Email Marketing 101: The Art of Making It Work for Your Business

We all want to go big and stay if not at the top then at least as close to the top players on the market as possible. Those businesses that skip email marketing, lose immediate results in terms of web traffic and sales.  

2025 is closer than you think, with 4.59 billion users that will take advantage of digital publicity as forecasted. And what does that number mean for you? Half of the world’s population. And your business can reach it out. 

One more point in favor of e-marketing – no one can take it away from you. Things happen, and one day you wake up knowing that your social media account is blocked, banned, or deleted. It is a well-known fact that social media platforms evolve and change their algorithms regularly. With e-marketing, you continue reaching out to your audience no matter what. 

A bigger webmail list is the easiest way to succeed in your digital promotion journey. However, building one might take time. But it is also proven to result in sales if done right. 

If you struggle to build a massive list, then you are at the right place.

Is Email Marketing Still Relevant? [Free Webinar from PRNEWS.IO]

The Top Marketing Strategies for Email

Create a marketing plan

When you dive into promotion basics, you will know it all starts with the right plan. Have it, and you get a better sense of the problems you need to address, who is your audience, and what content you should create. The right audience with the right message at the right time is reality. And the best thing is that it doesn’t require tech skills or some nerdy education. 

Neither you require talent, capital, or luck. The one skill you are away from striking it right is knowing how to attract people to your business. 

Define your audience

Seeing a leap in traffic on your business webpage is exciting. However, if the target audience is not coming to it, you’ve failed. Again. Your time is wasted. 

So, what’s the secret? Try to think a bit like a drug dealer. Give them a reason. 

Do it right and give them a little of what they want. Once they are in, show them that you’ve got more of the good stuff for them. 

Want to have a new customer by tomorrow? Then conduct market research. That step is no way you could skip. Otherwise, you will regret it big time.

Sign up sources

Having a newsletter sign-up form on your business webpage is a great way to capture a visitor’s electronic address. But there is a trick. 

Today, every serious marketer is trying to build a webmail list. That makes users not so enthusiastic about giving their address next time. A good reason why they should give it to you will help. Chances are you have it. Offering a lead magnet will do wonders for your business. Be it incentives, opt-in bribes, or freebies; that all helps.

Segments and groups

Obtaining the address of your prospects is half of the battle, though. Having a massive list is great, but one that is tailored to specific ideas is much better.

If you haven’t done it before, you need to know how to segment your audience. Age, behavior, interest, or location could be any segmentation type that fits your goals. The best way to deal with cart abandonment is to segment your subscribers to the list and reach out to them with an email that gives a discount on items in the cart.  

Give it a go and see what works best for you. That will take days, but considering that 77% of email marketing ROI came from segmented, targeted, and triggered campaigns, that is worth doing.

Decide what to write

Content is king as long as it adds value. Share a story, provide insight or knowledge, or demonstrate a process, to ensure it helps your prospects. It needs to speak to their needs and interests.

Find out what motivates people to buy your product. What prevents them from buying it?

The best way to do that is through in-depth interviews, monitoring forums, or correspondence on social media. Even a tip can help the main message.

With all the chaotic notes you get, sorting helps. Once you have a good understanding of your audience, use this to create content that they are carving for.

Make a schedule

Every successful e-marketing campaign starts with a schedule. Writing the best newsletter is half of a real job. The second part is to know when to send it. 

On average, marketers send one-two e-letters every week. In some cases, that could be more. So, once you know what type of e-mails you need to deliver, let automation work for you. Make a schedule. It will help send e-letters at the right time, regardless of time zones. 

Ideally, you can write newsletters at your most convenient moment and schedule them to send later. Keep your calendar constantly updated.

Regardless of the software you use, there are some key points to include in your calendar.

• Campaign name (weekly/new product/promotional, etc)
• Owner
• Status (scheduled/planned/sent)
• Subject line
• send time
• target list (all subscribers/existing customers/female/VIP)

Design your emails

Eye-catching digital mail will increase user engagement. Set your business to success, much like popular brands do. Opt for pre-designed templates and win time. With it, you change design elements by simply dragging and dropping.

Best practices are built-in, so your e-newsletter is automatically responsive and optimized for performance. Of course, you can dive into the issue of design trends and why they matter. It will never harm you. However, if you can save hours, won’t you do that?

Test your emails

Every time, send the most refined version of your digital campaign. A/B testing increases your email’s open and conversion rates. Also, there are a few other metrics that shouldn’t be ignored, like:

• Deliverability and delivery rate
• IP reputation
• Conversion rate and ROI
• Subscriber rate

Test your e-newsletters before you send them in bulk. Also, use double opt-ins or check spam mail databases — all can give you an edge in avoiding hard bounces. Additionally, you can use an SPF checker to increase the email deliverability rate.

Whatever tool for metrics you use, the results should look like a simple dashboard.

Test in different email clients

Webmails look different across different e-mail clients. What looks great in Outlook, might look not the same in Yahoo, and vice versa. 

Although the most popular client worldwide is Apple Mail, with the go-to choice for 57.2% of all email users, it is still smart to test your newsletter to other clients.

Send test e-mails to friends and coworkers

Test e-letters on your colleagues and friends. A fresh set of eyes might show some points which you have missed. It is also useful to test your grammar or format some issues that should be highlighted. 

Make testing part of your e-letter routine to catch mistakes before they occur. 

Marketing automation

If you take studies seriously, then you need to know that over 70 percent of successful companies utilize marketing automation. So, if you still do it manually, 2023 is the year to make changes. 

Just think of it that way. The set-it-and-forget-it nature of newsletter automation lets your campaigns run on the go. Without your constant attention. You just need to do the initial setup, and they’ll run 24/7.

Save hours on tedious tasks. Onboard new subscribers without manually sending email messages every time someone signs up. Let the smart tools do it all for you.

Many brands use it to improve e-message marketing in tasks such as:

• Creating highly segmented lists
• Building highly-engaged newsletters
• Running successful campaigns
• Pushing customers to a sales funnel
• Optimizing the effectiveness of messages in newsletters
• Increasing transactions

So, the time is to set it and forget it, right?

Measure your performance

If you don’t measure it, how do you know you succeeded?

From the moment your electronic letter campaign is underway, it could cost you serious money. Unless you monitor its performance. Always. 

How do you know what you need to improve? Keep an eye on important metrics, and you can get the most ROI from your digital newsletter efforts. 

Here are a few email marketing KPIs that you can’t ignore:

• Sign-up rate (the average is 1.95%)

• Open rate (varies by industry)

• Click-through rate (ranges from 1.27% to 4.29%)

• Conversion rate

• Lifetime revenue per subscriber
• Delivery rate

• Bounce rate (2% or less)

• Unsubscribe rate (0.5% is considered good)

Ready to Get Smart with Email Marketing?

There you have it: email marketing basics are an issue to discuss. There are so many points to take into consideration, that it could feel a bit overwhelming. The good news is that digital marketing campaigns can run smoothly and on your terms. It’s worth crafting efforts to see lifting results.

The next thing on your to-do list? What you’re going to do about it?