Email Marketing Guide

As a newbie, I had to explore a proper roadmap to start with my email marketing journey.

Unfortunately, I was not able to find something exceptional. However, now that I have command over the field, I took it upon myself to make a clearer roadmap for newbies.

Let us start the main discussion:

1. Pick the Best Email Marketing Service Provider:

H-Supertools Free Email Validation & Extraction

To help you achieve your digital marketing dreams for free. It has tons of tools, including the ones for email marketing given below:

• Email Validation Tool

• Bulk Email Validation Tool •

• Email TXT Extraction Tool

The first tool helps you validate your email address. The second one allows you to validate your entire email list. And

the Email Text Extractor extracts all the email addresses from any text copied from public websites and files.

H-Supertools has tons of digital marketing tools,

including keyword tools, image editors, and more. It’s free forever because I accept donations from kind people like you and get paid for running ads. I believe you must give it a try to boost your email markeing ROI.

Email Warmup Schedule Generator

It’s yet another tool by H-Supertools to help you set the schedule for your emails to boost your email reputation. The SMTP reputation is important for getting your emails delivered to the recipients

A higher score increases the chances of emails being delivered to recipients on the ISP’s network. Using the Email Warmup Schedule Generator is easy. All you need is input the number of emails you want to send. And that’s just it!

But you’ll use these tools if you have an email list. Let’s take on how to build it now.

2. Build Your Email List: Create Lead Magnets, Opt-In Form & More

After figuring out which ESP to go with, the next step involves focusing on creating an email list out of scratch.

Different digital marketers utilize different strategies to create an audience-oriented email list. That said, some of the tips that you can utilize for creating a large email list are:

• Create awesome CTAs

• Use Lead Magnets to attract email addresses

• Build engaging opt-ins

• Add humor where needed

• And most importantly, add value to your audience

For lead magnets and email ideas, you can always use Keyword Research Tool. It helps you find related keywords. And then you can get ideas for helping your audience get the answer or enjoy the solution to their problem. Here’s how you do it:

• Go to Keyword Research Tool

• Feed in your main idea for email

• Get related keywords

• Create organized topics based on the keywords

And start writing emails based on the topic clusters. Why? It’s because people are already searching for those topics. With that said, let’s get into the tips in detail now.

2.1. Create Personalized Call to Action Button for Each Landing Page

Many newbie marketers make the mistake of using the same Call to Action (CTA) button for almost every landing or blog page.

That is an outdated practice!

To increase your email list, you need to design a personalized and properly customized CTA for each landing page.

For instance, if you have a blog page related to weight loss tips, you can create a CTA button including a free Weight Losing Tips Resource. Everyone loves free stuff and I am pretty sure you will get a lot of emails this way.

It is always preferred that you make relevant calls-to-action buttons if you want to build an email list empire within a short time.

2.2. Utilize a Lead Magnet

Creating effective and relevant lead magnets means catching the attention of thousands of bees to a beehive.

No, I am not kidding at all!

A lead magnet could easily warm up your empty email list and fill it up with hundreds of potential subscribers and

customers.

The thing here to consider is how one could make an attention grabbing lead magnet and this is where I could help you out.

Have a look at how to create an attractive lead magnet to increase your chances of getting more emails:

2.2.1. Tips to Create an Appealing Lead Magnet:

To make a lead magnet that can have an instant impact on a user, keep the following things in mind:

Figure Out What Your User Needs

Identifying the needs and requirements of your buyers can make everything clear about creating a great lead magnet.

Try to identify what your user demands and build your lead magnet according to it.

Keep it Solution-Oriented

Next thing to follow is to keep the lead magnet as practical as possible.

No matter what you decide to add to the magnet like a free offer, it should be able to solve the problem of the user.

It will increase the trust of a user on your brand and they will happily leave their credentials on your landing page.

Keep the Offer Digital and Easy to Consume

Do not start with offering a physical product as a beginner digital marketer. Add content, which a user can easily consume.

It would be better if you add a small PDF about solving a specific problem.

You can also include infographics, videos, and other relevant digital stuff that your user can easily understand.

Keep Future Content in Mind

Your lead magnet can have no impact on your user if you do not intend to offer value in your future content.

The only reason you are offering a free lead magnet is to make a subscriber believe that the next content would even be better than this one.

So, keep this factor in mind while finalizing a lead magnet offer.

Think of Lead Magnet as a Stepping Stone to a Paid Offer

Last but not the least, while creating the offer, think of it as a stepping stone to your paid offer.

Utilize your copywriting skills to make a user intrigued enough about the stuff included in your paid promotion.

With this approach, the lead magnet you create can not only help you build a large email list but will also become your potential customer list in near future.

After getting done with a lead magnet, test it on your landing page and see whether it is working or not.

2.3. Create an Engaging Opt-In Form

Another way to build a large email list is to properly optimize the opt-in form.

You simply cannot ignore the importance of an opt-in form for your business as it works as a gateway to bringing potential subscriptions.

Here are some of the tips you can keep in mind while creating an opt-in form for your business:

Do Not Compromise on the Design

The design should be attractive enough to grab the attention of the user immediately.

It should stand out from your landing page as this would compel the user to put the information with ease and convenience.

Keep the Form Simple Yet Intuitive

Simplicity attracts people and that is what you should do while creating your opt-in form.

Keeping it simple yet intuitive enough will help the users put their information without facing any problem.

You could add boxes asking for First Name, Last Name, and Email address only.

Doing this will help the user fill the form within a short time.

Keep Relevancy in Mind While Creating the Form

While you would want to keep the form simple and intuitive, make sure that it is relevant to the stuff you are offering.

Deceiving your users can give you short term benefits, but it can have adverse impacts on your business in the longer run.

Ensure the Flow of the Form

Before going live with the opt-in form, test it yourself and ask some of your co-workers to fill it.

Besides, you should keep track of the flow of the whole process.

For that purpose, confirm that as soon as a user submit all details, the offer gets delivered along with a Thank You message.

Keep the whole process as professional as possible to increase your chances of building a large email list out of scratch.

2.4. Add Humor/Sarcasm in Your Calls-to-Action Copies

The last strategy you could try to spice up your lead magnets and opt-in forms is to inject some humor or sarcasm into your CTA copies.

Gone are the days when users could sign up for your offer just with a “Yes” or “No”.

You have to think out of the box if you want to create an active email list including potential customers.

I really enjoy reading email copies that have some kind of humor or sarcasm injected into them.

For instance, I once read an email related to Weight Gaining Tips and one CTA button was like, “No thanks! I do not want to increase my weight.” Followed by it was a button saying something like, “I want to increase it. Sign Me Up!”

See, people are not robots and they do not prefer taking action on robotic emails.

Add a touch of humor and sarcasm into your final offers and enjoy the magic of increasing your email list perfectly.

Once you get successful in building a Great Active Email list, the next step goes as under:

3. Start Adding Email Addresses to Your Tool

After collecting email addresses from the strategies we have utilized above, you will have to add them to your email marketing tool.

Different tools will have different options to upload the collected email list.

The most common one is to add collected emails into a spreadsheet and then upload them directly to a specific tool.

I will leave it to your preference and convenience as you can decide better on adding email addresses as per your will.

After adding them to your email marketing tool, you can make multiple labels and segment the email list to target them perfectly.

4. Set Up Your Welcome Email

They say, “First impression is the last impression.”

Well, I am not a big fan of this quote, but it works like a charm

when we talk about setting up a welcome email.

Your welcome email acts as the first impression on your subscriber. If it is not impressive enough, then the user will lose all the interest just by looking at it.

So, you need to make sure that your welcome email hits the user right in the heart and forces him to read it until the end.

Have a look at this simple yet engaging welcome email from Astrill VPN:

Another example of a welcome email that looks quite impressive is from Serpfox that I received recently. Have a look at it:

From these two examples, it is clear that a welcome email must start with some sort of greetings.

Secondly, you could see that the color pattern of CTA buttons in both examples is quite engaging.

CTAs are up to the point and asking the user (me) to take any action as soon as possible.

That is what a welcome email is all about.

You will get better at setting up creative welcome emails as soon as you gain some experience in this field.

5. Create or Choose From the Best Email Templates

Do not panic even if you cannot design beautiful emails.

Hub iQ will make you one hell of a designer and no I am not joking at all.

I still remember not being able to design something that could actually force my readers to take the action.

However, the email templates library of hub iQ did help me a lot and now I know how to pitch my users just by doing some tweaks into the already built templates.

Some tips that you could follow to enjoy making beautiful emails with hub iQ go as under:

Look for a Clean and Eye-Catching Layout

While choosing an email template from the library, make sure that you look for a clean and simple layout.

It will help you make easy adjustments to the template and you can make changes to it according to your preferences.

Doing this will help deliver your message right into the reader’s mind without any hurdle.

Choose a Mobile Responsive Template

No one has the time to check every email via desktop. To be honest, I prefer checking my emails via smartphone rather than my laptop.

So, when you know that most people prefer opening emails on their smartphones, you should opt for mobile responsive templates.

You will find hundreds of templates that are built while keeping mobile responsiveness in mind on hub iQ.

Make a wise choice here and it will pay you off for sure.

Customizing the Template:

After selecting a clean and sleek template with mobile responsive feature, the next step is to customize it.

While customizing the template, keep following things in your mind:

Put your business logo on the top of your email and if possible link it to the homepage of your website’s homepage.

Choose color patterns that align with your business’s logo.

Make an email footer where you will put your Business Name, Contact Information, and links to your official social media profiles.

Once done with the basics, simply make a copy of this design and save it in hub iQ’s dashboard.

It will allow you to use the same template again and again with little changes according to the subject and body of your future emails.

That is how you could create a reusable template within a few steps. And now is the time to learn how to write converting emails!

6. Learn the Art of Email Copywriting: Catchy Titles, Images & Body

The most interesting and time taking section of email marketing is to learn the art of copywriting while pitching the users.

Your email will have no effect on the user if you do not learn copywriting skills.

Email copywriting simply means writing in a way that could compel a user to make an action.

More precisely, it should stand out among a large inbox and should force a person to open the email.

The use of appropriate titles, images, and writing the Body part effectively could easily land you many potential clients and subscriptions.

However, “Rome was not built in a day” and that is the case with email copywriting.

You need to practice this art as much as you can and even so, this field will require you to gain as much knowledge as you can.

Some of the tips that I would give to newbie email marketers about improving their copywriting skills include:

6.1. Identify the “Who” and “What”

The biggest questions to ask yourself before writing an email copy are:

Who you are writing to? and

What do you want them to do after they open the email?

As for the “Who” part, you need to understand your targeted audience and how they will behave after receiving your email.

Similarly, for “What” part you need to focus on what you are trying to sell to them.

Without identifying Who and What, it will seem like you are rowing a solo boat in a vast ocean without any direction.

So, take out some time and understand your audience and then your offers before starting an email.

6.2. Keep Subject Lines Short

Subject lines or headlines of an email act as the first impression you make on your audience.

Keeping them short, concise, and to the point will help a user understand it clearly and the chances of your email getting opened will increase sufficiently.

According to recent research, it has been found that subject lines ranging from 6 to 10 words have an opening ratio of around 25%.

As the word count increases to 25 words, the email opening rate comes down to 10%.

Keep these statistics in mind while creating a subject line and make it as clear and engaging as possible.

6.3. Make a Clear Promise

Analyze the offer you are making and then pitch the user by making a bold promise in the subject line.

With that, you will have an instant impact on the mind of users and they will be compelled to open the email to see whether you are fulfilling your promise or not.

Some catchy subject lines I have used over the years to attract the audience include:

• Learn how I lost my weight within a month with 5 Proven Ways!

• These 5 habits have helped me increase my productivity to a whole new level!

• Some interesting facts about “The Office U.S.” You must know!

You see? I have not used any fancy words to make the subject lines look complex.

I have just stated the facts regarding what my content is really about and it worked like a charm.

6.4. Focus on Aligning Subject Line with Body Copy

To understand it better, you first need to divide your email copy into three parts, i.e.

• The Subject Line,

• Body Copy and

• Call to Action.

Now, after making use of an eye-catchy subject line, make sure that your body copy aligns with it.

Do not make the mistake of promising something else in the subject line and then negating from it while writing the copy.

For instance,

If the subject line goes as, “Learn how I lost my weight

within a month with 5 Proven Ways!”

You can go with a body copy, such as:

Tired of trying different weight losing remedies and not getting any success? I present a practical process of losing 5 to 10 pounds within a month with my secret 5 steps formula. Implement it and see astonishing results after a month.

This body copy is coherent with the subject line I mentioned above. It is increasing the curiosity of the user, which will in return increase the chances of taking action on a CTA button.

Alignment is necessary and if you do not come right to the main point, you will surely lose a potential subscriber or a customer.

6.5. Focus on Using Relevant Images

Make good use of relevant images in your email copy where possible.

I am not telling you to stuff irrelevant images as it will have no impact on your audience.

Use it where it seems like you are trying to explain something via visuals and graphics.

It will help your readers convert into customers right after they open your email.

7. Send Your Emails at the Best Time

Again it is important to note the time you want to send emails to your potential list.

For that purpose, you need to focus more and more on understanding the demographics of your audience.

Identifying the region they live in could make things easier for you.

Fortunately, you can utilize some techniques in tools like Constant Contact to have an idea of the best time to send an email.

For that purpose, you can consider Email Sent History while comparing low open rate campaigns with that of high open rates.

This will give you an idea of when to send the emails to a specific audience.

Similarly, you can open the campaigns with highest opening rates and review their open report to see at what time your subscribers opened your email.

Practice with different time zones and it will surely help you increase your opening rate and result in more subscribers.

8. Track Your Results: A/B Testing, CTR & Open Rates

Keeping a track of your email campaign will give you insights into how well you can manage your future email strategies.

Make sure that you keep track of your results including CTR (Click Through Ratio) and open rates, etc.

Utilize the following things to get better results in your next email campaign

8.1. A/B Testing:

A/B testing actually means using different versions of the same email copy to see which one is performing better.

You can use tools like hub iQ to do A/B testing.

Based on the results from this testing, you can choose the best version and carry on with it accordingly.

8.2. Open Rates:

The average percentage of open rates revolves around 10% to 15% according to the data shared by Campaign Monitor.

If we take that into perspective, out of 100 emails you send, only 10 or 15 will get opened.

To optimize open rates percentage, you must focus on the subject line of your email and keep the whole copy as aligned as possible.

8.3. CTR (Click-Through Rate)

With the average CTR of only 2.5% as per Campaign Monitor, you should optimize your Call to Action buttons as much as possible.

Doing this will increase your CTR rate and will eventually get you potential leads.

9. Improve Along the Way

“Practice Makes a Man Perfect!”

Focus on this quote when you practice with different email marketing strategies and campaigns.

Keep learning the art of email copywriting if you want your campaign to be a successful one.

Moreover, you could do split testing (A/B testing), use storytelling in the body copy of your email, and optimize your CTA buttons to improve along the way.

A time will come when you will get the ideal open rate and CTR percentage. Moreover, you will be able to manage email campaigns on a large scale easily.