Complete Guide To Successful Email Mrketing

 Complete Guide To Successful Email Mrketing-Overview

The first marketing email , sent in 1978, generated $ 13 million in sales and gave life to one of the most widely used marketing channels to this day. You will get Complete Guide To Successful Email Marketing in this article.

Due to its four decades of history, email is not as flashy as other newer channels, including instant messaging services or social networks. 

But it is still a very effective way to have an engaged audience that generates good results.

Email marketing is not spam, although it is not a personal note from a former colleague either; it is an intermediate channel. 

Customers benefit

Your customers do not offer their personal information easily, but if you use their information correctly, email marketing can help you consolidate relationships with them and generate more profits.

You should use this tool to enhance existing relationships with all members of your list by offering them valuable and relevant information to help them achieve their goals. 

Remember that the important thing in email marketing is not your company, but your customers.

If you can focus your attention on them, subscribers will not only read your emails, but will be eagerly awaiting the next updates from your company.

Let's take a look at why email marketing is one of the most important elements of your marketing strategy and how you can use it responsibly and effectively.

What is email marketing?

It is marketing focused on email as the main channel to promote products and services of a company. It offers you the possibility to educate your audience about the value of your brand, inform them about news about your services and keep them interested in your company.

Effectiveness of email marketing

There are 3.8 million email users worldwide; Therefore, if you are looking for a good way to reach your customers, this is the perfect way to do it. On average, email generates $ 38 for every dollar invested, representing a 3,800% return on investment.

We show you below some data that demonstrates the great effectiveness of email marketing:

Email is good for your business. You can remind distracted customers about their shopping cart with emails, ensuring up to 69% more sales .

By conducting a lead qualification process, it has been shown that up to 52% of leads are not of quality , so nurturing through emails and with additional content will increase the chances of conversions and sales.

As for customer acquisition, it is convenient to remember that email is much more effective than social networks , since they have greater qualities to generate brand awareness.

Plus, since you're the channel owner, you won't have to worry about external compliance standards . You will have complete control of the channel and will be able to determine how, when and why you contact your subscribers.

Unless, of course, you have the human resources, time and capital necessary to establish personal and individual relationships with each of your prospects and clients. Therefore, email should be your best marketing ally.

Email marketing for small and medium businesses

The rules of email marketing vary depending on your industry and your audience. Here are some email marketing trends for B2B, B2C, e-commerce and real estate companies that can contribute to your email marketing strategy.

Email marketing statistics for B2B companies

35% of marketers send their customers 3-5 emails per week ( Not Another State of Marketing , 2020).

78% of marketers have seen an increase in email engagement in the past 12 months ( Not Another State of Marketing ).

31% of B2B marketers say ezines are the best way to nurture leads ( Content Marketing Institute ).

Tourism, wholesale and real estate companies have the lowest email open rates, while the highest rates belong to the advertising and marketing agencies, agriculture, livestock and automotive sectors ( Campaign Monitor, 2019 ) .

81% of B2B marketers say their most used form of content marketing is newsletters ( Content Marketing Institute ).

16% of all emails never reach the inbox ( Email Tool Tester ).

87% of B2B marketers say that email is one of their main free organic distribution channels ( Content Marketing Institute ).

90% of content marketers say email engagement is the number one metric they track to measure content performance ( Content Marketing Institute ).

The second most common technology that B2B organizations use to help with content marketing is mail marketing software. About 85% of marketers say they work with these tools ( Content Marketing Institute ).

Email marketing statistics for B2C companies

80% of business professionals believe that email marketing increases customer retention ( Unpublished Pert , 2020).

59% of those surveyed affirm that email marketing influences their purchasing decisions ( SaleCycle , 2018).

The most open emails are related to hobbies, with an open rate of 27.35% ( MailChimp , 2018).

59% of marketers say that email is their biggest source of ROI ( Emma , 2018).

Email marketing statistics for ecommerce companies

99% of people check their email every day .

73% of millennials prefer to communicate with brands via email than any other medium.

59% of respondents say that marketing emails influence their purchasing decisions.

Email marketing use cases

If you want concrete examples to inspire you and put email marketing into practice, check the following list. It shows you some of the ways you can use email for your marketing strategies:

For relationship building: 

Email generates connections through personalized interactions.

To generate brand recognition: 

through the mail, you can get your company and its services to position themselves as the first option among your prospects when they are ready to interact with you.

To promote content:

 Email marketing strategies share relevant blog content or useful materials with your prospects and thereby generate a promotion of these content.

To create sales opportunities: 

Email encourages your subscribers to share their personal information with you in exchange for useful content for them and generates extensive sales opportunities for you.

To implement product marketing:

 Email makes it easy for you to promote your products and services.

To nurture leads:

 Email strategies delight your customers with content that helps them achieve their goals and thus nurtures leads.

Advantages of email marketing

In addition to the above uses and statistics, there are obvious advantages that email marketing strategies can offer you. Here are the most outstanding ones.

1. Helps you build strong relationships with clients

Your customers like to know that you are thinking of them. They want to be aware of the latest that is happening in your business.

Obviously, it is almost impossible to reach all of their customers by phone, not to mention that it would be a time-consuming task. That is why email is the fast and effective way of communication to use with your clients.

2. Make it easy for you to develop a unique personality for your brand

Email marketing is a great way to develop a unique personality for your brand. It gives you a direct line to the inbox of your clients, or potential clients, from which you can send periodic updates; This gives you a great opportunity to create a unique voice, style and image that you will convey to your subscribers with each send.

3. Makes you an expert in your industry

As a small business owner, you are likely to be viewed as a local or regional expert, when it comes to your area of ​​business. One way to consolidate this identity in the minds of consumers is to continue to position yourself as an expert by creating and disseminating quality content.

Email marketing isn't just about delivering coupons and sales information. In addition to emails designed to drive traffic to your website and increase your sales, you can use email marketing to deliver unique content that your subscribers will enjoy and that will establish you as an expert or authority on the subject.

4. Allows you to make efficient use of your time and budget

Within a small business, there are time and budget constraints. Sure, anyone would advertise in the Super Bowl, but we know it's not a profitable option for most small and medium-sized business marketing budgets.

Designing a professional email marketing campaign is not complicated or time consuming. Sending emails to a large number of subscribers is also very profitable. You get access to potential customer mailboxes, without having to pay for physical mail costs.

5. Helps you build your credibility as a business

One of the biggest hurdles a small business has to overcome is building its credibility. 

The reason people trust big names largely comes down to credibility and this has a very close relationship with brand recognition marketing - they are familiar with brand names, therefore they trust more.

By using email marketing, you can keep your brand and their name on the minds of your customers and build credibility by being in constant contact with your customers.

The more they learn about your business, the more they hear about it and its products, the more they will trust your business.

First steps with email marketing

Before overwhelming you with the wide variety of possibilities that email marketing offers, we will explain the main aspects so that you can create an excellent email campaign with all the necessary bases and that will undoubtedly delight your customers.

1. Know the structure of an email marketing plan

Each of your  customers receives 121  emails  every day. That means that if you don't spend the time to develop a strategy, your emails will get lost in inboxes packed with messages, or worse, end up in the spam folder.

If you review one or more texts that talk about email marketing, like this one, you will discover how to create an effective email strategy in which you will send messages to really interested users. 

The first aspect that you need to know is the plan or scheme that you must have in order to make a marketing strategy. Although it is not the only thing you should prepare to create and implement your email marketing strategy.

 You should keep the scheme in mind and return to it every time you want to create a new email marketing strategy. The scheme or plan consists of six categories that we present below.

Define your audience

An email is only effective if it is relevant. As in most marketing processes, start with your  buyer persona : understand what they are looking for and create your email campaign based on their needs.

Set your goals

Before developing your campaign goals, gather a little more context. Research the average email statistics in your industry and use them as benchmarks to set the goals for your email marketing campaign.

Provide a way for users to subscribe

For email marketing to be effective, in the structure you must have a base of interested contacts. Although it is true that you can get emails with various methods , an email list is made up of a group of users who have offered you permission to send them relevant content. 

To create that list, you need to provide different ways for prospects to voluntarily sign up to receive your messages. Later we will talk about the two most used methods to make this list: opportunity magnets and forms.

It is normal that at first you only have a few users on your list. Developing a solid list can take a long time. In the meantime, treat every subscriber and lead as if they were unique, and you'll soon see your list grow organically.

Choose a type of email campaign 

There are many types of email campaigns and choosing one is not an easy task. Do you want to send a weekly newsletter? Should you send out new announcements about the product? Which of your blog posts are relevant enough to share?

All marketers ask these questions from time to time, but getting an answer is not easy. To solve this question, you can start by analyzing in depth what the different types of email campaigns are  and then deciding which is the best for your audience. 

You could also create multiple lists for different types of email campaigns; this way clients and prospects will be able to register only to the mailing lists that are relevant to them.

Create a calendar and implement your email marketing strategy

Once you have your email marketing strategy and its content ready, establish how often you plan to contact your list of users. Inform your audience in advance of the periodicity to set expectations and respect a consistent program to build trust  and  become a constant information option for your customers.

Measure your results

To improve it is necessary that you analyze the results obtained. By being careful with each key metric, you can make small changes to your emails that will lead to big results. Later, we will discuss which are the key performance indicators (KPIs) that you should monitor.

2. Learn how to make an email list

In the structure, we already talk about the mailing list, but to completely clear the information regarding this important element for email marketing, we will tell you below everything you need to know to make your email list.

There are many  creative methods for building your email list — and buying email lists will never be one of them. Strategically, list building is made up of two key elements that work together to expand subscriber numbers: lead magnets and opt-in forms. 

The form is something simple and probably the first thing that came to mind, so that you know the sales magnets, we present its definition and more details in the following paragraphs.

Lead magnets or  Lead magnets

A lead magnet is exactly what its name suggests: an item that attracts leads to your email list, usually through a free offer. The offer can come in different formats, but it has to be valuable to users and you should offer it for free in exchange for the email address.

The only difficulty is that users are increasingly protecting their personal information, so you can't expect to receive an email address without offering some very valuable content in return.

To make a lead magnet, think of content that is relevant, useful, and makes life easier for your prospects.

These are some of the types of magnets you can create:

• Ebook
• Informative document
• Infographics
• Report or study
• Checklist
• Template
• Webinar or course
• Tool

If you don't have enough resources, you can repurpose existing content to create lead magnets,

just remember to rephrase it and add an additional element of value.

How to Create an Exceptional Lead Magnet

It is important that you remember that your lead magnet must be relevant to your users. To make the creation process and your magnet the best it can be, remember to keep the following important guidelines in mind.

Make your offer useful and provide solutions

Provide practical information that solves a problem and a realistic method to reach a solution to your clients and prospects.

b. Make sure the material is easy to consume

Lead magnets should be delivered in digital format, it can be a PDF, a web page, a video, or some other format. The important thing is that your new lead allows you to obtain the content and consume it in a simple way.

c. Create your offer taking into account the content you will offer in the future

There's nothing worse than signing up for a great deal and becoming disillusioned over time by receiving poor quality content. Make sure that your offer is aligned with the value that you will offer throughout your relationship with the prospect, since otherwise you will put your credibility at risk.

d. Consider your lead magnet as an intermediate step for your payment solution

The ultimate goal of your email list is to direct subscribers to a paid offer. The purpose of offering free content is to demonstrate the value that your products and services can provide. Your free offers should lead to leads for your product or service.

 Create offers that are relevant to each stage of the buyer's journey

Each new lead will be at a different stage of the buyer's journey and your responsibility is to know what it is. Segment your list from the start to provide different subscription offers based on each stage of the buyer's journey. You'd be surprised how much you can learn about a prospect's attitude based on the content they consume.

How to create an attractive subscription form

Your sign-up form is the easiest way you get a prospect's information to add to your list. It is the door that divides your future leads from the incredible material you have created for them.

Come up with an attractive design and choose an eye-catching headline

Your form must be consistent with your brand, stand out on the page, and convince users to subscribe. You want to make your readers really want to get the offer.

b. Make the text line up with the offer

Although your goal is for users to provide you with their information, you should not mislead them. All the information you include on your form should be a true representation of your offer.

c. Make the form simple

This may be one of your first interactions with the prospect, so you shouldn't overwhelm them with an overly long form with multiple fields. Request only the most basic information, such as name and email address.

d. Set double confirmation on your subscription form

You may think it is counterproductive to ask your subscribers to sign up for your email twice, but most of the time it is no

Although it is an element that can change depending on your circumstances, we suggest that you choose double opt-in, or double confirmation , to be more certain that those who are part of your email marketing list really want to receive your emails.

Make sure the process works correctly

Before you use the form with your potential clients, complete all the steps that make up the user experience yourself. Check that the form is working as expected, that the thank you page is active, and that your offer is delivered as promised. This is one of the first impressions your new lead will have of your company, so make sure it's professional and positive.

Good practices of email marketing

If you follow all the tips correctly, you will create a consolidated list of subscribers and leads who are really interested in receiving your messages. However, you can't start sending emails right away, unless you want your messages to end up in the spam folder or on a blocked email list. Follow the recommendations below and you will see that you will have a high rate of receiving your emails.

1. Analyze the structure of your email marketing email

When you send emails to your friends, it is normal that you do not give as much importance to the format or the subject line of the messages. However, emails for email marketing campaigns are very different. There are many important factors: from the time you send the mail to the devices for which your message is optimized.

Your goal is to generate more leads, which is why you need to dedicate much more time and attention to it than you normally spend on any other type of communication.

That is why it is good that we analyze the components of an effective marketing email in detail, so you can create a flawless structure.

Subject line: 

For this element, use attractive, practical, and clear language — personalized and consistent with the body of the email.

Text:  

The body text of your email will need to be consistent with your brand's voice and should only address one topic.

Images:  

select relevant and eye-catching images that are optimized for all devices.

CTA:  

Your call to action should redirect to a relevant offer and stand out from the rest of the email.

Right time:  

According to several studies, the best day and time to send a message is Tuesday between 10:00 and 11:00 .

Responsiveness:  

55% of emails are opened on mobile devices . Therefore, it is convenient that your email is optimized for all types of devices.

Personalization:  write each email as if you were sending it to a friend. Be nice and address the reader using a familiar tone.

2. Segment your list

This is another important factor that you must take into account before implementing your email marketing strategy. Segmentation involves dividing your entire email list into subcategories that suit the unique characteristics, preferences, and interests of your subscribers.

After all, our subscribers are people and we should do everything in our power to treat them as such. That means not sending them generic bulk messages.

Why you should segment your list

Segmentation is very important because, without this resource, you run the risk of sending the wrong content to the wrong people - and this will lead to you losing subscribers.

All users who sign up to receive your emails are at a different level of readiness to become customers (which, after all, is the most important goal of any strategy).

If you send a discount coupon for your product to subscribers who have not yet discovered what exactly their problem is, they are likely to lose them. That is because you would be missing a very important part of the process, in which you must build trust and develop a meaningful relationship.

All emails you send should treat subscribers as individuals, and not as an equal opportunity group that you intend to contact in the same way.

The more you segment your list, the more trust you will generate in your visitors and the easier it will be for them to convert.

How to segment your list

The first step in targeting is creating separate lead magnets and signup forms for each part of the buyer journey. That way, your contacts are automatically divided into separate lists.

Additionally, email marketing platforms allow you to  segment your email list  by contact data and behavior to help you send the right messages to the right recipients.

Here are some of the ways you can segment your list:

• Geographic location
• Life cycle stage
• Recognition, consideration or decision stage
• Industry
• Previous interactions with your brand
• Language
• Market Stall

In fact, you can segment your list any way you like. When emailing each subgroup, make sure to be as unique as possible.

3. Personalize your email

Now that you know who the recipients are and what is most important to them, it will be much easier to send messages with personalized details.

While it is true that you are probably addressing more than 100 people at once , your contacts don't have to know.

To better understand this, think about the following: Personalized emails get 50% higher open rates and 14% improved click through rate compared to generic messages.

You have collected a lot of unique data and your email marketing software allows you to use  personalization tokens . That means you have no excuse to send non-personalized emails and make your recipients feel special.

Here are some ways to peronalize your emails:

• Add a name field in your subject line or greeting.
• Include information specific to a region, such as city, where applicable.
• Submit content that is relevant based on the lifecycle stage of your lead.
• Only send emails that align with the last interaction a lead had with your brand.
• Write about relevant or personal events, such as region-specific holidays or birthdays.
• End your emails with a signature from a person (and not from your company).
• Use a relevant call-to-action that redirects to an offer that is useful to the reader.

4. Automate the sending of your email

Automation will help you put your list targeting into action. When you've already created specific subgroups, you can send automated emails , or autoresponder emails . Here are some ways to do it:

Automatic response system

This system, also known as a gradual campaign, includes a series of emails that are sent automatically once you activate a certain action; for example, when someone downloads your ebook.

Use the same guidelines that we indicated previously to compose your emails, in this way they will be useful and interesting for your readers. You will have to determine how often you want to send these emails; for example, after a few days, weeks, or even months. Regardless of the pace, make sure the welcome email is the first one they receive - once they confirm their subscription, of course.

The best thing about the autoresponder system is that you don't have to do anything other than configure it. All users who are part of this system will receive all the emails that you have added to the series.

Workflows

Workflows considerably improve the automatic response system. Think of  workflows  as a Yes / No branching schema that will execute actions based on the criteria you set.

Workflows have two key components:

Criteria for enrollment: that is, the action that qualifies a user to be added to the workflow.

Objective: that is, the action that removes the user from the workflow.

Workflow tools are smart enough to know if a user opened an email or downloaded an offer, and they trigger a series of actions based on that behavior. That means you can send a series of emails or even change a prospect's lifecycle stage based on their actions.

This is an example of how a workflow can be configured:

Example of email marketing workflow configuration

The main difference with automatic response systems is that the workflows are intelligent; That is, they can change the course of your automated series based on what is most useful and relevant to your prospect. 

For example, if a new subscriber receives a welcome email and the configuration indicates that the following email is an offer, but has already downloaded it to your site, the workflow tool will have that information and will adapt its action. 

In an automated responder system, users receive a set of predetermined emails at specified time intervals, regardless of the actions they have taken.

Why is this important?  

Sending the correct emails at the wrong time has a negative impact on the bottom line of your company. Businesses see a  28.5% increase in revenue  when they send emails based on lifecycle stages.

Email rules that you must respect

Another important aspect to consider, prior to launching your campaign, are the email standards that establish the needs of consumers to know how and why their information is used. Nothing matters to us more than fulfilling what our clients and potential clients want.

CAN-SPAM regulation

Technically, CAN-SPAM is the acronym for "Control of the Attack of Pornography and Unsolicited Marketing."

In practice, this rule is a way to protect the rights of your subscribers to receive only the emails they have requested. This law was passed in 2003 and applies to all business emails sent for business purposes

These are some of the ways you can make sure your emails comply with CAN-SPAM regulations:

Include your business name and address in all emails.

Place visible unsubscribe links in all emails.

Use real email addresses in the "sender" and "reply to" fields.

Enter subject lines that clearly indicate the content of the messages.

Note: This article only provides the most relevant regulatory information, but should not be construed as legal advice. See the  FTC site  for more legal information on CAN-SPAM.

GDPR

"GDPR compliance goes hand in hand with inbound methodology in the business world," said Brian Halligan, CEO of HubSpot.

While many professionals view these new email regulations as harmful and unnecessary, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) actually makes it easier for companies to establish long-lasting, loyal relationships with their customers.

The main objective of the GDPR is to offer customers the right to choose; it is they who must choose to receive your emails, your news or your products. And that is precisely what inbound marketing is based on.

It is important to mention that the GDPR is valid only for companies that carry out business in the European Union and for organizations that manage data of EU citizens. Failure to comply with this rule results in significant fines, so make sure you read all the  GDPR guidelines .

Here is a brief summary of how you can ensure compliance with the GDPR:

• When requesting authorization to store personal information, use clear and explicit language.
• Only collect the data that is necessary and relevant to your business.
• Store contact details in a secure manner and only use them based on previously agreed upon purposes.
• Save information for justified business purposes only.
• Delete the contact details of users who request it.
• Make it easy for contacts to unsubscribe from your list or update their preferences.
• Respond quickly to a contact's request for access to data.
• Keep business records to show GDPR compliance.

These rules are very important, so you should create a  GDPR strategy  for your business before you start sending emails.

How to avoid spam filters

You will spend a lot of time creating the perfect email, you will make sure that it complies with all current regulations; the least you want is for your emails to end up in a spam folder .

Also, you should avoid spam filters for the following reasons:

• They affect your deliverability rates.
• Your contacts are likely to miss all your emails.
• You won't be able to accurately measure the effectiveness of your email marketing strategy.
• Your analytics will be distorted.
• To prevent your messages from ending up in the spam folder, follow these tips:

Make your email address belong to a white list

A white list is the exact opposite of a black list; This is a list of approved senders that are authorized to be sent to the subscribers' inbox. The simplest way to do this is by asking the new subscriber to add your email address to their contact book. Include instructions on how to do this in your welcome email.

Be very careful with the text

Avoid using all capital letters with multiple exclamation points, as well as using  words that activate the spam filter , such as "subscribe", "click below" or "request", which are terms that are easy to detect and block by internet service providers.

Use a reliable email service provider

The reputation of your email service provider can affect your deliverability, so be sure to only use known and trusted companies. In addition to taking care of the provider, it is convenient that you avoid using no-reply addresses , since this could cause - among other things - that it is users who manually classify your email marketing campaigns as spam.

Implement dual subscription

We have already told you about this mechanism before in this guide. After a user voluntarily subscribes to your email list, send them an email requesting their confirmation. This way you make sure that your new subscriber is really engaged with your company and interested in receiving your emails.

How to do email marketing

Once you have in mind the elements that we have just mentioned, you can carry out your email marketing strategy and implement it with confidence. Here is a list of the steps in the process that you must carry out to carry out an email marketing strategy.

1. Set your goals

The key to setting the right goals for your email marketing initiative is aligning them with your company's overall marketing goals and KPIs. Is the goal to generate new subscriptions for your product? New leads for your sales team? More attendees for your event? More donations for your cause?

Email marketing is the most powerful channel for reaching your audience, and you can use it to accomplish a number of different goals, so it's worth spending some time thinking about what you want to accomplish with it before getting started.

This makes it easier for you to identify what to send and to whom, and allows you to create well-performing and focused email marketing campaigns to achieve your marketing goals.

2. Create your email list

Now that you've established your goals and what you want to achieve with email marketing, it's time to build your email list so you can start sending campaigns that meet these goals.

If you plan to use email to keep in touch with existing customers, then your email list can be built by importing your existing customer data into your email marketing tool.

Sometimes you can manually upload an existing list (from an Excel file, for example) or you can connect your account to the tool that has your customer data (like your CRM, accounting, e-commerce tool) to automatically synchronize your client's information. 

If you plan to use email to communicate with an audience whose email address you don't already have, then start by capturing email addresses and building your list from scratch.

Offer your potential customers a valuable incentive + simple subscription opportunities = a great email list.

3. Select the type of campaign you want to use

Once you have your goals and email list (s), it's time to choose what type of email campaign you want to use. Next, we leave you the most recurring type of content that you can use in your campaign depending on your objectives.

Newsletter

It is a regularly distributed campaign or email newsletter. It is about a main topic of interest. If your goal is to keep in touch with a list of people who are already your customers, then a newsletter is the perfect type of campaign . It keeps your business and your products on its mind and attracts people to visit your website.

Marketing offer

A marketing offer email is essentially any campaign you send with the goal of generating a direct response. This can be a campaign that shows some of the latest stock of your product and encourages people to buy, or a campaign that offers a special discount or promotion on your products or services.

The marketing offer will be effective if your goal is to directly drive sales with the use of email. All you have to do is present your product or discount offer and include a direct call to action; so people can click on your website and make the purchase.

Ad

An ad campaign is an email sent to your subscribers that communicates a new product, feature, or service.

This type of email is perfect if you want to keep your audience (i.e. existing customers) updated on your latest products or features. While the primary goal is to share information, email can have the added benefit of directing people to your store or website where they can make a purchase.

Invitation to an event

An invitation email is a campaign designed to increase awareness of an event and encourage people to attend.

Remember that the type of email campaign you send depends entirely on your goals with email marketing.

4. Select a company to run your email marketing campaign

You must select a company that offers you everything you need to implement the  best email marketing strategy , for this it is important that you keep in mind the type of content you selected for your campaign. Also make sure that the email service provider you choose has the following characteristics:

• CRM platform with segmentation capabilities
• Good image with internet service providers
• Good reputation as an email service provider (ESP)
• Easy to create forms, landing pages, and CTAs
• Automation
• Simple methods to comply with email regulations
• Ability to run A / B tests of your emails
• Built-in analytics
• Reports that can be downloaded
• Email marketing templates

Templates facilitate the work of designing, coding and defining the user experience of your emails. 

Unless you have extensive knowledge of web design or development, templates will help you save a lot of time and as we already mentioned, they are an element that can help you decide which company you choose to run your campaign.

One word of caution: when making your selection, choose  email templates that have proven to be effective . The quality templates come from recognized and trusted ESPs who have tested them among thousands of other alternatives. So now you know: always stick with the professionals.

5. Create your campaign and implement it

With your choice made, all you have to do is run your campaign on the selected platform. Consider a simple structure that encourages easy reading, since the average attention span of an adult is eight seconds . People won't peruse your campaigns word for word; instead, they will examine them for something that piques their interest.

Because of this, doing text-heavy email campaigns is not the best approach. Structure your emails to entice people to read your content and guide them to the call to action that you add in the email.

Some of the best email marketing campaigns have employed all of the exceptional advice and process that we tell you about, but if you feel like you're stuck and need inspiration to do your own, you can check out some  great email marketing examples .

You will see that if you apply these fundamentals and this process, you will have campaigns that will generate a high conversion from your first email. After all, you will be creating highly valuable content, attractive to your subscribers due to its quality and relevant for the information you provide.

Analyze your email marketing results

After you have implemented your marketing strategy, carry out your analysis with one of the methods that we mention below and do not hesitate to include the use of tools specially designed for email marketing ; This will allow you to improve in upcoming campaigns and enhance the capacity of these strategies in your company.

A / B testing

Not all email lists are created equal. Some audiences prefer personalization, while others consider it spam. Some users like colorful and eye-catching CTA buttons, while others prefer more discreet call-to-action buttons.

You will never know what type of audience makes up your list until you try the variants. This is where A / B testing comes into play.

These tests, also known as segmented tests, are a method of discovering which type of email works best for your audience by analyzing the results of email A versus email B

This is the step-by-step process to perform A / B testing of your emails:

• Select  one  variant at a time; 
• For example, try the subject line, CTA, or images.
• Create two versions of the email: one with the variant and one without it.
• Allow your emails to be sent simultaneously for a specified period.
• Analyze the results and store only the version that performed best.
• Try a new variant and repeat the process.

Most email service providers will have A / B testing built into their software, which makes it much easier for you to compare results without working too hard.

Key performance indicators for email marketing

There are four key metrics to keep in mind when evaluating the effectiveness of your email marketing campaign.

Deliverability:  

Measure the rate by which email is delivered to the correct inboxes of your subscribers.

Open rate: 

it is the percentage of users who open your email once they receive it in their inboxes.

Clickthrough rate: is the percentage of users who click on your CTAs.

Unsubscribe:  Measure the number of users who unsubscribe from your email list after receiving an email from your company.

How to improve the results of your emails

There are many factors that affect your KPIs, and you should experiment and investigate which modifications to your emails will cause the most important changes.

If you don't get the results you want, try trying these variants to improve your email results.

Delivery capacity

Make sure to follow good recommended practices to avoid spam filters.

Remove inactive users from your email list to keep only those who show commitment.

Check which emails got hard bounces and remove those addresses from your list.

Open rate

Experiment with the text in your subject lines to convince recipients to click on your emails.

Adjust the time and day you send your emails to see what works best.

Clickthrough rate

Evaluate your offer and make sure it offers value to your targeted list.

Rewrite your text to ensure that the actions you want the reader to complete are clearly stated.

Try different CTAs (for example, text vs. images or bold letters vs. plain letters).

Subscription cancellations

First, evaluate if this is not actually a good thing for your company, as it means that disinterested users decide to remove themselves from your list on their own.

Analyze if the email you sent was consistent with your brand.

Make sure you haven't misled the recipient by promising something in particular and offering something different.

Check that your emails offer value to your audience before trying to increase sales.

Email marketing report template

We already talked about various metrics and analysis methods, but it is useless to collect a large amount of data if you do not organize it correctly.

An email marketing report is a worksheet in which you can record your results. This report will help you draw conclusions about your KPIs and take the corresponding actions to improve them.

Below, we offer you different factors that will allow you to organize your data in a report:

• Metrics
• Total number of emails sent
• Total number of emails delivered
• Deliverability rate
• Bounce rate
• Open rate
• Clickthrough rate
• Subscription cancellation fee
• Data
• Subject line
• Email body length
• Offer
• CTA (text or graphic)
• List segments

Important Questions

• Was your deliverability rate high compared to previous periods?
• What was the performance of your clickthrough rate or CTR compared to your open rate?
• Were the unsubscribe numbers consistent with other emails?
• Did a specific subject line perform better than others?
• Did the length of the email make a difference to the clickthrough rate?
• Could another CTA style have had better results?
• Was the offer suitable for that list segment?

Email marketing conversion rate

This metric is the measurement of the customers that make a conversion on your website, based on your email marketing campaign; for example: if the user takes the action of registering, buying, downloading or subscribing. This variable depends on the number of contacts made with the campaign, and how many of them met the desired objectives.

The conversion rate is calculated with the following operation: (Number of conversions / Number of users) x 100 =% Conversion. 

Formula to obtain the conversion rate or percentage

• To get a better conversion rate, optimize your email campaigns: 
• know your audience to send them content that interests them, 
• understand their behavior and their buying process; 
• redirect users to an equally complete and attractive landing page from your email;
•  Segment, personalize and avoid excessive use of the CTA. 

As we have told you in this article, the intention is not to saturate customers and address them; it's about guiding them to the website or your campaign's purpose, always offering something of value to them.

While there are many rules for sending marketing emails, always remember that the most important thing is to treat your subscribers like people. You can achieve all of your email marketing goals by applying this golden rule to all of your autoresponders, lead magnets, and subject lines.

Your subscribers really want to receive your news and interact with you. If you manage to become a genuine resource, your audience will look forward to receiving and opening an email from your brand.