How to Start Email Marketing

By Sophia Nyborg-Andersen

Why Email Marketing?

Email marketing has been around for many years and while it seems so outdated, in reality, it is a successful method for business. When digital marketing comes to mind we tend to think of social media, but with algorithms and mixed up timelines, your post promoting your business may not be seen by your most probable consumer.

When you have someone’s email or in this case an email list, you as a business owner can come directly in contact with potential buyers. When sending out emails you can engage with your subscribers by viewing what they are clicking on, what calls to action they make, and with a click of a button, you can reach innumerable subscribers. Utilizing an email marketing platform enables you to track your engagement, open rates, and track the progress of your campaigns. Another great reason is to measure your return on investment (ROI) because, as a business owner, your time and money is valuable and it is important to know your ROI. Another great reason to choose email marketing is that the platforms are very affordable or even free! If you are unsure about email marketing, you can try this out with free plans for a month, a year, or more.

Email Platforms

Email marketing is offered by a variety of platforms depending on your business needs, integrations, and features. Most platforms have various plans and I will be going over two free plans available for your small business to use.

The first website is Mailchimp and they have a free option that includes up to 2,000 contacts, 10,000 email sends per month, and a daily limit of 2,000 emails sent. On the other hand, Mailerlite provides up to 1,000 subscribers and 12,000 emails per month on their free plan. These simple-to-use interfaces empower users with templates, guides, integrations with multiple websites, email automation, and pop-up subscribe forms so you can start collecting emails or add to your growing list.

Mailerlite, Mailchimp, and other free email marketing websites offer many of the same features, and considering which integrations work best for your business is an important factor when deciding which site to choose. Using one of these free websites is such a great opportunity for a start-up or a business wanting to grow without having to spend a lot of money to generate sales.

What Does Email Marketing Offer?

Email marketing offers a way into the personal inbox of a potential customer or experienced buyer to purchase your product, follow your call to action or update your audience with the latest news of your business. This could entail a variety of topics such as holiday specials, extended hours, new order pick-up services, or new seasonal items released. An example would be to create a pop-up subscription form when someone enters your website offering a 10% discount because giving an incentive for a customer to buy your product could help grow your email list. The ability to send automated emails to your customers is essential for email reminders, birthdays, surveys, reviews, product launches, abandoned carts, new subscriber welcomes, or promo codes.

Email marketing also offers insights and data about your audience. When launching an email campaign it is important to view your metrics and figure out when are the best times or days to reach your audience. You could also learn what interests your viewers depending on open rates, click-through rates, or conversion rates in order to improve your next strategy. Open rate calculates how many users opened your email, click-through rate calculates how many unique clicks on a link by how many of your emails were opened, and a conversion rate is how many viewers followed through with the call to action in the email sent. When sending emails to your audience you can engage, build rapport, and generate a connection that may lead to sales of your product or service. The capabilities of email marketing are endless.

Free Resources

When connecting with your audience it is crucial to create quality content that appeals to your viewers. If you are not sure where to start, begin with inspiration right in your own inbox. Look at the emails for businesses you subscribe to and see what appeals to you. Is it their subject lines, template format, or is it simply the content they provide? Take a look at what draws you to scroll down, click on a link, select an image, or complete a call to action. This will help you determine what you would like to include in your own emails and what type of emails you would like to send out. Another way of gathering inspiration is to subscribe to Mailchart.com. This website allows you to view the email campaigns of over 10,000 different organizations and that may include some of your favorite brands. This compiled data will help bring insights and inspiration to create your own strategy.

Equipped with a little inspiration we can now begin to create. Canva is a great resource with a free option to start creating images that you want to incorporate into your emails. With templates that are geared toward different businesses, seasons, products, and platforms, it is simple to get started. You can start by creating your account, selecting a template, adding your business’ colors, changing up the font, adding your information and selecting your own images. If you do not have any images to add or the template you selected has a paid photo included you can replace those images with a free one instead. There are plenty of free photo sites you can access to create the content you have envisioned such as Pexels, Pixabay, and Unsplash.



It does take some time and knowledge to curate content, build your list, and start your campaign; however, now that you have some insights, tools, and resources, I hope you feel inspired and empowered to start your own email marketing journey! If you ever feel stuck or need help strategizing your marketing plan, reach out to your local SBDC center for free one-on-one business consulting.

 

Funded in part through a Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration. All opinions, conclusions, and/or recommendations expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the SBA.