How to get started with Email Marketing: tools for Email Marketing

Welcome to Email Marketing tutorials for beginners by Digital Mastery

In this tutorial, we will learn everything about email marketing and how to do email marketing, and also the tools used for email marketing.

Before starting with email marketing you must be known about email marketing history, email marketing was sent in 1978 and was resulted in $13 million in sales. later on, it has become one of the channels for digital marketing. Email marketing is not as attractive as other social media channels of email marketing but is still one of the most professionally used channels for communication and also for marketing. In this article, you will get answers to the following questions.

What is email marketing and how it works?
get started with email marketing?
build your email list?
How to send marketing emails and email regulations?
what is email marketing analysis?
tools for email marketing?

What is Email Marketing?

Email marketing is a concept of using email to communicate marketing messages or using email for promotion. It is one of the most powerful marketing channels which allows brands to directly communicate with a buyer or potential customers. It can be used to build relationships that will build connections through personalized engagement, boost brand awareness, Promote your content, Generate leads, Market your products, Nurture leads.

Email marketing rules change based on your industry and who you’re marketing to. Below are some email marketing trends for B2B, B2C, e-commerce, and real estate companies that can inform your email marketing strategy.

Getting started with Email Marketing

Before you start creating your email marketing campaign you must keep in mind that each of your customers gets lots of emails every day, and to make sure that your mail should be highlighted among all of those mails you must make an attractive and eye-catching email so that your emails will not be lost in that crowded unwanted mails.

Below are the following steps to outline your email marketing strategy

Define your audience

An efficacious mail is a useful mail, like other marketing you should be aware of your product or services and according to that, you must know what your audience wants. keeping all these points in mind you must create your email marketing campaign.

Define your Goal

Before you start up with your email campaign you must gather some email statistics for your industry and use them as the main tool for your campaign

Build your email list

An email list is a group of people who have given you permission to send emails to them. And to build that list you need several ways that your mail should be received by them, if you don’t have enough list don’t be dishearted it takes some time to build the list. If you have a few people make them your subscribers and treat them like your customer you will automatically see growth in your list.

Choose your email campaign type

Every email campaign can vary from one other, what type of campaign we can make? is a question that in all marketer’s minds may arouse. The answer to this question is there are total12 types of campaigns after getting knowledge of this campaign you must choose one which will be suitable for your audience. You should also set up different lists for different types of emails, so customers and prospects can sign up for only the emails that are relevant to them.

12 Types of Email That Marketers Can Send

1) New Content Announcement Email

2) Product Update Email

3) Digital Magazine or Newsletter

4) Event Invitation

5) Dedicated Send

6) Co-marketing Email

7) Social Media Send

8) Internal Updates

9) Confirmation Email

10) Form Submission Kickback (Thank-You) Email

11) Welcome Email

12) Lead Nurturing Email

Make a Schedule

you should make a schedule for when you have to send your mails to your customers so they will be updated, be consistent with that schedule to build that trust so that you will be remembered for your consistency.

Metric your performance

Being a marketer we should check every small change in our results which will help you to yield large results.

Now that you understand the steps to creating an email marketing strategy, now let us jump to how to build your email list

How to Build Your Email List

There are many creative ways to build your email list, list building comes with two elements that work together to grow your subscriber numbers: lead magnets and opt-in forms.

1. Use lead magnets

A lead magnet is something that is used to attract leads to your email list, it is a marketing item or service that is given away for the purpose of gathering contact details of here are a few types of lead magnets you can create

Ebook
Whitepaper
Infographic
Report or Study
Checklist
Template
Webinar or Course
Tool

2. Create an enticing opt-in form

An opt-in is a form of consent given by web users, acknowledging interest in a product or service and authorizing a third party to contact them with further information.

tips for creating an enticing opt-in form:

Simply go to Pages/Posts » Add New in your WordPress Admin area and click on the Add Form button above the text editor. It’ll open a popup where you can select your opt-in form and click on the Add Form button to insert it into your page/post.
Create an attractive design and attention-grabbing header.
Make the copy relevant to the offer.
Keep the form simple.
Set your opt-in form for double confirmation.
Ensure that the flow works.

How to Send Marketing Emails

Choose an email marketing service.
Use email marketing tips.
Implement email segmentation.
Personalize your email marketing.
Incorporate email marketing automation.
Use email marketing templates.

Email Regulations

The CAN-SPAM Act, a law that sets the rules for commercial email, establishes requirements for commercial messages, gives recipients the right to have you stop emailing them, and spells out tough penalties for violations. … The law makes no exception for business-to-business email.

The law was passed in 2003 and applies to any commercial emails used for business purposes.

Here are the ways to ensure that your emails are CAN-SPAM compliant:

Include your company name and address in every email.
Place visible unsubscribe links within your emails.
Use real email addresses in the “From” and “Reply to” fields.
Write subject lines that indicate the contents of the email.

Please note: This is not to be confused with legal advice. See the FTC’S site for more specific legal information regarding CAN-SPAM laws.

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

While some may view these newly implemented email regulations as burdensome and unnecessary, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) actually moves us closer to building long-lasting and trusting relationships with our customers.

GDPR is about giving your customers the right to choose, choose your emails, choose to hear from you, choose your products. And that is exactly what inbound marketing is about.

Something important to note about GDPR is that it only applies to businesses that operate in the European Union and businesses that market to EU citizens. Noncompliance will result in significant fees that aren’t worth the risk, so make sure to read the GDPR guidelines entirely.

Here’s an overview of how you can comply with GDPR laws:

Use explicit and clear language when requesting consent to store personal information.
Only collect contact data that is necessary for and relevant to your business.
Store contact data in a secure manner and only use it for the agreed-upon purpose.
Retain data for justifiable business purposes only.
Delete contact data on request.
Make it easy for contacts to unsubscribe from your list or update their preferences.
Comply promptly to a contact’s request for access to their data.
Keep company records to prove GDPR compliance.

These regulations will be taken seriously (as they should), so it’s a good idea to create a GDPR strategy for your business before you start sending out emails.

The following is a simple list of things marketers like you can do to ensure your campaigns are compliant with all the laws across the globe.

1. Ensure you have permission to email the people on your list

2. Don’t use misleading header information

3. Identify your email as an advertisement

4. Include your address

5. Include a way to opt-out of receiving future emails from you

6. Honor opt-out requests promptly

Email Marketing Analysis

Email analytics is a method of tracking the way subscribers interact with your email campaigns. You can gather and analyze data for each email campaign with the help of bulk email providers and Google Analytics.

Here are the best ways to analyze the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns.

1. A/B test your marketing emails.

You’ll never know what type of people make up your email list until you test the variables. That’s where A/B testing comes in handy.

A/B testing, or split testing, is a way to see what type of email performs best with your audience by analyzing the results of email A against email B.

Here’s the step-by-step process for A/B testing your emails:

Select one variable to test at a time, e.g., subject line, CTA, images.
Create two versions of the email: one with and one without the variable.
Allow your emails to be sent out simultaneously for a period of time.
Analyze your results and keep only the version that performed better.
Test a new variable and repeat the process.

Most email service providers will have A/B testing built into their software, which will make it easy for you to compare email results without much manual work.

2. Set email marketing KPIs.

There are four key metrics to pay attention to when evaluating the effectiveness of your email marketing campaign.

Deliverability measures the rate at which emails reach your intended subscribers’ inboxes.
Open rate is the percentage of people that open your email once it reaches their inbox.
Clickthrough rate (CTR) is the percentage of people that click on your CTAs.
Unsubscribes measures the number of people who opt-out of your email list once they receive an email from you.
3. Adjust different email elements to improve results.
Many factors impact your KPIs, and it’s going to take some experimentation and guesswork to figure out which tweaks to your emails will yield the biggest changes.
If you aren’t getting the numbers you want, try playing with these variables to improve your email results.
Deliverability
- Ensure that you’re following best practices when it comes to avoiding spam filters.
- Remove inactive people from your email list to keep only engaged subscribers.
- Check which emails are hard-bounced and remove those email addresses from your list.
Open Rate
- Play with the language in your subject line to entice people to click on your email.
- Adjust the time and day that you send your email to see what works best.
Clickthrough Rate (CTR)
- Evaluate your offer to ensure that it provides value to your segmented list.
- Rewrite your copy to make sure that it’s clear what you want the reader to do.
- Try different CTAs, e.g., graphic versus Inline copy, bold versus subtle.
Unsubscribes
- First, consider if this is a blessing in disguise, as uninterested parties are removing themselves from your list.
- Evaluate whether the email you sent is aligned with your brand.
- Ensure you haven’t performed a bait-and-switch by promising one thing and delivering another.
- Make sure your emails are providing value to your audience before trying to upsell.
4. Use an email marketing report template.
Your data does no good if you can’t report it in an organized fashion.
An email marketing report is a spreadsheet where you can record your results in one place to help you make inferences from your KPIs and take action to improve them.
Here’s how you should organize your report:
Metrics:
- Total number of emails sent
- Number of emails delivered
- Deliverability Rate
- Bounce Rate
- Open Rate
- Clickthrough Rate
- Unsubscribe Rate
Data:
- Subject line
- Length of the email body
- Offer
- CTA (inline or graphic)
- List segment

Tools for email marketing?

Email marketing campaigns are used to promote, whether it’s to promote a special offer, a new product release, an ebook, or a webinar. A campaign could consist of 3 – 10 emails sent over several days or weeks. … This type of marketing email is sent as and when required, in line with the rhythm of your business.

following are the free tools for Email marketing

1. HubSpot Email Marketing

HubSpot, probably best known for its marketing automation platform, recently launched a free email marketing tool that can support a lot of a small business’ transactional email needs.

Whether you need to send kickback emails from lead offers, thank you emails after purchase, or just promote current campaigns, HubSpot Email Marketing’s free version can do that. One of the best parts of HubSpot’s free email tool is its ease of use. The tool features a handy drag-and-drop visual editor, and it also comes equipped with ready-made templates to get you up and running immediately.

What makes HubSpot Email Marketing stand out is, of course, its native integration with other HubSpot tools, such as the free forever CRM. Once you start an account, you get access to both tools so you can create a centralized contacts database, organize it in lists, and manage and track email performance.

2. Sender

The sender is one of the best free email marketing tools in the market with features to ensure deliverability. It lets you create stunning newsletters without any HTML knowledge. Just choose from a template and customize it with elements like images, videos, and text. You can even personalize your newsletters for each recipient to create an even bigger impact.

Sender’s robust analytics feature is one of the top reasons why it’s on our list. It lets you track who opened your emails and clicked on the links, when they were opened, and more. It even helps you build accurate buyer profiles based on your subscriber actions, so you’ll be able to optimize your existing email strategy and craft compelling offers.

3. Sendinblue

Sendinblue is a marketing communication platform that features both email marketing tools and additional functions such as customer relationship management and landing page creation. With over 70 design templates, Sendinblue’s email design functions make it easy to create a great-looking email. Plus, all of these templates are responsive, and you can preview your results to can ensure your design looks the way you want on any screen format.

After you design your email, you can use features like A/B testing and segmented recipient lists to take the manual effort and guesswork out of optimizing your campaigns and targeting your ideal audiences.

4. Omnisend

Omnisend is a sophisticated e-commerce marketing platform that integrates all your communication platforms in one place. Its free plan includes only email, but it’s more than enough to support the email marketing efforts of small and medium businesses. It allows you to automate your email delivery using behavioral triggers and easily time your communications based on your customers’ convenience.

You can utilize its comprehensive audience insights to send out more relevant email marketing messages. Design attractive newsletters using time-saving features like the Product Picker, which lets you select all the products you want to include in your email. You can also include scratch cards, discount coupon codes, and gift boxes to further optimize your email performance.

5. SendPulse

SendPulse advertises itself as a multi-channel marketing platform, but its email marketing feature is the most popular. It comes with a ton of professionally-designed email templates that you can easily customize using a drag-and-drop editor. You can then set up these customized emails to be automatically sent out at the right time based on user behavior, event trigger, and other variables.

SendPulse’s subscriber rating feature is an excellent way to identify your most valuable subscribers. It lets you analyze the open and click rates as well as the read and unread rates of each subscriber. You can even set replaceable text fields to personalize your emails by name, gender, date of birth, age, and job role.

6. Benchmark Email

Benchmark Email is a great option for an email marketing tool to design responsive emails that look great no matter which device they’re viewed on. If you need to add images to your email, you can even edit the image right on the platform. The email editor lets you add effects, stickers, and text to effectively send your message.

You have the option to choose from tons of pre-designed templates based on industry, type, and occasion. For the more HTML savvy, you can even use the code editor to build emails from scratch. The dual-view feature lets you see your email design as you’re editing it, which simplifies the whole email creation process.

7. Mailchimp

Mailchimp is a leader in email marketing tools that you’ve probably heard of. Their free plan provides you with basic email marketing features such as email creation and scheduling. What makes this a great email marketing tool is its smart recommendations feature, which provides you with valuable audience insights to optimize your marketing efforts.

Designing emails on the platform is easy using the Content Manager, where you can store your images and files for easy access. Mailchimp lets you automate your emails at crucial steps of the buyer journey, so you can easily send out welcome emails, order confirmations, abandoned cart reminders, and more.

8. MailerLite

Sophisticated features like the landing page builder and the pop-up customizer make MailerLite stand out among free email tools in the market. In addition to the basics like the drag-and-drop email builder, the tool comes with a rich text editor and a built-in photo editor to create stunning emails.

You can create responsive landing pages to match the emails that you send, which will improve your chances of driving conversions. You can run split tests on different variations of your email to see what works best to drive clicks and conversions. MailerLite also provides you with a comprehensive campaign report that contains important stats like click rate, unsubscribe rate, open rate, and more.

9. Mailjet

Mailjet comes with intuitive and collaborative tools to help you build effective email marketing campaigns. Customize any of the pre-designed templates and create responsive emails to impress any recipient no matter which device they’re using. If you work with a team, you’ll love the platform’s real-time collaboration feature that allows for seamless collaboration.

This email marketing tool also lets you add dynamic content so you can create personalized and relevant emails for each recipient. This helps you get much better results out of your email marketing campaigns. You can also integrate the platform into your CRM and easily manage your mailing list through a single dashboard.

10. Moosend

Moosend is an excellent email marketing tool that lets you automate repetitive tasks and saves you time. You can design behavioral email campaigns based on your subscribers’ information and/or activities. You can use its advanced segmentation feature to send highly accurate emails to each recipient, increasing open rate and click-through rate as well as ROI.

This tool provides you with a detailed campaign performance report so you know exactly how to optimize your campaigns and get even better results. You can even integrate it with some of your favorite apps to seamlessly pass on vital information between different tools. It’s also one of the only free email marketing tools that won’t include its logo in your emails.

11. EmailOctopus

EmailOctopus is a simple email marketing tool that runs on the Amazon SES infrastructure. While the free plan doesn’t offer as many features as some of the other free email marketing tools on this list, it does allow a lot more emails per month than most of them.

You can send out unlimited emails from as many email addresses as you like. This makes it the perfect solution for a small agency or entrepreneur representing other brands. It also integrates with third-party apps like MailOptin, WordPress, and Zapier so you can seamlessly exchange customer data between different tools.