Creating an Effective Email Marketing Campaign

EP 51 - Creating an E-Mail Marketing Plan

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Welcome to our Tuesday technology show, where we highight technology to make your life easier or grow your business.

I want to thank you for joining us. today and remind you that all of our notes will be in the show notes at askralphpodcast.com. So if you have interesting questions or want to see the notes, from today's show, you can see those at askralphpodcast.com. Well today, we're going to talk about?

how to build an effective email marketing system. You might be asking yourself, well, how does that help you? [00:01:00] Well, the truth is for small business people.

It's a great way to stay connected to your customers. And potentially find some new prospective customers. while you're there. So today we're going to talk about how to create that and some things to think about as you're building that program. So let's jump right into it.

So as with anything in your small business, you need to start with defining your goals.

When you're looking at an email campaign system, you want to determine what you want to achieve with your email marketing. That could be things such as increasing sales. Building customer loyalty, or driving website, traffic, there's. All kinds of things that you can do with an email marketing campaign, but you need to start out with your end in mind, what are the goals that you're trying to accomplish with that?

And obviously. Moving on to the next step.

And this is probably the most important step is you need to build your email list.

 you might ask Ralph, how do I do that? here's how you do it. I think the best place to start is by collecting email [00:02:00] addresses from your existing customers. From website visitors, and from social media followers. Well, how do you do that?

 probably the easiest way to do it. Would be to ask them, may I put you on our email marketing list? You can use sign up forms. their is . The thing out there called lead magnets, you can use those. And you might even consider setting some sort of incentive program to encourage people to subscribe.

I remember a few years ago. In my accounting practice, I was looking for ways to get people, to sign up for our email list. And I actually went out and bought a. flat panel TV. And I said to a, we were gonna have a drawing after 30 days of whoever's on our email list, we're gonna have a drawing and you went a flat panel TV, and it really did grow our email distribution list. And while I'm talking about that, I would encourage you to go to our ask Ralph podcast page and join our email list so that you'll be aware of what's going on here on the show.

So after you've determined your goals and you built your email list.

 then the next step is to figure [00:03:00] out what is a good email marketing software platform: to use. So I've put together a few of them. Now for the Ask Ralph podcast, we actually use a company called MailChimp. So let's talk about MailChimp. MailChip offers a user-friendly interface, customizable templates. Automation features, and basic reporting. The nice thing about that is it actually has a free plan for up to 2000 subscribers.

Now I'm not saying that you're going to want to stay on the free plan forever. But it may be a good place to start. This will allow you to , see what kind of traction you get, but it's really simple to set up. It took me, I don't know, maybe 30 minutes. And it wasn't complicated.

So another one you could look at and you probably see advertisements for this one is called constant contact. I've used constant contact: in the past. It provides easy to use templates, as well. It does offer something else and MailChimp offers as well.

It's called list segmentation. We'll talk about that a little bit later in a program. There also is automation, and tracking. features. Just like MailChimp. It does offer a free [00:04:00] trial. And quite frankly, it has affordable based pricing based on the number of subscribers. MailChimp has the exact same situation.

So you're going to find with all of these that we're talking about. Is there's generally a free tier. where you have a certain number of subscribers, and then once you get into a certain, higher level subscribers, you may pay based on the number of subscribers. You also may pay for additional features. You might pay for. not having their branding on your email messages going out .

Another one I looked at was send in blue. This is another one that offers email marketing, SMS, marketing, and marketing automation. It also has a free plan with limited features and affordable pricing for growing businesses.

And the final one I looked at was called convert kit that C O N V E R T kit. And this one was specifically designed for bloggers, creators, and small businesses. And offers customizable forms, automation, and segmentation. Again. Pricing based on the number of subscribers. there's a lot of options out there. These are just [00:05:00] four that I picked, they may vary but they really have some of the same features. they have the typical, number of subscribers and automations and basic reporting and templates and list segmentation. Once you've decided on your.

Plan. to build your email list, and chosen your marketing software.

Now it's time to actually design your email templates.

And like I mentioned, a few minutes ago. Many of these have built in templates. So they really make it easy for you. But you can use these marketing software templates to customize them to match your brand. You want them to be visually appealing? And this is a key thing, folks. Most people are using them on their mobile devices.

So you want to make sure that it's a mobile responsive template. It's easy to read for your audience. You don't want to have something that's designed for, Their screen at work or their screen at home. And it doesn't work with their phone because most people. Are looking at these things from their phone.

So once we've decided on our email template,

You need to craft compelling content.

If you don't have good content people, aren't going to look at it. Well, how do I do that, Ralph? Well, you want to [00:06:00] write concise and engaging email copy in lines with your brand voice. And resonates with your audience. The key to this as providing value. Maybe you'll consider exclusive offers, informative content, or personalized recommendations.

That's the cool thing about these email platforms. It gives you a lot of flexibility in what you can do. I mentioned this a few minutes ago, and this is important folks.

You want to segment your audience?

You don't want to just have one list for everybody who's ever signed up for your marketing list. You want to divide your email?

Listen to segments. Well, Ralph, you might ask, what are those segments? Well, here's some ideas. You want to do them based on demographics. You want to do them based on interests, maybe purchase history, or engagement level. This allows you to send targeted and relevant content to each segment. Improving engagement and conversion rates.

So for example, If you have a business and you want to have a list. Y'all marketing list system. You might have one list of existing customers. Those are [00:07:00] people who have used your service or bought your products in the past. You don't want to send marketing message to them about their first connection with your business now. There's another issue might want to develop. You might want to have a list of first time people or prospective people. And maybe you want to have a list of people who bought a particular service. Or, used a particular product.

All those things are segmented and they can really help you benefit in your business, but you have to segment your audience. You can't just have. One big bucket with everybody in it.

Now, the next thing I recommend is automating your email campaigns. You don't want to be involved in this everyday, going in and clicking, send on each of these. And each of the different platforms we talked about having automation portion to them.

So, what you want to do is set up automated email sequences, such as welcome emails. Abandoned cart reminders, or birthday offers. We do that in our accounting practice. When we do somebody's tax return, I capture their birthday and every year on their birthday, we send them a nice email that says, Hey, happy birthday. It's all about recognition. Folks is all about [00:08:00] building and maintaining that relationship. This automation will save you time. And ensures that timely and personalized communication with your subscribers. And that's the key to this. when someone joins. . Your marketing list, you might want to send a welcome email. if you have a product where you're selling things online, you might have an abandoned cart reminder, all of us get those. You might be shopping online for something and. Maybe you get distracted or you move away from it. And all of a sudden you get an email an hour later says, Hey, by the way you left this in your cart.

Now, once you do all of those things, This is the key.

You need to test and optimize. You need to continuously test different subject lines. See what's working. Test different email content , test different calls to action. you also want to look at sending it at different times to optimize your email marketing performance.

 you don't want to send these emails out at two in the morning. That's a good way to annoy your customers if they keep their iPhone or their Android phone on. And they hear that chirp in the middle of the night, because you sent them a marketing [00:09:00] email. And once you start to look at this as part of your testing and optimization, you want to pay attention to open rates. All these software platforms are going to tell you, what is your open rate?

How many people are actually opening the email that you're sending? I look at your click through rates. You know, if you have a call to action in there, what is the click-through rate? How many times are people actually reading it and doing something with it? And then conversion rates are of course important.

If you're gonna do a targeted marketing campaign. And let's say you're targeting a marketing campaign to buy a particular product. You want to see, what is the conversion rate based on the number of emails at are sent now.

This is why I want to spend a couple of minutes on. And to be blunt with you.

I wasn't really that familiar with it. But it's something you really need to pay attention to.

And that's comply with email marketing regulations.

There's a couple of things that are most important to look at. One of which is the GDPR, which is the EU thing. So I'm not going to spend a lot of time talking about that. But there's also a thing called the can spam act. That was developed to ensure compliance.

So [00:10:00] let's talk about what the can spam act is.

Well, basically. The name of it's controlling the assault of non solicited pornography and marketing can spam act as a lot of words. Let's talk about what it really means. If you send email marketing campaigns to people in the United States, you need to pay attention to this. So, what does that require you to do?

Here's what it requires you to do. It's not that complicated. You need to include accurate non deceptive subject lines that are reflect the content of your email. you can't send out a subject line that says something that it's not. You want to clearly identify your business as the sender of the email, you can't make up business names. You need to provide a valid, physical postal address in your email.

You need to make it easy for recipients to opt out or unsubscribe from your emails.

You know, that's a pet peeve of mine. When I get an email that I really don't have any interest in. I want to be able to get out of that. I want to be able to opt out. I want to be able to unsubscribe. Generally that happens at the bottom of the email, but in my experience, [00:11:00] you know, sometimes that's a hassle and a half to. Because you click on that unsubscribed button and now you'll get taken to another website.

You gotta be very careful what it says. Cause sometimes it'll say, oh, I made a mistake. I don't want to unsubscribe. Which leads me to the next thing. And actually you need to honor these opt-out requests promptly. Generally the term is within 10 business days.

You want to make sure you do that within 10 days. And then this is the key to anything you want to monitor and ensure compliance with any third-party email marketing services.

You so make sure. That you're, if you're using MailChimp or constant contact. That the unsubscribed works and that you're taking advantage of that.

So you need to make sure you include a visible and easily accessible unsubscribe or opt out link in Every email marketing you send. It needs to be there. Folks. I know that doesn't sound great because you're like, well, I just worked so hard to get these people to sign up for this email list. And now you're telling me. I've got to give them a way to opt out.

Yes. That's exactly what I'm telling you. You need to ensure that unsubscribed process is straightforward and doesn't require recipients to provide additional information. [00:12:00] Now, unfortunately, I've actually seen where. Companies are breaking this. Like I saw one the other day where I went to opt out of it.

I clicked on the button. It took me to a website and it said, enter your email address to opt out. And to be honest with you. I've got several emails and all kinds of go to the same place. So I feel like that's not really a good, straightforward. Way too. Opt out. So that's when you want to avoid. You want to regularly check and update your email list to ensure that unsubscribe individuals are not inadvertently included in future campaigns.

Look, is it. If you tell people you're going to let them opt out, you need to opt them out now. It could be that you've created. a few days worth of campaigns. ahead of time. And they may show up on those lists. So when you do that unsubscribe, most of the time, if you're like me, you've seen it say, well, it could take up to seven.

It could take 10 days to get off of that. But. You want to make sure that you're actually doing what you're say you're going to do. by adhering to these regulations. It's all about customer service. You demonstrate your commitment to respecting the privacy. Of your subscribers and their preferences. [00:13:00] This can help build trust and credibility with your audience. Ultimately leading to better engagement and longer term customer relationships. So let's go back to what we talked about at the beginning about building this.

So we've talked about a lot, we've talked about developing a plan. We talked about finding a platform. Let's talk about measuring and analyzing results.

When I talked about the different platforms I mentioned to you that there are reporting and analytic features in each of these. Use these look at these. Look at the open rates.

Look at the click through rates, and conversions. And use this to refine your email marketing strategy over time, if you find that people aren't looking at your emails. Ask yourself a few questions, why aren't they looking at them? Is the content? No. Good. Is the content too long. Is the content not relevant to the people that I'm sending it to.

Let's talk about costs. Expected cost for email marketing vary, depending upon factors, such as the size of your email list.

I mentioned that a few minutes ago. And the features you require, for [00:14:00] example, If you have 3000 subscribers, you may pay a little bit more from the person has 500. You also may want to privately brand it. you don't want to see the word MailChimp at the bottom or constant contact at the bottom.

You can pay to put your own marketing on there. And like I said, most of these marketing platforms offer tiered pricing based on the number of subscribers. And it can be anywhere from free. For a limited number of subscribers is several hundred dollars a month for larger list and advanced features. It all comes down to what do you want? So I've given you a lot.

But I also want to give you some resources that you can go out and find out information because I am not a marketing guru. I'm an accountant.

 and I help people build businesses. That's what I'm working to do here, But you may have a desire to find

more information. So here's some ideas. You can subscribe yourself to email marketing, blogs and websites like HubSpot. Campaign monitor, or MailChimp's blog for tips, best practices, and industry updates. Those are really good.

I started to use the one from MailChimp and it really gives you some great ideas. They're also a bunch of online courses and [00:15:00] webinars. You can look at. They give you in-depth training on email marketing techniques and strategies. You can use platforms like you, udemy or Coursera. That offer a variety of courses on email marketing.

And finally there are some email marketing communities: that you can join. Just do a Google search and find those. And if you really feel like this is over your head, you can hire an email marketing consultant or an agency to give you expert guidance or assistance. To execute this campaign.

Remember, this folks. Email marketing is an ongoing process that requires continuous refinement and adaptation. You need to stay informed about best practices and industry trends to ensure that your email marketing program remains effective. And ultimately helps you achieve your goals.

As we close today I'll just remind you again, to visit our podcast website. That's at askralphpodcast.com. There you can leave us a review. You can join our email list,

where we provide our listeners with the [00:16:00] ability to connect with us. You can share some success stories with us. There's an icon you can click on to leave us a voicemail message. And as I said, you can check out our show notes. For today's episode where I'll have a bunch of other information on there.

 I truly hope you enjoyed our episode. And I hope you're able to put this to work for you. And remember. Let's hear from you. We love hearing from our listeners. Thank you for tuning in, God. Bless. And as I always say, stay financially savvy.

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