A 10-step guide to email marketing strategies for beginners

If you own a small business and are looking for ways to improve your brand image, chances are that you’ve heard of the term “email marketing”. You might have seen this term on a lot of email marketing strategy guides that teach you how to promote your services and vamp up your brand. And you might have thought about giving it a go at some point as well. But do you actually know what email marketing is? Is it just as simple as typing out an email and sending it out to your customers? Or is it more complex than that? Can you get it done through your Gmail account or do you need a special email marketing software for it? If you’re unsure, don’t worry. Just read on to learn more. 

What is email marketing?

Email marketing is regarded as one of the easiest and cost-effective ways to grow your business. In technical terms, email marketing is a digital marketing technique that allows you to send personalized emails to your target audience with the intention of converting promising leads into actual sales. 

The first official email marketing software was introduced back in 1998, and since then, this method has come to be known as one of the most effective ways to generate leads and convert them into sales. To this day, email marketing continues to outperform many other forms of digital marketing. statistics show that email marketing generates $42 for every $1 spent, resulting in an unbelievable ROI of 4200%. As of 2021, about 64% of small businesses have started using email marketing to reach out to customers and increase sales. Based on these details, it’s easy to see that email marketing has a significant impact on brand image and recognition. 

Why is email marketing important?

Why should you use email marketing to promote your business? Well, the numbers speak for themselves. In 2021, it was found that about 4 billion people across the world use email everyday for work or other communication purposes. Statistics show that this number is only expected to increase in the coming years, which means email is something that definitely needs to be on every business’s radar. 

Over time, many companies have begun using email marketing as part of their overall promotion strategy. In fact, most marketers believe that email is a lot more important than social media when it comes to marketing, because people in general are a lot more likely to check their email once a day and spot an interesting message in their inbox than they are to stop at a message on their social media timeline. Based on these numbers, it’s pretty clear that email marketing is a tool you definitely need in your marketing arsenal. 

If you’re wondering how to get started with email marketing, we’re here to help. Here’s a super-easy 10 step guide on email marketing strategies for beginners. 

1. Choose a suitable email marketing strategy

Sure, you can send out mass emails to your customers manually. But is that time-effective or useful? Truthfully, you’ll probably get marked for spam at some point and use up a lot of extra time that could be saved. 

If you really want to hop on the email marketing bandwagon, you need to do it right. And that means starting off with selecting a suitable email marketing software and a fool-proof strategy that meet all your needs. 

The PosterMyWall email marketing platform allows you to send professional, customized emails in just a few simple steps. With a wide range of email templates that you can customize according to your needs, PosterMyWall gives you the opportunity to create your own email, add your own content, create appropriate email schedules, set measurable goals and analyze metrics such as link clicks, open rates, and more, and reach your audience in a matter of minutes. 

2. Generate an email directory

The next step in any email marketing strategy is an extensive email directory. As a business owner, you probably already know how important it is to have long-term relationships with your customers. And an important aspect of long-term customer relationships is making sure you always have customer information at hand so you can keep conversing with your audience about all your business offerings. 

Gather up as much customer information as you can. There are multiple ways in which you can do this. Here are some great methods you can use:

1. Add a signup sheet to your social media bio and point customers toward it with the promise of a 15% discount, or a complementary item (like a tote bag) after signup. 
2. Gather customer email addresses at the checkout counter with every customer purchase. 
3. Add a pop-up sign-up sheet on your website asking customers to provide their email to get more content from you. 

Of course, it’s important to remember that customers probably won’t be very interested in giving you their information for free. So make sure you offer them a discount, giveaway, free gift, exclusive information, or any other incentive to encourage them to sign up for your email campaign. 

This sign-up sheet by the brand By Regina offers a great incentive for people signing up for their email campaign. The promise of private workshops, a free guide, and more will surely encourage people to sign up for more exclusive offers. 

Start by creating a sign-up form. Create your own sign-up form within the PosterMyWall email maker, embed it to your site and wait as the sign-ups roll in.

3. Set measurable goals for your campaign

Once your directory is ready to go, you’re prepared to start sending emails. But before you do that, ask yourself what you want to achieve with your email campaign. You can’t launch an email campaign without having measurable goals set. Are you looking to increase sales through your emails? Are you aiming to direct traffic toward your website using CTA buttons? 

A good way to go about this is to take a look at your current numbers and think about which of them would be most impacted through an email campaign. Then you should set measurable, SMART goals that can be achieved within a set period of time. Here are some ideas:

1. Measure the contribution of email click throughs toward your product or service sign ups and increase the number by 10% every month. 
2. Increase email open rate by 15% by the end of quarter through engaging content. 
3. Increase the rate of repeated purchases by 15% each quarter through exclusive offers for email recipients. 

Once you have a set of measurable goals to achieve through your campaign, you can get started on creating the right content, working on the right delivery, and sending out the perfect email. 

4. Segment your clients 

Once you have your email list ready, you need to start working on segmenting your clientele. You probably already know that It’s impossible to send out an email that every single customer will be interested in. Your customers that have different interests, and they want you to cater to those specific needs instead of having to read content that’s not relevant to their interests. 

You can segment your clientele based on what products they purchase from you and what their interests seem to be. For instance, if you own a salon and a client regularly books a specific hair treatment or haircut from your business, you’ll know that they would probably love deals for that service. Similarly, you can track which customers are visiting which pages on your website and leaving without buying.

Remember to keep records of clients who regularly avail certain offers, frequently purchase a product, or visit your website or store during sale season specifically. 

Create segmented mailing lists by using the segmentation features in your mailing list on PosterMyWall.

5. Plan out your message

Your client segments are now ready for you to communicate with them. But you can’t just send them irrelevant information and expect them to engage. Your clients want to be informed on the services they prefer. They certainly do not want to open up their inbox to lengthy emails with lots of fluff text and extra details that hold no value. 

Before you plan out your email campaign, plan out your message. Ask yourself the following questions:

• What do you want your clients to know about you? 
• Are you reminding them to book another service or make another purchase? 
• Are you rewarding them for their loyalty? 
• Are you simply letting them know what else you have to offer?

To answer all of these questions, you need to think about what the client wants. Think about the preferences of each client segment and cater your messages accordingly. Share some of your best skincare tips for clients who get regular facials. Talk about your new line of hair products for those who book monthly hairstyling appointments. 

Whatever you decide to add into your message, make sure you use the 80:20 rule for it. According to this standard, 80% of your message should be useful and personal to your client, and 20% of your message should be catered to offers, promotions, and discounts. 

6. Choose or create your own email templates

You’ve figured out what you want to say. Now, you have to figure out how you’re going to say it. The message you convey matters a lot, but what matters even more is how you convey it. No matter how important or engaging your content is, people will only click on and read it if the email itself is visually appealing and catches their attention. Which is why it is vital for you to choose a vibrant, engaging, attention-grabbing email template for your email campaign content. 

The good thing about email templates is that you don’t have to go to extra lengths to create your email layout from scratch. PosterMyWall’s email maker provides you with a wide variety of free business email templates as well as email newsletter templates catered to all sorts of niches. All you have to do is choose the one that best fits your business needs, hop onto the PosterMyWall email editor, make some necessary customizations to make it relevant to your brand and audience, and your email newsletter will be ready to go out. 

7. Create engaging promotional offers for your email 

As discussed above, a significant portion of your email campaign should contain special offers, promotions, or deals for your email recipients. Keep in mind that you want customers to keep opening the emails you send out. And what better way to keep customers coming back than to give them an offer they can’t refuse. 

Create enticing promotional offers and deals exclusively for your email recipients and add them to your email template. Make sure your offers stand out from the rest of your content and are easily noticeable. A great way of doing this is to use PosterMyWall’s wide range of sale flyers and posters and pick one that best fits your needs. Customize it according to your requirements, see if it fits well with the rest of your email template. 

Here are some ideas on what to include in your special offers:

1. A discount coupon specially for email recipients
2. 20% off on one product that customers leave in their shopping cart 
3. Exclusive tips about incoming products and services 

This campaign by EM Cosmetics does a great job of tracking customer buying behavior and gives them special deals on what they left in their shopping carts to encourage them to complete their purchase. Keep your business goals in mind to make use of this email marketing strategy.

8. Add an engaging subject line

 Sure, it’s important for the content in your email to be engaging and attention-grabbing. But there’s one more important aspect of an email that many people usually overlook, and that is the subject line. 

Let’s be honest. How many of us judge an email based on its subject line? We’ll give it a quick glance, and if it doesn’t seem interesting enough, we’ll scroll away without giving it a second thought. Your customers are very likely to do the same with your emails if you don’t have an engaging subject line. 

Head over to the PosterMyWall email creator and follow these tips to help you draft an attention-grabbing subject line:

1. Make it sound friendly and inviting. If the tone of the subject line is conversational, it’ll draw more attention. 
2. Entice curiosity through your subject line. Ask a question or make a statement that draws people in and makes them want to open your email for the answer. 
3. Add a fun number. Quantifying your customers’ needs not only makes them easier to understand, but easier to obtain as well. 

If you’re promoting an offer or looking to get your customers’ attention, here are some engaging subject lines you can use:

1. We saw you checking us out….
2. Time’s almost up! 
3. Here’s that discount you wanted… 

And once your subject line is done, your email is ready to be sent out. 

9. Measure your results 

So you sent out your first email, and you’re probably feeling pretty proud of yourself, as you should! You drafted an engaging email, added some vibrant, eye-catching content, set appropriate measurements, and sent it out with success. But that doesn’t mean your work is done. 

Once your campaign is well underway, it’s up to you to make sure it’s giving you the results you need. Your campaign isn’t effective unless you’re keeping tabs on the results and seeing how well it goes. Measure the outcome of your campaign using the metrics you set above and keep adjusting your goals accordingly. PosterMyWall’s email marketing platform lets you measure and see results for metrics such as link clicks, open rate, and more. 

10. Evaluate your mistakes before your next round of emails

Congratulations! You just created your first email campaign. But the work’s not done yet. This was just the first of many more emails to be sent out. And before you get started on your next campaign, there are a few things you need to look at. 

First attempts are never perfect, so it’s okay if you didn’t quite reach your goals yet. The key here is to review, revise, and reattempt. Review the mistakes you made during your first campaign, as well as any redundancies you might have noticed. Ask yourself the following questions:

1. If the open rate is low, is your subject line engaging enough? 
2. Did you segment your clientele efficiently enough and are they responding to your offers?
3.  Are there people who click on your offer and leave before making a purchase, and therefore increase the bounce rate? 

Evaluate all the questions above to see what you can amend before you roll out your next round of emails. Keep tabs on your customers to see if they show changes in spending behavior, so you can resegment them before the next campaign. Keep adjusting your email list to remove inactive members, and continue to offer exclusive offers to people to get new signups. Reconsider all your methods before your next campaign so that your metrics keep going up, and your business keeps reaping the rewards. 

Get started on your email marketing campaign today

Now that you know the basics of how to set up your own email marketing strategy, it’s time for you to give it a try yourself. So head over to PosterMyWall to try out the new business email marketing software and find everything from email newsletter templates to our email template builder and so much more.