How to Create an Epic Email Marketing Plan in Just 10 Easy Steps

Over half of the world’s population use email. It’s growing at a rate of 3% each year. 

Email is dead, they said! Well, now nearly 60% of marketers say that email is the most effective method of generating revenue for your company. 

But, you can’t launch into email marketing without a plan. Check out our epic email marketing plan to get you started in just 10 steps. Let’s go!

What is Email Marketing?

Email marketing is about taking advantage of the communication tool of email to promote, inform and update your recipients about your business.

Sadly, spammers have given email marketing a bad name. Everyone has received numerous emails with nonsense several times per day.

Therefore, if you want to do email marketing the right way. Then, you need our 10 steps to get ahead. 

Step 1 – Select a Service Provider

Don’t just go for the first email marketing service provider which you come across. You need to do your homework.

There are many big players in the market. You need to select the right one for you. Consider everything from your budget to the reviews for each provider. 

Step 2 – Organize Your Database 

Have you already got a database of contacts?

You need to make sure your database is organized before you get started. If you’ve been acquiring contact information for some time, then you’re going to have info which is out of date.

Unfortunately, you can’t afford to off-load your data. You need to separate the useful information from the expired stuff. 

You can also take advantage of this email validation tool to help you verify which email addresses are still active. 

You may also want to organize your contact database according to segments. For example, location or industry may be relevant fields. 

Step 3 – Acquire More Contacts

You need to collect new email contacts. You want to encourage people to opt-in to receiving your email marketing materials.

How to acquire sign-ups?

• Include a sign-up link at the bottom of each web page of your company website. 
• Encourage recipients of individual emails to opt-in to receive your email marketing.
• Include a link to opt-in when you send out customer surveys.
• Add a link to your email newsletter to your social media accounts.

Step 4 – Create Incentives 

Sometimes you need to give people an incentive to join your mailing list. You could consider the below ideas:

• Giveaways: e.g. a free e-Book download
• Promises: access to new material before anyone else
• Contests: entry for a prize

By offering your audience an incentive to sign-up, you can significantly increase the number of contacts in your database.

Step 5 – Establish Campaign Goal

You need to determine what you want to achieve with your email marketing campaign. 

Don’t bombard your recipients with useless information and unhelpful promotions about your products or services.

You need to focus your efforts on a targeted marketing campaign instead.

What do you want to achieve with each email during your campaign?

You may decide that you want to promote a specific product. Or, you might want to generate web traffic for your blog post.

Step 6 – Create a Simple Design

You want to keep the design of your email marketing simple. What does that mean?

Use large text rather than images. 

Make your message clear. Therefore, include a single call to action, rather than lots of confusing words of encouragement.

The design of your email needs to highlight the important aspects of your message. For example, use color and font to underline what you want the recipient to take away from the message.

Step 7 – Create Great Content

You need to produce content which people actually want to read. 

When you’re producing a newsletter, consider what your audience would want to engage with. Make sure it’s interesting and relevant to your readers. 

If you don’t have the skills to write, then hire someone who does.

Step 8 – Take Advantage of the Subject Line

The subject line is extremely important in email marketing. This is what your audience will read before they select the email.

So, you need to make sure the recipient is intrigued enough to click on the email to open it.

Make sure you encourage the recipient with a sense of urgency. For example, “limited time only” and “order now.”

Don’t make it too long either. Keep it short and sweet. 

Make sure you include your brand name. This helps the recipient to identify your email. 

You should also develop a method of making your email subject line memorable. For example, include a play on words or making a funny reference.

Step 9 – Track Your Progress

How do you know whether your email marketing campaign is working or not if you don’t have the data.

You can install tracking so you can determine how effective your campaign has been. This info will help you to improve your techniques next time. You should take advantage of tools, such as Google Analytics. 

What do you want to know?

• Deliverability: what percentage received your email?
• Open rate: what percentage opened the email?
• Click through rate: what percentage clicked on the links?
• Conversion rate: what percentage became customers?

Step 10 – Make Adjustments

Once you’ve completed your email marketing campaign, you’ll have the data analytics to judge what worked and what didn’t.

Do you need to change your approach to subject lines? Could a change of design help encourage click-throughs?

No audience is the same. You need to determine how to improve your email marketing techniques for your target audience. 

Create Your Email Marketing Plan

Now you know how to create your email marketing plan. It’s time to get started boosting your email strategy. 

Follow our simple and easy 10 steps and you’ll notice improved results to your email marketing strategy in no time. 

If you want to know more about digital marketing in 2019, check out our blog post here.