people always say staff like;
‘Why should l spend more years building an email list – when l can just buy one for few bucks?’
Although this might sound like a great shortcut, it will cause more harm than good to your business.
The reason being that most of those email lists which are being sold are prepared using email scrapping tools.
This means that the people on those lists did not signup to join them – and they might not be aware that their email details are being abused by someone else.
The truth is, most people are now scraping emails from the web and they paste them on an excel spreadsheet.
Thus, most of them are not genuine lists.
If you don't believe this, you should ask yourself ‘why someone is selling a 10k size email list for $40 – when he can just signup for Amazon Associates and promote various products to that list?
We all know that an email list has an average value of $1/email – but those list sellers are selling them for little pennies per email.
These list sellers are willing to sell huge lists for a very low price because they only spend some few minutes to scrap the emails from the web.
Thus, l don't recommend anyone to buy an email list – since you don't have any clue on how that list was built.
Wrapping Up
I hope that you've gained some value from this post.
I tried by all means to summarise this topic in just 2 000 words – so as to keep the article within the expected length.
You can use these tips to get started with email marketing since they are actionable strategies that you can implement today.
You can also find other detailed tutorials on YouTube – so as to learn more about email marketing.
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