Basic Email Marketing – Lonecrowlab

Email Marketing Basics

Always Have a Goal
- To build loyalty, educate or drive traffic to your site either to sell your product or increase your reach potential.
- Also think what goal you want to set, either grow your business, sell a product or increase your email list.
- Having a goal will help you construct a better email because you will know which or what plan you will do.
Don’t Always Be Selling
- Make your email interesting to your customer like giving tips and tricks, educational information or news. This will help you increase trust and value to your customer. This will surely increase your open rate as they will unlikely put your email into trash or spam.
- Send what you have promised at sign-up. If subscribers signed up for news then they should at least have more often news emails than your promotional emails.
Mail Regularly
- You want your customer to think that you are active. It will help increase your presence to them.
- Always include a mix of image, text, and links back to your website or product.
- Always include a postal address and unsubscribe link so that it will prevent your mail from going to their spam folders. (Mailchimp does this automatically)
Build High-Quality Email List
- Don’t buy email addresses. This is really a bad idea as they will have a high chance of unsubscribing to your website. Worst is talk badly to your website on their friends or social media.
- Don’t rush your email list, make it slow and steady. This will really help you especially if you are just using the free version of MailChimp because it only allows up to 2000 subscribers.
- Don’t rush creating an email campaign as this will just give you low-quality email. This will then have a negative effect on your subscribers. A higher quality email will have a higher percentage of engagement.
Use Email Service Provider (ESP)
- This will greatly save your time and can easily plan your strategy.
- Almost every ESP also provide automation, A/B split test, analytics and email templates which relatively increase your email activity and quality.

Take Action

Brainstorm your first THREE EMAIL LIST IDEAS!

Go to competitors websites and check how they are capturing their emails.
Check what kind of promotion they are giving in exchange for their email.

Starting up with MailChimp

Sign up for free – https://login.mailchimp.com/signup/
Pricing Plans – https://mailchimp.com/pricing/

4 Types of Campaign

Regular Campaign – standard HTML with a plain text template
Plain Text – simple plain text without picture or formatting
A/B Test – Can send up to three versions of email that will help you in identifying key metrics that cause better open rate, higher ctr, and more
Automated e-mail – helps you stay connected with your customers every step.

LEADS

What are the Leads?

In a sales context, a lead refers to contact with a potential customer, also known as a “prospect”. Depending on the organization, the definition of the term “lead” may vary. For some companies, a “lead” is a contact already determined to be a prospective customer, whereas other companies consider a “lead” to be any sales contact. But what remains the same across definitions is that a lead will potentially become a future client. Sales teams, therefore, have a responsibility to convert a maximum amount of leads to maintain a good conversion rate. Source here.

Types of Leads

Cold – Who knows nothing about your company or show no interest in your product.
Warm – Shows interest in your company either by following in social media, sign up for newsletter and more. They show interest in your product but does not fully trust or convinced to buy your service or product.
Hot – The best type of leads because these are people that needed something from your website and they are the closest to your sales cycle.

Why email marketing is important for leads?

The visual represents with or without email marketing. If people are coming to your site and you’re not capturing each into an opt-in form then what you are doing is you are just capturing the hot leads because hot leads are only your 1% client. The vast majority of visitors are not going to make a purchase the first time they visit your site. That potential client is still researching or will make a decision soon. The model to the right should be your goal because these tells that you will try to turn these warm and cold leads into hot leads. You can warm them with your services, promotions, high-quality contents, and products via email marketing and then convert them to hot lead or a sale. An example is giving quality content, promo codes or coupon.

How do I grow my Email list?

Promotional giveaway – To start with try to ask your self “What’s a challenge that I can solve for my ideal audience, and how can I put that into a mini-training or a mini-giveaway so that people will find VALUE from it.

Identify the Challenge
1. A challenge that you can solve for your ideal audience.
2. The type of media you’ll use (eBook, video, checklist, infographic, promo code, etc.)
3. When you’re going to get it done. Assign your self a deadline, mark it on your calendar.
Promotional Giveaway Ideas – Analyze which one performs best for you, then perfect it and keep going.
- eBooks
- Free Reports
- Checklists
- Free Product
- Webinar
Where to capture visitors?
- Exit Pop-up
- Timed Pop-up
- One of your section of the page
- Sticky header
What should I put in my pop up?
- A discount coupon and urgency ex. ( Sign up now for 25% off today only 11:23:00)
- A free stuff ex. ( Get Free Shipping + Bonus Limited edition mug with your first order)
- Contest ex. ( Sign up for our monthly drawing to win an iPhone)
- Birthday Club – let your customer opt-in their email plus birthday in exchange for free stuff on their birthday.

A/B Split Testing

Subject Line – Most important to email as bad subject line leads to no email opening at all.
From Name – Using personal name has a higher open rate than a company name
Content – You can test a different combination of images, colors or text. This is the CTR (Click through rate) depends.
Sent Time – Based on experience, high open rate are Wednesday to Thursday between 10:00 and noon. These days are mostly the common downtime for people in a week.

The intrigue about a special offer works more effectively than specifics. See example
- Specifics: OR 32% and CTR 6%
  - Name, 15% discount for you for ABC products!
- Intrigue: OR 36% and CTR 9%
  - Name, we have an exclusive offer for you! Link
Name Matters! Use this conditional merge tag in your campaign content section: more info here
- *|IF:FNAME|*Hi*|TITLE:FNAME|*,*|ELSE:|*Hello,*|END:IF|*
- Using no-name ex. (Spend your vacation in Turkey!)
  - OR 33%
  - CTR 10%
- Using the name merge tag ex. (Name, spend your vacation in Turkey!)
  - OR 37.5%
  - CTR 19%
Short subject lines with a simple call to actions win!
- Long subject lines ex. ( Don’t be afraid of taxes! Check out these tax deduction ideas! )
  - OR 45.3%
  - 13.8%
- Short subject lines ex. ( 2 minutes could save you $1,000 in taxes! )
Reduce content blocks will increase CTR by 3%.
- People don’t have much time to read emails. Less is more.
Hard sell vs Soft Sell
- Hard Sell ex. ( Email Content = Sales pitch and link directly to your sales funnel landing page. )
  - CTR 3%
- Soft Sell ex. ( Email Content = Value content that includes a link to your sales funnel landing page. )
  - CTR 8%

Best Subject lines

There is NO perfect subject line, but A/B split testing will help you get close to it! Follow these tips to finding the best subject lines:

Speak to a specific benefit your audience will gain by opening the email.
Curiosity peak the interest of subscribers without giving away too much information, leading to a high open rate.
Urgency and scarcity. Tell the reader they should open it now.
Directly stating your subject line is a great way to convince them to open and learn more

Top 5 Subject lines

Thank you! – 19% OR
Seriously, get this book! – 17% OR
I’m pulling the plug… – 17.3% OR
7 Ways to Increase Amazon Sales – 18% oR
Twitter Lead Generation Ads (Your first 3 steps) – 18.5% OR

Bonus – 22 funny pet GIF – 21% open rate

Top Brand subject lines

You don’t need to think a lot for subject lines, just subscribe to the top brand email list. They have marketers who work all day for a perfect subject line. Use it and tweak them for your brand.

Warby Parker: “Uh-oh, your prescription is expiring” ( autoresponder )
Rent the Runway: “Happy Birthday Lindsay – Surprise Inside!” ( used *|FNAME|*)
Refinery29: “The broke girl’s guide to a luxury vacation” (how to emails)
Eater Boston: “Where to Drink Beer Right Now” (list emails)
BuzzFeed: “Not Cool, Guys!!!” (curiosity)

Email Content

What content should I put in my email? Unfortunately, there’s not a proven algorithm for knowing what will resonate with your users or readers. The best option is always to test a variety of email content over a period of time.

Research

Your competition – Subscribe to the email list of your competition
The pros – Subscribe toa large corporation as they have professional marketers that they are paying every month.

67% of consumers consider clear, detailed images to carry more weight than product information or customer ratings.

Image of a happy female got a 67% higher ctr than course screenshot or customer review screenshots
Human photos in your emails add a personal touch and connectability to your content.
Must be a responsive email – Can be viewed on different devices.

6 Rules of the call to action

Don’t put a call to action in an image as they might not be loaded. If you will then make sure to put a backup link either by a button or a text.
Minimize the number of email call to action.
Make Call to action button simple.
Make your email call to action stand out.
1. Make it bold
2. Make sure it has white space around it.
3. Try using arrow around your CTA.
4. Find a color that is striking like red or blue.
5. Ask your subscriber ex. ( Click this link to see your discount. Click here for more info. )
Segment and Tailor your Email CTA.
- ex. Sign up for TEXA’S boot camp.
Make sure to lead CTA to the right page with high content value.

A classic rule of email marketing:

80% useful content
20% of sales content

High sales content will lead to a high number of spam complaints and unsubscribe.

Analytics & Optimization

Opened – how great subject line
Clicked – how your content is performing. If it is low then you should revise new content and improve your call to action.
Bounce – emails that was not delivered.

How to increase open rate?

Pre-headers – This content is the preview line in people’s inboxes!
A/B Split test the TIME and DAY to send
Interesting content – High quality content
Segmentation and Personalization of newsletter.

How to increase the click rate?

Test for optimal content structure – Review Click Maps to see what layout works.
A/B split testing of template and blocks – See what subscribers do or where they click the most. Which content or block and images work together.
Hyper-segment your email list, even more, to see who gets the best CTR – Segment based on sex, address, etc.

How to decrease the bounce rate?

The main reason for increasing Bounce Rate is a non-valid email address, therefore it will just bounce back or in short, not delivered. To decrease it, simply click the bounced and delete the email that was bounced on a separate window.

How to decrease the unsubscribe rate?

Here are some additional strategies to help you reduce your email newsletter unsubscribe rate:

Content Quality and Relevance

Personalization: Tailor your content to individual subscribers based on their interests, preferences, or behaviors.
Segmentation: Divide your subscribers into groups based on demographics, engagement levels, or other factors to send more relevant content.
A/B Testing: Experiment with different subject lines, content formats, and calls to action to determine what resonates best with your audience.
Value Proposition: Clearly communicate the benefits of subscribing and how your content will solve their problems or meet their needs.

Email Frequency and Timing

Optimal Frequency: Find the right balance between sending enough emails to stay top of mind without overwhelming subscribers.
Timing: Consider your audience’s time zone and daily routines to send emails at the most opportune times.
Unsubscribe Link: Make it easy for subscribers to unsubscribe, but don’t make it too prominent.

Engagement and Deliverability

Engagement Metrics: Track open rates, click-through rates, and other metrics to measure the effectiveness of your emails.
Deliverability: Ensure your emails are reaching subscribers’ inboxes by maintaining a clean email list and following best practices for email deliverability.
Double Opt-in: Require subscribers to confirm their email address after signing up to reduce spam and improve list quality.

Call to Action (CTA)

Clear and Concise: Make your CTA easy to understand and relevant to the content of your email.
Strong Value Proposition: Highlight the benefits of taking the desired action.
Limited Time Offers: Create a sense of urgency to encourage immediate action.

Mobile Optimization

Large Fonts and Clear Images: Use easy-to-read fonts and high-quality images that are visible on smaller screens.

Responsive Design: Ensure your emails are optimized for viewing on mobile devices, as a significant portion of email is opened on smartphones and tablets.

Time to TAKE ACTION

Because you already know the basic, try doing it now in MailChimp.

Create and Send your first campaign.
In a few days or after your campaign, go to Reports Tab.
Study its Analytics
Identify the Key Metrics, if it has a low open rate then try changing your subject and if it has a lower click-through rate then try modifying the content. Check the heat map to know which part they often ended up.
Use the improvement in your next email campaign and just repeat the process