First Steps For Your Email Funnel

Many of us remember the dial-up internet days, when sending an email was a bit amazing – instantaneous, free communication! Despite the many advances in technology since those mid-90s days, email still remains the cornerstone of business and personal communication.

When figuring out how to create email campaigns, one of the most important things to remember is that, regardless of your platform, there are some key things to remember as you proceed.

5 Key Elements to Your First Email Campaign

1. Remember why Email Marketing is so High-Value

The new and exciting social media aspects of marketing have received a lot of attention, but according to Optinmonster, it still receives three times less ROI compared to email marketing. After all, 91% of consumers are checking email every single day, and the numbers are high for the way people spend money when they are shopping through emailed offers.

2. Choose Your Software and Build Your Email List

ThinkFlame works with both ActiveCampaign and HubSpot, two of the industry-leading softwares that are available to help you organize and send your email marketing efforts. These softwares help you create and manage a list of those to whom you want to send emails. This should be a curated list of those who have already in some way expressed interest in your company.

These lists are generated in a variety of ways. According to BiznessApps, you can create your list by offering a free newsletter or product updates to everyone who visits your website, retaining information from catalog orders, or asking for email addresses at all in-person and online Point of Sale moments.

All of these strategies take longer than simply purchasing access to an email list, but generating your own list creates the kind of powerful ROI that email marketing is capable of achieving.

ThinkFlame Blog - Building Blocks

3. Organize the Flow of Emails, from Follow-Up to Major Offers

Email marketing software allows you to send follow-up emails as soon as someone joins a newsletter or an email list, and this email is crucial. If you’ve promised them a discount code or another offer, make sure that it is easy to find and arrives in a timely manner.

That being said, the single follow-up email cannot be the end of the campaign. Once you’ve identified your goals for this email marketing campaign, it is important to automate triggers to send other offer or information emails throughout the campaign to keep your customers thinking about you. Even customers who ignore a first email may find the second or third email compelling enough to make an intended purchase.

One easy win at the beginning of an email campaign is to deliver what you offer: if you say that no more than one email will come through per month, make sure you don’t send multiple emails a week instead. Leads are being exposed to other email marketing all the time, so they have no reason to be patient with misleading or misrepresentative promises.

4. Track Analytics for Quick Pivot Potential

Email marketing requires an understanding of the analytics provided by the software, and those analytics can be key to making sure your campaign is effective. 

Kissmetrics points out that tracking open rate, click-through rate, and unsubscribes can give you a wealth of information. For example, you can review the amount of people who open your email makes it clear they have some interest in either the company or the subject line. While click-through indicates a strong lead even if they didn’t purchase yet, and unsubscribes are a pretty clear indicator that leads are fed up with either the amount of or content of email marketing efforts.

Combine your varies click and open rates in an AB test with your emails format and tone to make great decisions!

With these metrics at your fingertips, you don’t have to stick with the plan if the plan includes a bunch more of the kinds of emails that got a ton of unsubscribe requests. You can note what emails received the most positive views and the highest Click Through Rate (CTR) and work to build on the success of those ventures.

5. Turn Metrics into a Segmented List

In addition to pivoting a larger campaign, the analytics from email automation allow you to make a segmented list. Create specific smaller lists that correlate with what customers are expecting to see. Whether a daily digest of new products or a weekly special offer, these segmented lists allow you to refine who sees which emails based on their expressed preferences.

This segmentation makes each email more effective because it goes to leads who are most likely to find it helpful.

Tying Your First Email Campaign Together

While email marketing has grown by leaps and bounds over the years, one of the most valuable assets in creating your first email marketing campaign is a knowledgeable marketing agency.

For assistance in identifying the key goals and strategies for your first email marketing campaign, contact us.

Book Your Free Consultation Today

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