Email Marketing 101: The Beginner’s Guide to a Successful Email Marketing Strategy

The foundation of your email marketing strategy is going to be your email service provider (ESP).

ESPs are software companies that allow you to build email lists and send mass emails.

When choosing your ESP, there are certain features that you’ll want to have:

Remember, the possibilities of your email marketing strategy are limited by the features offered by your chosen ESP.

Your level of coding skills and tech knowledge are also important things to keep in mind when selecting an ESP.

A comprehensive ESP can be really worthwhile if you understand coding and can take advantage of every feature.

But if you aren’t so good with tech, keep it simple with a less feature-rich tool — don’t worry you can still get great results this way!

Choosing the perfect tool is a matter of finding one that strikes a balance between cost and features but also suits your skill level and business needs.

But what about your Gmail, Yahoo, or Outlook accounts?

Technically, you can use these Internet Service Providers (ISPs), but they'll hamper your email marketing campaign because they’re designed for personal use.

You’ll come into problems such as limited email bandwidth, design, and more importantly, email deliverability.

When mass emailing is done from an ISP, it gets flagged by spam filters, and your account can be disabled due to suspicious activity.

ESPs, on the other hand, have the necessary infrastructure in place to ensure mass email deliverability.

If you want to set yourself up for success from the get-go, we highly recommend that you ditch your Gmail and get yourself a dedicated ESP.

If you need a little help choosing, here’s our list of the top 15 ESPs in 2022.

Additionally, if your emails annoy someone, they may mark them as spam which can affect your email deliverability — not something you want to happen!

Some email spam filters will flag email campaigns coming from your IP address if you’ve previously been flagged for spam, so you’ll be forever stuck in the junk folder.

You’ll end up with high unsubscription rates, a bad reputation, and hardly any conversions.

So just don’t do it.

Now that you know what not to do, let’s get onto our favorite 4 ways to build your email list!

The options are endless!

But make sure that whatever incentive you choose is:

Unsubscribing from your email list should be just as easy as subscribing.

If you have someone who wants to back out from the subscription, let them.

Contrary to what you might expect, letting people unsubscribe has a few benefits:

Keep your email list fresh by regularly removing inactive subscribers.

Check for people who haven’t engaged with your emails in the last 6 to 12 months — these are the ones you want to remove.

Some of them may have changed email accounts, or maybe they just aren’t interested in your brand anymore.

A tip we would give you is to send one more email to see if you can re-engage with them.

For example, freelance writer, Carol Tice, sends a final email to her inactive subscribers that asks, “Do I bore you?”

Some respond and their subscriptions are maintained, but all others are removed from her list.

You can also keep your list fresh by checking in with your subscribers every now and then to ask if they’d like to update their information and preferences.

By doing this, you remind your audience that they can control how they want to engage with you.

In fact, the click-through rate of segmented lists is 100.95% higher (on average) than non-segmented lists.

If every subscriber is twice as likely to act on your emails, that will drastically impact your bottom line in the long run.

To have subscribers simply open your email is not enough.

You want them to take action.

Make sure that your audience’s subscription is worth their while — you must earn their time by always delivering valuable content.

Email content plays a vital role in a successful email marketing strategy.

The higher the value of your emails, the more loyal your subscribers will become.

In turn, your open rates will increase, and subscribers might actually look forward to your emails.

So, how do you do this?

These examples show us that it’s important not to pitch a product right away.

Introducing yourself with a sales pitch can come off as desperate and even annoying.

Instead, take this opportunity to make a great first impression that solidifies the start of a new business-customer relationship.

Just like Spotify, remind them that there are no strings attached and, like CB2, invite them to connect with your brand on social media.

Your new subscribers will get to experience another side of your brand and learn more about your values.

Your subject line needs time and attention.

In fact, you might want to put more time into your subject line than you put into the body of your email.

If your subject line doesn’t get the email opened, there’s no point in writing the email at all.

You only get a few seconds (and roughly 40 characters) to convince your audience to open your email.

Here are some of our top tips for subject lines:

Do not “clickbait” your audience by using deceptive subject lines.

Deceptive subject lines will cause rapid unsubscriptions, a decrease in customer trust, and an overall negative brand reputation.

Your email campaigns are designed for lots of people, but they need to make each person feel like you’re talking to them and only them.

Appealing to your audience on a personal level will give your emails a better chance of being opened.

Of course, this starts by using their name in your emails, but this is the bare minimum — there are loads of other things you can do:

Most people would be excited to open an email from a friend, so writing like a friend can help your open rate.

The trick here is to show empathy for the recipient.

Using phrases like, “We know you’ll love this” comes across much better than, “Customers will love our new savings option”.

Or, try something like, “You’ve gotta check this deal out” instead of, “We’re offering savings to our customers”.

Don’t be afraid to throw in some humor and wit — it’s personal, entertaining, and often sticks in people’s minds.

Witty one-liners or even funny GIFs can add a touch of personality to your content.

But, sometimes it’s better not to write like a friend.

You need to really think about your brand, as well as who your client is before you start cracking jokes.

Always be respectful and make sure your content is appropriate and on-brand.

You can incorporate words like “now” and “today” in your button text to create a sense of urgency.

Aesthetically, your button should be:

Try to have your call-to-action button near the top of your email but make sure it makes sense — you can’t have a button inviting people to “Book Tickets” before you’ve introduced the event that the tickets are for.

Now that your emails are coming together, you need to establish a frequency for your email marketing campaigns.

How many emails you send, as well as their timing, can seriously impact your results.

Too many emails can lead to rapid unsubscriptions, but too few will make you a stranger to your own email list.

You need to strike the perfect balance for your campaign.

You can keep track of your open rates, click-through rates, and unsubscribe rates while you test different frequencies to find the perfect number of emails for your business.

Or, you can simply ask your list how often they’d like to receive your marketing emails and segment them accordingly.

Speaking of segmentation — don’t forget to segment your audience geographically so you can send emails at a sensible time of day.

Always send a test email to yourself and your co-workers before launching your email marketing campaign.

If you let small mistakes slip through the cracks your brand image can be harmed.

Would you trust a brand that looks like it can’t run a spell check? Didn’t think so.

Keep your eyes peeled for:

When doing your test emails, always open them on different devices to check that the formatting works well on desktop, tablet, and especially, mobile screens.

Today, 85% of people use their mobiles to read their emails, so the mobile version of your campaign needs to be polished.

Here’s what you should use to optimize your emails for mobile:

Don’t place two links next to, or on top of one another in your mobile version. If you do, the recipient might tap on the wrong one by accident.

Also, don’t forget to double-check that you’ve selected the right email list.

When you’re sure that your email is good to go, press send!

If your deliverability is significantly lower than the number of people you sent the email to, this could mean that your emails are coming off as ‘spammy’.

To fix this, try writing less ‘spammy’ subject lines by avoiding fully capitalized words (BUY NOW) and overuse of punctuation (!?!?!?).

Compare the open rates from different campaigns to see what kinds of subject lines your list enjoys and give them more of that in the future!

Low click-through rates indicate that your call-to-action buttons are ineffective and need to be reworked.

If you have a high number of unsubscribers, you’ll need to take a look at their feedback so you know why they chose to be removed from your list.

Apply this feedback to your future campaigns and see if this number goes down.

Don’t ignore what the analytics are trying to tell you — they’re essential to your success.

Knowing how to execute a successful email marketing campaign is important for your business.

In this 5-step guide you’ve learned how to:

With these 5 steps, we’re confident that you’re ready to run an email campaign that will deliver, all the way to your bottom line!

If you need some help or some amazing tools to assist your efforts, visit us at systeme.io.

We even have a free plan that includes 1000 email contacts, unlimited emails, automation, and tags to help you segment your audience!

So, time to scroll back up to step 1 and get started with your email campaign now!