The #1 Ridiculously Simple Way To Build Your Company Is Via Email Marketing

A form of direct marketing called email marketing employs customized emails to inform your email list about your goods or services. Also, it can be used to persuade your email list to carry out a certain activity, such as making a purchase, scheduling a demo, signing up for a trial, or signing up for an event.

Let's get started with the most thorough introduction to email marketing available online.

That is a really successful digital marketing tactic. Prospects are converted into customers with effective email marketing, and one-time purchases are transformed into loyal, repeat customers.

Email marketing regularly outperforms all other marketing channels as the most direct and efficient way to engage with prospects, nurture them, and convert them into customers.

We'll walk you through the whole process of setting up your email marketing funnel in this tutorial so that you can produce leads and sales around-the-clock.

For individuals who are prepared to commit to email marketing, this handbook is for you. If you're not sure, you might want to read our article explaining why you should start building an email list immediately!

Using this comprehensive manual on email marketing, you'll comprehend:

1. How to create an email list of qualified prospects and customers.

2. How to make your emails more optimized for click-through and open rates (CTR).

3. How to automate the procedure for converting prospects into clients and nurturing your leads.

All right?

the significance of email marketing

We've answered the most important question, what is email marketing, but we haven't yet discussed why it's so crucial for your company. Now let's discuss that.

Email is still the most efficient way to nurture leads and increase client loyalty, despite the rise of social media and unwanted spam email (which is never a good marketing approach).

The following are the top 3 reasons why email marketing should be one of your top priorities:

1. The most popular form of communication is email. Did you realize that 99% of consumers at the very least check their email daily? No other form of communication can make that claim.

2. Your list belongs to you. Your account on any social networking site, together with all of your followers and postings, may be suspended or terminated at any moment, for any reason, and without warning. Your email list is your own, though. Nobody can take away from you those leads.

3. Email simply generates more sales. Spending on products purchased by email subscribers is 138% more than that of non-subscribers. Email marketing actually has a 4400% ROI (return on investment). That's a lot! Also, the average order value of an email is at least three times larger than that of social media, so stop thinking that social media converts even better.

The best method for generating internet sales is simply email. Now that you are aware of the significance of email marketing, let's explore the most effective approaches.

Glossary of Email Marketing

Email marketing has its own vocabulary that can sound confusing. But don’t worry! We’ve included a simple email marketing glossary to help you learn the key terms so you can plan your email marketing strategy easily.

Subscriber: anyone who has signed up or opted in to receive email from you

Opt in (verb): choosing to receive marketing emails from a person, brand, or business

Optin (noun): an incentive for people to subscribe to your list; also called a lead magnet

List: a collection of email subscribers; a list may contain multiple groups or segments

Group: a category of subscribers within a list set up by the brand or business

Segment: a category of subscribers created automatically based on their subscription activity, such as timezone, engagement rate, purchase history, and more

A segment is a group of members that is automatically produced depending on their subscription activities, including timezone, engagement rate, past purchases, and other factors.

A series of pre-written emails that are sent out automatically in response to subscriber actions is known as automation; it is also referred to as an email sequence or an autoresponder.

A one-time message you send to certain individuals or groups on your list is referred to as a broadcast.

A signup form known as an opt-in allows visitors to join your email list; Popups, inline, fullscreen, slider, floating, and more kinds of opt-in are possible.

This brings us to the next thing to do.

2. Include an email service provider (ESP): An ESP enables you to segment your audience, compile a list, and send email messages to that audience. Also, you can monitor the outcomes to tweak upcoming campaigns.

An effective ESP should link with your other marketing tools, enabling you to set things up to run automatically as your lead pool expands.

There are many email service providers available, but we remove the guesswork and make it really simple to select the one that is best for you and your objectives. We'll provide you with a list of our top ESP picks later on in this guide.

Once you've completed those two processes, all that's left is to polish your lists and your messaging in order to connect with your audience. Also, your email provider will allow you to automate various tasks, which will make your life lot simpler.

A ready participant? Let's get going!

Expansion of Your Email List

The majority of people place an optin form on their website and wait for people to sign up when they want to grow an email list. Sadly, this tactic frequently fails to provide the desired results.

You need to draw them in with an alluring offer if you want to expand your email list. A lead magnet is required.

How do lead magnets work?

In exchange for an email address, you can give away something great as a lead magnet, often known as an optin bribe. The majority of lead magnets are digital resources like PDFs, MP3 audio files, or movies that you can make yourself at little to no expense. It doesn't have to cost you anything to create them.

A standalone page with an opt-in form that users may use to join your email list is known as a "landing page."

Using Email Marketing

1. Begin by making a list: The basic truth is that if you don't have someone to send email marketing campaigns to, you can't do it. Moreover, keep in mind that email marketing will not be effective if the wrong people are not on your list.

In order to increase your email list with your target audience, you must collect leads. OptinMonster is the best tool available for this:

The best lead generation program in the world is called OptinMonster. We give companies the tools they need to quickly and easily design beautiful optin campaigns without any coding knowledge.

Finally, by employing our extremely sophisticated targeting techniques, you can show these advertisements to the appropriate individuals at precisely the correct stage of their customer journey.

As a result, you can significantly boost the number of high-quality leads on your list and notice a sharp rise in your business's earnings. Also, over 30 of the most well-known email service providers are integrated with OptinMonster.

Our next move is made possible by this.

2. Include an email service provider (ESP): An ESP enables you to segment your audience, compile a list, and send email messages to that audience. Also, you can monitor the outcomes to tweak upcoming campaigns.

An effective ESP should link with your other marketing tools, enabling you to set things up to run automatically as your lead pool expands.

There are many email service providers available, but we remove the guesswork and make it really simple to select the one that is best for you and your objectives. We'll provide you with a list of our top ESP picks later on in this guide.

Once you've completed those two processes, all that's left is to polish your lists and your messaging in order to connect with your audience. Also, your email provider will allow you to automate various tasks, which will make your life lot simpler.

A ready participant? Let's get going!

Expansion of Your Email List

The majority of people place an optin form on their website and wait for people to sign up when they want to grow an email list. Sadly, this tactic frequently fails to provide the desired results.

You need to draw them in with an alluring offer if you want to expand your email list.

A lead magnet is required.

A lead magnet is what?

In exchange for an email address, you can give away something great as a lead magnet, often known as an optin bribe. The majority of lead magnets are digital resources like PDFs, MP3 audio files, or movies that you can make yourself at little to no expense. It doesn't have to cost you anything to create them.

As long as it offers value to your visitors for no cost, it can be anything you desire.

Typical examples of lead magnets include:

• ebooks

• A reference guide or cheat sheet

White papers or case studies, webinars, free trials or samples, no-obligation estimates or consultations, tests or self-assessments, and coupons are all examples of free content.

There are countless options!

Check out our collection of lead magnet suggestions to expand your email list for even more lead magnet ideas.

Why is a Lead Magnet Effective?

You are well aware that a lead magnet must offer something of value for nothing. Yet, if you want your lead magnet to be very successful, you need take into account the following 5 factors:

1. Easily consumed: If you present a 300-page manifesto, you won't acquire traction since lead magnets are only useful when the audience uses them.

2. Useful: Lead magnets must offer your audience a tool, skill set, or piece of knowledge that they can immediately put to use.

3. Produces observable improvement: If goods and services are useful, consumers will keep using them. If your lead magnet is as worthwhile as your goods and services, it will be successful.

4. Relevant: You won't have any trouble coming up with a lead magnet topic that addresses problems if you've done your research on your prospects.

5. Easily accessible: Consumers prefer rapid gratification, therefore provide it to them right now. To learn how simple it is to use OptinMonster to distribute your lead magnet, visit 4 Ways to Distribute a Lead Magnet.

Let's look at some of the top email marketing lead magnet instances taken from actual campaigns.

We present a list of 12 tested techniques at OptinMonster for turning website visitors into subscribers.

You need to design your optin form now that you understand what a lead magnet is and how to create a highly successful one.

How to Build a Successful Optin Form

Your optin form's objective is to make your lead magnet's significant benefits clear so that website visitors will sign up for your email newsletters in exchange for receiving the lead magnet.

The following elements must be present in an opt-in form for it to convert:

1. Catchy heading: Be certain that your headline expresses the main value of your lead magnet.

2. Useful description: Is your description succinct, explicit, and direct? To make it easier for the reader to swiftly skim what they will read, use bullet points.

3. Eye-catching visuals: If you can, include a picture of the lead magnet (like a mockup of your eBook). Another excellent approach to increase conversions is to include a picture of a person gazing at the optin form. You may produce stunning visuals with the aid of our wonderful assortment of visual content production tools.

4. Keep the form simple by only requesting a first name and email address. If you ask for too much information too quickly, your conversions will suffer.

5. Strong subscription button: Make sure your subscribe button stands out on the website by using a contrasting color. Moreover, make sure your email copy is unique and encourages readers to click straight away ("Give me the 7 steps!").

Check out our checklist for designing the best optin form for further pointers on how to create a high-converting optin form.

Installing your optin form on your website is required after creating it. There are 14 locations where your opt-in form will convert well:

• Your site's splash page, welcome gate, floating bar, header, blog archive page, sidebar, footer, about page, resource pages, on a designated sign-up page, in a timed lightbox popup, in a scroll box, in a blog post, within a blog post,

• In a popup with exit-intent®

If you want to obtain as many subscribers as you can, one of these is a must. That popup has an exit-intent®.

As soon as a user is going to leave your website, an exit-intent® popup appears. This popup only appears when the user is about to leave and doesn't interfere with reading. Given that they have probably read your content and found your site useful, now is the ideal opportunity to ask them to subscribe.

Exit popups are incredibly effective, and our customers frequently have notable outcomes when implementing exit-intent. With exit intent, Neil Strauss, for instance, was able to boost conversions by 125%!

Read our article on 40 Exit Popup Tricks That Will Increase Your Subscribers and Income to find out more about exit-intent® popups.

Moreover, view samples of real-world exit-intent® popups in our gallery.

What is the Best Email Marketing Service?

Two things are required before you can email anyone:

1. Their approval

2. A setup of a corporate email

The authorization was granted if you started with an optin, so yay! We advise against sending marketing emails to those who didn't use an opt-in unless you have their consent.

You run the risk of your emails being marked as spam. They won't buy from you, thus you could potentially suffer bad repercussions.

To design better optin forms, you can instead utilize a program like OptinMonster. You can gather subscribers and leads who want to receive your marketing emails.

The next step is choosing an email service provider. You can send broadcasts and bulk business emails thanks to these companies' infrastructure.

Without this, your bulk emails would be marked as spam. Even worse, your team's and clients' regular emails to you will also be impacted. Your subscribers won't receive your emails.

In order to acquire the best conversions/sales possible, you won't be able to email clients as frequently as you need.

Providers of email services take care of all the legalities and pricey complexities involved. Simply sign up and use their service is all that is required.

The top email marketing services that we suggest are listed below:

1. Constant Contact

One of the biggest and most effective email marketing systems in the world is Constant Contact. You may use templates and drag-and-drop editing tools to create professional email designs and manage your subscriber list.

Using Constant Contact Lists + OptinMonster, you can send automatic emails to new subscribers and monitor their effectiveness.

For 60 days, ConstantContact is free to test out. Plans start at $20 per month after that.

ConstantContact is rated as the finest email marketing solution by WPBeginner. And if you begin using Constant Contact, you might find the following article interesting: How to Make a WordPress Constant Contact Popup.

Everything you require to expand your Constant Contact email list will be in that resource.

2. Sendinblue 

In addition to offering comprehensive email marketing tools for organizations, Sendinblue also offers SMS marketing tools. Additionally, you can use drag and drop tools on an intuitive marketing platform to construct automated workflows, segment consumers, and create emails that are incredibly engaging.

With Sendinblue's branding, you may send up to 300 emails daily without paying a cent. Paid plans begin at $25 per month, and you can add SMS for a fee dependent on your sending requirements.

Do you want to boost your email marketing campaigns? See this article for information on using popups on your website to collect phone numbers.

3. HubSpot 

Although HubSpot's CRM platform is well-known, they also provide potent email marketing tools for small businesses. Without the aid of a designer, you can simply generate stunning emails using the drag and drop editor and pre-made themes. A/B testing, customisation options, and other capabilities are included in the software.

With HubSpot, you are able to send up to 2,000 emails without paying anything. You can upgrade to a premium subscription starting at $45 per month if you want to send more emails and get rid of the HubSpot branding.

4. Omnisend 

For eCommerce websites, Omnisend is a potent email marketing service. To get you started, it includes a simple email builder and a selection of responsive email templates.

Omnisend's extremely liberal free email marketing plan is its best feature. A/B testing, ready-made email automation workflows, limitless subscriber segmentation, SMS messages, push notifications, and other sophisticated capabilities are just a few of the many advanced features that come with it.

You can send up to 500 emails per month to up to 250 recipients with the free plan. Also, you are permitted to send up to 60 SMS messages and 500 online push alerts. You can upgrade to a premium plan starting at $16/month as your email list expands.

5. Drip

With the aid of the marketing automation application Drip, users may construct intricate email automation processes and conditional statements for usage in email messages. The organization of campaigns, workflows, and triggers is excellent, and Drip can be made as simple or sophisticated as you require. Using Drip + OptinMonster makes list creation and lead nurturing more simpler.

The Basic and Pro Drip subscriptions each include a 14-day trial period and start at $49/month for up to 2,500 subscribers and $99/month for up to 5,000 subscribers, respectively. Get a quotation is required for enterprise users (5,000+ subscribers).

6. ConvertKit 

ConvertKit is a great option if you're just getting started but anticipate using more sophisticated capabilities later on, such complex autoresponders (which you can simply create using ConvertKit Tags + OptinMonster). It resembles a CRM tool in some ways, but without the high cost.

Professional writers, speakers, and bloggers are the target audience for ConvertKit.

Prices start at $29 per month for the first 1,000 subscribers and increase gradually after that.

What sets OptinMonster and ConvertKit apart from one another, and why do users need both? For additional details on OptinMonster vs. ConvertKit and which is ideal to expand your list, see this post.

7. Mailchimp 

A well-known email marketing tool is Mailchimp. It is excellent for those who are just getting started because it is simple to set up and has a user-friendly interface. With Mailchimp Groups and OptinMonster, you can also add new subscribers to particular segments.

The finest free email marketing solution is Mailchimp because it offers a free plan for up to 2,000 subscribers.

But, you will need to upgrade to a paid account if you wish to use autoresponders or any other potent features. Premium subscriptions can cost as little as $10 per month for 2,500 members or as much as $30. The length of your list will determine how much you pay.

MailerLite 8.

You can build responsive emails and autoresponders with built-in A/B testing using MailerLite. Also, you can send targeted emails to particular subscribers.

For a list size of up to 1,000 members, you can get started for nothing.

In addition to the providers mentioned above, you might want to take a look at ActiveCampaign, a comprehensive collection of marketing solutions.

You are prepared to start growing your email list and generating sales as soon as your optin form and email marketing provider are set up.

Creating Email List Segments

Several marketing professionals would advise you to create an email list. What they fail to mention is that without accurate segmentation, your email list won't be as useful.

How does email list segmentation work?

To give your subscribers more tailored and pertinent emails, you can segment your email list into smaller groups depending on specified criteria.

With segmentation, you may send specific emails to only the subscribers you believe will be most interested in that material, which can increase conversions as opposed to blasting every email out to your whole email list.

Why Should Your Email Marketing List Be Segmented?

It has been shown that segmenting your list will improve your email open and click-through rates while lowering your unsubscribe rates. Because of this, astute email marketers employ segmentation to greatly enhance the efficacy of their email marketing.

Once you've "tagged" your subscribers into various groups, you'll be able to send highly effective autoresponders, which are a series of emails that are sent out automatically based on specific criteria and may be used to nurture leads and increase sales. In the section ahead, we'll go into greater detail about autoresponders.

With the help of segments, it is much simpler to decide what content and subject lines to use in your email campaigns to get users to open and interact with them.

Finding out how a user originally ended up on your email list should be the aim of segmentation.

Did they buy something? visit a particular page? What lead magnet should I download?

Your list can be divided into sections in a variety of ways. Here are some ideas to get you going:

• New subscribers: send a welcome email or welcome series to new subscribers.

• Preferences: subscribers who want blog post notifications versus subscribers who only want sale notifications.

• Interests: classical music fans against pop music fans among subscribers.

• Location: let local subscribers know about your local event.

• Open rate: reward your most devoted subscribers with a unique deal.

• Inactivity: if a subscriber hasn't interacted with you in a while, remind them of the next action you want them to perform.

• Lead magnet: Send customers targeted emails depending on the lead magnet's subject matter.

Remind subscribers who add products to their carts that they haven't yet completed their purchases.

These concepts only begin to scratch the surface of what email list segmentation is capable of. Visit 50 Clever Ways to Segment Your Email List Like a Pro for many more suggestions.

Pro Tip: Contact forms are a quick and simple approach to get information from your leads that you can utilize to develop more focused messaging. Find out how to really shine with your email marketing by checking out our recommendation for the best form plugin (WordPress)!

How to Increase Email Open Rates

This area is crucial because, despite the hard effort you put into building and segmenting your email list, none of it will be useful to you until your emails are opened.

Your emails may or may not be opened depending on a number of variables. Investigate each of them.

Avoid spam filters, first

The situation where your email ends up in the subscriber's spam folder is probably the most evident issue. You're off to a terrific start since you've already obtained consent to send emails and selected one of our suggested email marketing companies.

To prevent your emails from ending up in spam folders, follow these email marketing best practices:

• Verify that each recipient has opted in to receive your emails. Seriously. This point cannot be emphasized enough.

• Choose a reputable IP address for sending your email campaign. That is an IP address that hasn't before been used by someone to send spam.

• Send emails from reputable domains.

• Keep the coding for your email template tidy.

• Personalize the "To:" field of your email campaign with merge tags.

• Ask subscribers to add you to their address book and demonstrate how to whitelist your emails.

• Refrain from using "salesy" language excessively (words like "purchase," "clearance," "discount," or "cash" are spam triggers).

• Avoid "bait-and-switch" tactics like misleading subject lines.

• Describe where you are.

• Provide a simple method for subscribers to stop receiving your emails.

When you select a reliable email marketing solution, almost all of this is taken care of.

2. Eliminate Inactive Subscribers to Maintain a Fresh List

To keep your subscriber list fresh, it's critical to send emails to your subscribers frequently. Even then, email subscribers eventually lose interest.

Some customers could no longer be interested in your brand because they changed their email addresses or for other reasons.

So, it's a good idea to occasionally remove inactive subscribers from your list in order to keep it active and full of engaged subscribers. Any subscriber who has not opened an email in the last six months or longer may be considered an inactive subscriber.

But, consider sending one more email campaign to try to re-engage your dormant subscribers before you get rid of them. As an illustration, Carol Tice sends a desperate email to her dormant subscribers asking, "Do I bore you?" and if they still want to subscribe. Some people reply, but none of the others survive.

Asking your subscribers periodically if they would like to update their contact information and preferences is another approach to keep your list current. By doing this, you can remind them that they have the power to decide how they want to interact with you.

3. Get Your Time Right

Think carefully about the time and day you send your emails out because timing can have a significant impact on whether or not your subscribers open them and on your conversion rate.

You won't be able to determine the ideal time right away, but you can run some A/B testing to discover which timeframes seem to work best and then focus on them in subsequent ads.

Yet, you might be wondering if anyone else has conducted any experiments that you could use. Yes!

GetResponse observed that Tuesdays have the highest open and click-through rates in their study:

The top days for conversions, according to a survey from Yes Marketing, are Saturdays:

The key to reducing email send times is to picture a typical day in the lives of your target audience. In the morning, midday, and evening, what do they do? What happens during their working day? What time do they go to bed at night? How soon do they get out of bed in the morning?

You can choose the ideal time to send your emails by answering all of these queries.

4. Highlight Your Subject Line

Your subject lines are crucial to your email's open and click rates. Making your subject lines distinctive is your responsibility.

The following advice will help you create the best email marketing subject lines:

• Pique interest, but avoid being overly clever. You want to pique their interest enough for them to open and click, but you also don't want to be so obscure that they don't understand what you're saying.

• Add some numbers. The eye is drawn to numbers for some reason.

• Speak in a cordial and conversational manner.

• Use words and a tone that your audience is accustomed to hearing, especially when interacting with friends.

We've published an entire essay on the greatest converting email subject lines if you're looking for some amazing subject line examples.

5. Address your letter to only one recipient.

It's normal to consider the thousands of recipients while you're drafting your subject line and message content.

Writing as though addressing to a specific person, with a particular subject line and a tailored message, is, however, much more effective.

You must have a thorough understanding of your buyer persona to write in this manner. You must comprehend their issues, as well as their wants, values, and preferences.

Send an email asking for a brief five-minute discussion if you need help with this. You can learn more about your subscribers' demands and thought processes by probing them during the call.

It will be time well spent to spend a day or two discussing with your subscribers because it will be quite beneficial for your messaging as well as the development or improvement of your goods and services.

6. Be a Friend When You Write

Put your business hat aside and write like a friend when sending emails. The only genuine way to engage your subscribers and encourage them to open and click your emails is by doing this.

A corporate expression such, "We're offering savings to our consumers!" for instance, comes out as cold and stuffy.

You should check out this bargain, or something similar, might be a more amiable substitute.

This gives the email a much more personal feel and reduces the likelihood that your receivers would simply delete it and go on.

Keep in mind that everyone is seeking for an excuse to disregard your emails in the information age. They don't seek an excuse to read them. Yet, you'll have a better chance of getting that email opened if you speak to them personally.

7. Always Create Awesome Content

You could believe that once a subscriber opens your email, the battle is practically over. Your email's actual content, however, also has a significant impact on how many people open it.

The reason for this is that delighted subscribers are more likely to open your emails in the future. They might even start looking forward to your emails. On the other hand, if a subscriber is unhappy with what they received in your email, they are unlikely to open it again and may even unsubscribe.

So how can you ensure that the email content is appreciated by your subscribers? Make it fantastic, that's all.

Link to something that is very helpful, like a free eBook, a great blog article, or a webinar.

Be sure you aren't sending emails just for the sake of sending them. Delivering something of genuine value to your list should be your top priority whenever you contact them. Your open rates will rise and your subscriber loyalty will grow the more valuable each email you send.

8. Include Humor

People and humor have a way of connecting instantly and strongly. It is memorable because it is both personal and entertaining.

What if you're not particularly funny? Being smart or humorous isn't always simple, so why try to squeeze your effort into the limited space of an email subject line? That might be really challenging.

Happily, creating a funny email doesn't require you to be a comic. Knowing your audience and how they will respond is extremely crucial. It will be lot simpler to pull off a joke or make a witty comment if you are aware of their preferences.

Here is an illustration of a humorous email that is sent to subscribers after a prolonged period of inactivity.

Hello [first name], I tried to get in touch with you about [value proposition] but haven't heard anything back. Message me if:

1. I should cease pestering you now that you're all set.

2. You're intrigued but haven't yet replied.

3. I need to check back in three months.

4. You need me to call animal control because a hippo is chasing you.

Also, you can include a hilarious movie or animated GIF in your emails. Again, to add comedy and personality to your emails, you don't need to be a comic; all you need to do is use your imagination.

9. Mobile-Friendly Design Depending on your target market, offering, and email type, mobile email opens make up 67% of all email opens.

You must utilize mobile optimization best practices to appeal to your mobile users since you simply cannot afford to ignore them.

Make sure your email is responsive and contains media that can be loaded quickly. Furthermore keep in mind that because mobile screens are smaller, lengthy subject lines may be truncated on these platforms.

Further top email marketing advice for attracting mobile consumers is provided below:

• Limit the width of the formatting to 600 pixels and a single column.

• Make the typeface larger. On a mobile device, small letters are difficult to read.

• Don't take it for granted that photos are displayed (Android turns images off by default). Make sure it appears attractive without them.

• To speed up page loads, use smaller images.

• Use a button with a big call to action. Bigger buttons are simpler for your thumb to press.

• Avoid stacking or putting two links near to one another. The user won't unintentionally tap the incorrect one this way.

Each campaign can benefit from any of these marketing advice, but if you don't notice a change immediately away, keep trying.

Give yourself some leeway to experiment and uncover the strategies that work best for your company and your subscribers because email marketing is both an art and a science.

Check out our tips for producing better emails if you need more assistance with boosting your email open rates.