If you’re new to owning your own business or to the world of marketing, email marketing might seem like a daunting task to tackle. How do you choose from the email marketing platforms? How do you measure engagement rates and campaign success? How do you even build email subscribers? That’s where our guide to email marketing for beginners comes in.
You’re sure to have so many questions when starting out in the email marketing landscape. And that is totally natural. But once you have a base level of knowledge, there’s plenty of room for creativity. But first, from building email lists to improving click-through rates, you need a breakdown of the basics.
In this guide, we’ll provide exactly that. You’ll learn about choosing platforms, running email campaigns, and measuring engagement rates. By the end, you’ll be capable of starting your email campaigns - perfect for launching your business to new levels. Here’s everything you need to know as a beginner embarking on your email marketing journey.
What Is Email Marketing?
Email marketing is just contacting and engaging with customers via email. It can involve many email types, including newsletters, advertisements, and loyalty rewards. When understanding email marketing for beginners, you want to know the basics, so let’s start here.
Email marketing can be as small-scale as a direct email to one individual. Or it can be as large-scale as an automated email to thousands of recipients. As you can see, email marketing is an umbrella term. It is a blanket definition of a huge marketing technique people use in many ways.
The four main types of emails are:
Newsletters are the enticers. These lengthy, personable emails build rapport with customers and add value. This is as simple as providing tips, knowledge, and tools. It could be a quick news update with short, snappy stories from your company or community.
These are your ‘reassurance’ and professional emails. Like the little confirmation emails after buying a product - reassuring you that the business is legit and has your order. Or a friendly welcome email that reminds you of your subscription and the value you’ll get.
Promotional emails are entirely sales driven. Think of new product shout-outs and exclusive offers. This type of email prioritizes getting recipients to purchase by leveraging the ‘exclusivity’ of the subscription community.
Retention is all about keeping existing customers loyal. This email type could request feedback or reach out with discounts and temptations for inactive customers. These emails are all about making customers feel valued and breed customer loyalty.
Email Marketing for Beginners: Why Use Email Marketing?
So why use email marketing? Email marketing for beginners might seem so overwhelming that you lose sight of the clear-cut benefits. An understanding of email marketing benefits will push you through tricky spots and motivate you with solid goals.
The first benefit of using emails for marketing is that it has so much flexibility thanks to automation. Automation means writing one email and then sending it to thousands of recipients. You could dedicate three weekly emails to your marketing strategy yet still target thousands of people.
This also means that, if you want, you can handle your entire marketing strategy without spending on outsourcing. Once you know what to do, email marketing is a budget-friendly and quick marketing strategy to invest in.
- Collecting customer feedback
Email marketing is also fabulous for collecting customer feedback. Getting customer feedback is vital in creating a customer base that feels heard and valued. It also helps to redirect customers towards venting privately to you rather than publicly online - which could damage your reputation. Scratch a reputation manager investment if you are short on time, instead focusing on sending prompt feedback forms via email.
- Increases leads and engagement
Lastly, email marketing increases leads and drives digital engagement. Since your customers are already engaging online, it is easy to direct them to your website via hyperlinks. You can quickly implement HTML hyperlinks in emails. And by doing so, drive traffic and an engaged audience to important sales pages or blogs for revenue per view.
Email marketing is one of the best value-for-money marketing strategies. It’s easy to combine with other strategies like websites, digital ads, and loyalty programs. Thanks to its automation software, you can also start it and run it yourself.
How To Start Email Marketing for Beginners
You now have some initial bits of knowledge under your belt. Let’s delve into the real, looming question—how to start email marketing for beginners. You’ll build an email marketing campaign quickly with these three simple steps.
1. Learn About Email Marketing for Beginners and Get Clear on Your Customer Demographic
The first stage is what you are doing right now. You need to learn about the basics of email campaigns. You should be crystal clear on the benefits of email marketing and the types of emails you can use. These things help you head into email campaigns clearly without making too many rookie mistakes.
Having an idea of email types will also help you to structure your strategy. Perhaps you’ll send one newsletter, promotion, and retention email a week - automating transactional emails to send when necessary.
You should be totally clear on your customer demographic. Understanding your customer is vital for running an effective campaign. After all, if you don’t know your customers, how will you address their needs and temptations? Know your age, gender, interests, location, and customer engagement breakdown.
2. Collect Email Addresses for Your Email List
For many people, collecting email addresses for the email list is the most confusing part of email marketing for beginners. It doesn’t take long to set up some effective strategies, though. You could have a massive list of email subscribers in a week or two.
The best way to collect email addresses is to set up captive portal WiFi. Captive portal WiFi is a locked WiFi system. It requires guests to input their details into a captive portal login before accessing your internet. These details could include an email address - meaning people must subscribe to your email list to access the internet.
If you run a cafe or restaurant, most people expect WiFi, so this quickly builds your subscriptions. And better yet, you can get tons of free captive portal software.
You can also target customers through loyalty programs. Simply advertise loyalty program sign-ups with QR codes on menus or vocally at checkout. This way, you can prompt people to join an email loyalty program to save money and get fabulous discounts.
These email collection methods could quickly gain 10% of new customers per your foot traffic. Allow a couple of weeks to get into the flow of things, and don’t be afraid to invite people verbally, either. Ensure you have an easy signup method, like a QR code.
3. Create Your First Emails and Set up Automation
In email marketing for beginners, this is where you really start to embark on the good stuff. You may want to create all your emails simultaneously, depending on your schedule. Alternatively, set aside a few emailing slots a week.
Either way, you will create your first emails and overcome the hurdle of sending them out. Your email list will still be growing at this stage. Allow that to tick over in the background and focus on quality emails.
At this stage, setting up automation and analysis software is a great idea. This means your email marketing strategy will be in full flow and ready for you to manage like an expert. You can automate emails when your schedule gets busy and adjust your email techniques based on performance analysis.
What is Affiliate Email Marketing for Beginners?
What exactly is affiliate email marketing for beginners? It consists of advertising other business products in exchange for a commission on sales. You could do this with product reviews and promotional links, and when used properly is an effective alley of revenue.
Authenticity and quality over quantity are essential parts of effective and lucrative affiliate email marketing. You won’t get affiliate sales if you are advertising tons of low-quality products. Affiliate products should be products that you wholeheartedly value and believe in.
They should be products you know resonate with your customers and will be of genuine interest and help. Authenticity always shows. If you nail this step, you’ll likely see tons of success with affiliate marketing i nemails.
On another note, you need to be wary of affiliate marketing scams. Not all affiliate programs are lucrative, beneficial, or safe for your business. Carefully weigh up each program and research reviews and others’ experiences before joining.
Similarly, be aware that affiliate marketing is highly competitive. Until you accrue lots of traffic, you likely won’t see much profit. In short, the more people see your emails, the more chance you have of a ‘bite.’
Don’t let this knock you off course. But be aware that emails aren’t evergreen like other strategies, such as blog posts. So affiliate email marketing might be best investing in later when you have enough traffic to justify the promotion.
5 Best Email Marketing Software for Beginners
Before you leave, check out these five best email marketing software for beginners. Part of learning about email marketing for beginners is finding and choosing the best software. The software can make or break your email campaigns. And similarly, you need to be able to find software for your budget level. Check out these top five choices.
Hubspot has a free email tool that is fantastic for creating quick conversions. It has an analysis dashboard that gives you marketing insights and a personalized email option.
MailChimp is a popular email tool with different subscription options, including a free tool for up to 500 email contacts. It includes AI email generation and insights, plus in-built automation.
Bravo is a great email tool with a free subscription option for email marketing beginners. You get unlimited contacts, with the only caveat being a 300 email cap a day on the free package. Bravo also links to SMS and WhatsApp campaigns.
ActiveCampaign is a paid email software that offers a free trial to get a taste of its service. Its leading quality is its automation, even offering automated follow-ups. ActiveCampaigns is a brilliant software if you want to hand over some of the responsibility.
MailerLite is a valuable email tool and has a 30-day free trial offer. It is ideal for setting up paid newsletter subscriptions and creating signup forms. If you want more help with the signup stages, MailerLite is perfect.
Is Investing in Email Marketing for Beginners Worth It?
It is so worthwhile learning about email marketing for beginners. Email marketing is a massive investment in your business, allowing you to schedule engagement with customers cost-effectively.
It requires minimal work once you collect your email subscribers. And by sticking to four email types (transactional, retention, promotion, and newsletters), you can quickly put your strategy into motion.
Build a schedule from as little as two to three emails a week, and you’ll see results after just weeks. Email marketing is one of the best strategies you can invest in early on - regardless of your existing skillset.
Do you want some extra help with investing in email marketing for beginners? At Beambox, we’d love to help you with marketing your business. As experts in marketing and small business improvement, we can help you in your journey to email marketing success.
Beambox offers the best all-in-one WiFi marketing platform. We utilize a multi-avenue approach to connect, attract, and keep customers. Start your Beambox free trial today, and let us help you maximize your new email marketing knowledge.
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