Email Marketing

LESSON OVERVIEW In this lesson we will go over email marketing and how to create effective email marketing campaigns to get the highest amount of conversions. We will learn how to utilise tools out there like Mailchimp.

Email Marketing can be more effective than social media If done right, it can be up to 40x more effective 2.5 Billion Email Addresses The numbers are higher, more likely to get conversions. The most personal type of marketing. Reliable data – subscribe lists

Define your email goals. Do you want to: Increase sales Drive Traffic to website/store Increase event attendance Generate more data through referrals

Check your competitors’ email Have you signed up to your competitors mailing lists? Check to see what kind of emails they are sending out, see if they are specific to you or generic. Note the content (relationship building or goal oriented), time they were sent and who (see if you are part of a segmented list) – After a few months you’ll notice a pattern.

What type of email are you sending? Newsletter? – brand awareness, habitual communication, different types of content Digest? – based around a list of links Dedicated? – Focused on one single topic Lead Nurturing? – Keeps leads up to date and works to convert Transactional? – order confirmations, login info, thank you emails etc.

Write a good subject line Firstly look at spam emails – try and avoid anything that looks like their subject lines. A subject line must be under 50 characters: aim for 20 – 30 characters for highest conversions. Appeal to readers – what would entice them Look at competitors subject lines

Task 1: Look at your inbox – analyse subject lines and the emails you have received from companies (eg. Groupon) (10 minutes)

Task 2: Write your own subject lines (10 minutes)

Task 2: Sign up to subjectline Task 2: Sign up to subjectline.com and input your own subject line, amend until you get a score out of 100.

Timing your emails Emails get the best result within an hour of being delivered. Think of your target audience – what time would suit them? Usually emails are noticed more in the afternoon. Top click hours are: 8/9am & 3/8pm Top open hours are: 8/9am & 3/4pm Think Timezones

Don’t… SHOUT AT YOUR CUSTOMERS Make grammatical mistakes Have a vague subject line Exclude unsubscribe options

Avoid Spam Title your email Good Spelling Always send a plain text email alongside Try to avoid words and phrases like (especially in the subject line): Dear Friend, Free, No obligation, No Risk, Click here, Order now, No catch, Money Back guarantee, Click to be removed,

Integrate Social Media Include social sharing abilities within your email to extend reach – depending on the type of email you create, this could be very effective.

Make your email responsive ~64% emails are opened on mobile. Luckily mailchimp is automatically responsive!

Creating your list On your marketing channels you’ll need to build a list of subscribers to send your email to. Create an obvious subscribe form Use incentives State the benefits of signing up

Creating your list

Content Remember the 60:40 rule – 60% Text, 40% Image

Task 2: Plan an email – consider: subject line, content (images, text), CTA’s etc… Sketch out the layout, use moqups or use word to place the content.

Choose your Email Tool For this lesson we are going to use mailchimp. If you decide mailchimp isn’t for you, have a look at: Mailingmanager, Email on Acid, Campaign Monitor, Litmus, Sendy or google email marketing and choose for yourself.

Using Mailchimp

Task 3: Use Mailchimp to build your email and send your email to me : mhughes@ascesismedia.com (30 mins)