Almost every other marketer you meet likely talks about the impressive ROI of email marketing and how it’s working well for them. And that’s no exaggeration: email marketing brings an average ROI of $36 for every $1 you invest (Source).
But is that only for seasoned marketers with plenty of experience and enterprises with virtually unlimited resources? What about small businesses? How can small businesses reap similar benefits without breaking the bank? Is it even possible for them to set up an email marketing system that will bring them healthy returns?
Fortunately, the answer is ‘Yes’.
In this post, we walk you through every single step of setting up the system. We explain the importance of each step and also suggest tools wherever required. The good news is that you won’t need too many tools – and besides most tools we recommend are freemium anyway.
The chain of emails that you’ll send out is called a drip campaign, and that’s the term we’ve used throughout. However, even if you have a different name for your emails or you’re planning to send out a monthly newsletter, the following system doesn’t change.
So here goes – here is the 10 step system of email marketing:
What: You need website pages that people will read. These pages are called landing pages. Once they like what they read, they’ll feel like signing up for your email campaign. You may have more than one landing page, especially if you are a multi-product company.
Why: The objective of a landing page is to make your visitors interested in your email campaign. Once they’re interested, they will submit their details – typically, name and email address.
How: You can design your own landing pages. Alternatively, you can use the services of platforms like Unbounce to build such pages. Your landing page copy needs to be persuasive, and should make signing up appear desirable and full of value!
What: Grow your own list. Avoid using purchased email lists, because sending emails to people on purchased lists can be considered spam, and you could get into trouble for sending spammy messages.
Why: When people share their address, they expressly show interest in what you offer and give you permission to email them. That’s important for legal reasons.
How: You can use pop-ups to alert visitors that they can sign up. Alternatively, you can have a fixed box to collect names and email addresses.
What: Sometimes people submit fake addresses when they sign up. Sometimes, there’s a genuine typo when they submit an email address. For instance, they might type jhon[at]business[dot]com, instead of john[at]business[dot]com. You want to verify, in real-time, if the email address they’ve submitted is valid.
Why: If you don’t have an email verification system, many invalid and fake email addresses will enter your database. As a result, when you send out emails, many of your emails will return undelivered. This is called email bounce. Email bounce is bad for you, because the email system begins to think you are a spammer.
How: A real-time email verification service will do the job. When a visitor submits their address, the service will immediately check the validity of the email address. Invalid, fake, or disposable email addresses will not be accepted. This will prompt the user to submit a valid email address. It’s fast; real-time verification typically takes no more than 1 to 1.5 seconds for the entire process.
What: Have the subscriber confirm that they indeed have access to the email address they have submitted. That will assure you that there is no mistake anywhere.
Why: Let’s say, by some mistake, Tracy Rutgers (tracy.r[at]business[dot]com) submitted the email address of Tracy Taylor (tracy.t[at]business[dot]com). While both addresses may be valid, your emails will reach Ms. Taylor – who never signed up – instead of reaching Ms. Rutgers – who signed up but will not receive your emails. You don’t want such mixups.
How: The moment someone signs up for your email campaign, the email system will fire an email to their address. The subscriber will be required to click upon a unique link, only after which the email address is formally admitted into your mailing list.
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What: A drip campaign is the sequence of emails you will be sent to your subscribers, no matter when the subscriber signs up. It’s highly recommended that you use the services of an ESP (email service provider), because of the metrics they can show you (more on that a little later).
If you don’t have big requirements – at least in the initial days – you can use freemium ESPs like ActiveCampaign, Iterable, MailChimp, or ConstantContact for free.
Why: You want to systematically educate your subscribers about the problem you’re solving for them, before you ask them to buy. Subscribers are more likely to buy once they trust you are good at whatever you’re doing, so save the efforts to sell for later emails.
How: There is no single right way of setting up a drip campaign, but here’s one good way. Your first email only talks about the problem. The second email talks about how people are trying to solve the problem themselves – and are unsuccessful. The third email could talk about the features of an ideal solution to the problem, and hint at your product. The fourth email could be a couple of use cases of organizations that have used your solutions and are happy with it. The fifth email could make a more direct effort to sell and possibly offer a good discount.
What: Over time, you’ll notice your subscribers fall into a few distinct categories, each of which can be called a segment. Each segment is unique and you want to treat it that way.
Why: When you segment your subscribers, you develop a better understanding of their choices and behavior, which, in turn, helps you achieve better results.
How: How you segment your subscribers depends on factors like your industry, product, your subscriber base and more. You can segment them on the basis of geographical location of your subscribers, purchase history, last email opened and so on.
What: Once you’ve segmented your subscribers, you want to draft different drip campaigns for each segment. Each segment, therefore, will receive email messages that are most relevant for them.
Why: Personalization tells your subscribers that you’re talking to them as a person and not as an email address. Sending personalized emails gets you better click-through rates (CTR), better engagement, and a higher marketing ROI.
How: Each segment has their own reason for carrying out – or not carrying out – a certain action. For example, people who abandon their shopping cart may have issues with your payment channel. People who use your free trial but don’t convert into paying customers may not be fully convinced about the cost-benefit ratio of your solution. Address each concern separately in your emails.
What: No one gets their email drip campaign right the first time. You’ll need to keep improving and making changes in order to ensure you’re constantly delivering value to your subscribers.
Why: You want to not only keep the existing subscribers engaged but you also want to add more people. As you grow, you want to improve what you deliver.
How: The email campaign analytics that your ESP provides you is perhaps the best source of learning whether you’re doing things right. Make small changes every time, because if you change too many things at a time you won’t be able to tell what change brought the results. As they say, you can’t improve what you don’t measure.
What: Email marketing is a discipline, and like any other, there are rules – both written and unwritten. These rules, or best practices, ensure you play a fair game and don’t step on other people’s toes.
Why: Apart from the obvious reason of campaign ROI, you want to always remain compliant with various regulations like the GDPR or CCPA, depending on what is applicable to you. Besides, your ESP will be keeping a close watch on your campaign outcomes in terms of unsubscribes, hard bounces and more. Non compliance with regulations or ESP requirements can result in restrictions, fines, or permanent blacklisting.
How: As we said at the beginning, grow your own email list. Also, be sure to honor unsubscribe requests (your ESP will do it on your behalf). Do not sell or share your email list, or use it for any other purpose. Keep your emails interesting, but never make promises you can’t honor later on.
What: You don’t want invalid or expired email addresses on your list. By removing the not-safe-to-send email addresses from your list, you get a clean list.
Why: When people switch jobs, sell out businesses, or even change their internet service provider, their email addresses will most likely change. An estimate suggests a decay of 22% every year, which means about 22% of email addresses turn invalid every year (Source). Cleaning your list will help you prevent hard bounce, something that ESPs and the email ecosystem takes very seriously.
How: Scrub your list at least twice a year. That way, you know there will hardly be any undeliverable address on your list. Use a bulk email verification service to do that. Just like for other tools, if your list size isn’t big you can get this done for free or for a very small fee.
As you grow, you might want to check out other tools that can help you scale your email marketing and achieve better results. Here are four set of tools you might want to have a look at:
Email marketing is both exciting and promising, and you can begin deriving the benefits quickly – the sooner you begin, the earlier you draw the advantages. But you know how it is: things work only when we work on them. We have laid out in detail every single step of an ideal email verification system for you, so now it’s your turn to take action.
So put on your marketing hats and gallop into the world of email marketing. Great ROI awaits you!