Email Marketing Guide: How to do Email Marketing in 2023

Email Marketing Guide 2023

The evolution of email marketing was started in 1978, and it resulted in $13 million in sales. It kicked off every other channel and became one of the highly used marketing channels.

The best thing which makes email marketing more effective than other channels such as SEO and social media like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Influencer Marketing is, you have a direct connection to your readers or audience.

Do you think email marketing is dead?

In the era of AI, AR/VR, Chatbots, and TikTok, some people think that email marketing is dead.

But is it true? If you say YES, it is dead, then you are missing the real market scenario and misinterpreting data. 

Here are some researches and reports that say email marketing is becoming more reliable day by day compared to other social media channels. Contrast that number to the engagement rate you get from email.

As per the survey of MailChimp, The average newsletter open rate is 20.81%. It is 20 times higher than the engagement on Facebook.

As per the reports of AdWeek, 45% of consumers find social media ads are annoying and are fed up. They do not like to go on Social Media Channels to see Ads.

In one study of HubSpot, it was seen, 86% of consumers are obnoxious and irritated with Facebook, TV commercials, and display ads. And they prefer email-based marketing messages over these ads.

Email marketing has a better tool to reach your audience than social media. 

Now in your mind, the question can arise- does it help in more conversions, maximize sales funnel and bring ROI? 

The answer is, YES. It does in a very effective and efficient way. Nothing can beat email when it comes to converting your potential customers into ultimate consumers.

In a research report of McKinsey, it was found that email converts 40 times more leads into customers than Facebook and Twitter combined.

The study of eMarketer shows, third of people that subscribe to a retailer’s newsletter end up making a purchase. 

So, undoubtedly email marketing is still one of the most effective and robust marketing tools for business. 

Now, to maximize your sales funnel for higher ROI, building a successful email marketing campaign is very important for entrepreneurs or any business. 

But most people do not know how to do it in the right way. 

Many people think of sending bulk emails to people at a time called email marketing. It’s spam, not marketing. 

People can easily judge you about your authenticity and fraudulent behavior. You must understand this.

The Amazing Email Marketing Statistics and Facts (Infographic)

In today’s blog, you will learn how to do email marketing from scratch.

Here is a step by step email marketing Guide for beginners:

Building a great email list: 

To build a powerful email list is the first step of your successful email marketing campaign. It takes time and requires some smart strategies to get subscriptions. 

The standard tactic which most of the companies and brands do for getting the sign up are:

• Offering for free email series which educates your audience
• Pop-ups on website
• Check Out Process
• Free downloads of content (videos, blogs or any educational pdfs)
• Free whitepapers and eBooks
• Product or service updates or any new releases
• Infographics
• Templates
• Report or Study
• Webinars or Courses
• Tools Offering

Remember, once any member does sign up or subscribe to your channel, then it permits you to send products or services which are relevant to your niche. 

Here, you get the opportunity to treat him like a guest, and with prompt Call to Action (CTA), you can enter into his mind with your emails. 

Make the First impression with great follow-ups

Once you have enough email databases of your potential customers, then you need to follow up with fascinating CTA. 

Suppose you have promised your subscribers, that we will deliver one email in a week, and you are sharing daily or more than 2 in a week. Then you are bombarding your customers with email which he has not expected. 

On the contrary, if you promise that you will deliver daily updates in the morning, and if your subscribers are not receiving emails regularly, then you are making them upset. 

In both cases, it becomes irritating, and there are high chances; they may unsubscribe to your channel. So, do not take such a risk, which can ruin your image. It will lead you to failure. 

To perform the email marketing campaigns, you can choose the suggested ideas

• You can choose an email marketing service to execute these marketing tips and email segmentation.
• Personalize your email marketing.
• Incorporate email marketing automation.
• Use email marketing templates.

Do not Pitch your Product or Services in Sudden

You need to have patience while running an email campaign. First, get engaged with them with the quality of your content and free offerings.

In all your emails or newsletters, your subscribers should expect by themselves that you may pitch for sales.  

By pitching your product and service, do not surprise them at the very beginning of your email engagement.

Create an Amazing Newsletter

A fantastic newsletter has a strong recall value that sticks to your audience’s psychological mind. 

The most fabulous quality of a good newsletter is, it maintains a regular email routine where you save the pitch for unique updates, offers, and announcements.

Where your newsletter may contain a list of updates and images of your product or services, also, it should be a great mix and balance with your customers. 

To do so, you send personalized emails with a friendly memo. It helps you to build a strong relationship with your prospects or subscribers. 

Now, It’s Time for Action to know KPIs:

Ways of organizing your email reports

With the help of the following Metrics, you need to consider search aspects in detail/

• The number of emails sent.
• The number of emails delivered.
• Bounce Rate
• Open Rate
• CTR, and
• Unsubscribe Rate

Questions to yourself for self-evaluation

• What is your CTR compared to emails open rate?
• Were your unsubscribe numbers consistent with other emails?
• Did a specific subject line perform better than others?
• Do the formatting and email length make any difference in CTR?
• What kind of Call To Action (CTA) is performing better?
• Which offers are appropriate to grab the attention of your readers?

To move on to the next level, which is very close to monetizing your email list is Data Analytics and Proper Segmentation. Data analysis is the backbone of any business. With the help of data, you get to know the interests, tastes, preferences, likes, dislikes, and behaviors of your readers or audience. 

Things to consider in Data Analytics

1. Open Rate 
2. Click-Through Rate
3. Unsubscribes

The number or percentage of Open Rate tells you how well you build a relationship with your customers. If your open rate is low, it means you are not providing value and have a very less engaging audience. 

Next is, Click-Through Rate (CTR). If you have attached any link in your emails then with CTR you will know how many people clicked on that link. 

Higher CTR indicates that you have an amazing copy and are rightly targeted. If you have low CTR, in this case, your targeting is not enough, or you are sending a low-quality copy email.

Third and last is to analyze the Unsubscribe Rate. It tells you the interest rate of your subscribers in your product or services. 

If your unsubscribe rate is high, then it has a severe concern for you. You have to re-evaluate your email strategy from the bottom, including building value and writing good copy.

Now you are done with the data analysis and identify the behavior of your consumers.

Now you need to bifurcate your list into parts

1. Customer list (in comparison to leads who haven’t bought)
2. Newsletter subscribers
3. Daily email list (in comparison to weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, etc.)
4. Hot Prospects

Once you are done with the segmentation of analytics of email marketing, you can make better decisions which will surely give a positive impact. 

One of the best ways to analyze the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns is A/B Testing.

You can not create all email lists in the same way. Some readers prefer personalizing email while others think it is spam. 

On the other hand, some readers like very prompt and eye-catching CTA buttons, while others prefer a more subtle CTA.

Some want your product, some require new updates while others want both products as well as new updates.

So, start sending different types of email to different sets of audiences. 

Hence, give them the chance to choose. If you do so, you will not lose them. Since customers are more likely to buy again, it’s fairly obvious why you want them subscribed to your customer email list.

You’ll never know what type of people make up your email list until you test the variables. 

A/B testing, or split testing, is a way to see what type of email performs best with your audience by analyzing the results of email A against email B.

Steps of Performing A/B Testing

1. Select one variable to test at a time, e.g., subject line, CTA, images.
2. Create two versions of the email: one with and one without the variable.
3. Allow your emails to be sent out simultaneously for a while.
4. Analyze your results and keep only the version that performed better.
5. Test a new variable and repeat the process.

Most email service providers have in-built A/B testing into their software, which will make it easy for you to compare email results without much manual work.

Check out the Perfect list of email marketing software and tools. 

Pro-Guide and Tips of Getting Better Engagement via Email Marketing

• Timing matters a lot in email marketing. Try to schedule your emails when people are awake, and their inboxes are not crowded.
• Most of the companies schedule their emails in the morning, and the inbox of an individual is overloaded, so he/she misses even some exciting stuff. 
• Therefore try to send the emails to your subscribers in the late evening or early afternoon. If you follow this strategy, your email will pop-up at the top in their inboxes.
• The first impression is the last impression and in email marketing “THE SUBJECT LINE” “THE SENDER” and “THE MESSAGE PREVIEW” decides a lot whether they are going to open it or not. Also, try to keep your SUBJECT LINE short, as it has a higher open rate. So, optimize for Gmail’s Preview Snippet well.
• To increase the open rate and precisely identify real views and prospects start deleting non-openers without mercy who are not opening your email from the last 2-3 months. Put only relevant subscribers to your list and remove all those unengaged subscribers. 
• To keep your Spam Rate or Complaints low make your UNSUBSCRIBE button quite visible. If you do this, the people do not report your emails as a Spam. They can click on the UNSUBSCRIBE button.
• If you want your subscriber list to be more engaging and deliverable, then I would recommend using Double Opt-In. 
• As per the study of Litmus, 67% of all email messages are opened on mobile. Hence, use 15px+ font as it is more readable and enhances user experience in comparison to 12px font.
• Do not give your readers so much option in your email. In the study of  WordStream reports, emails with a single CTA can boost clicks by 371%. Hence if you want to improve your CTR use One CTA Per Email. 
• Try to deliver text email layouts rather fancy email templates as it distracts from the mail stream content or delivery. 

What else we can do as an email marketing agency or company

Set up a series of educational emails. For example, You read a blog post on “How to do email marketing and it’s automation” on The Blue Oceans Group. 

Next time, we send you the Industry Reports on robust ecosystems and ROI by email Marketing. Then after a few days, we send you the case study on email marketing effectiveness about some clients; how they are making thousands and millions of dollars through email marketing. 

If I follow up with you with such an informing and educational email series, then you might become a hot lead and engage with my emails. 

You should not forget your old customers or prospects customers. You should continuously send automated emails with attractive design and offers. 

Keep making offers compelling over time, such as discounts on your products or services from 5% to 10%, 20% or 30% adding urgency to it. 

Closing Keynote on How to do Email Marketing

I am sure you have enjoyed reading my insights on email marketing guide.

Now, it’s your time to let us know a few things:

How our infographic on email marketing statistics and trends helped you?

What are those mistakes or wrong practices you are doing?

Is your subject line short with emoji or it is long?

Are you sending the fancy email templates with more than 1 CTA? 

Which are those strategies and tips of mine, you are going to implement in your email marketing campaigns? 

Do you really think email automation is necessary for any business dealing in email marketing campaigns?

Either way, let me know by leaving your thoughts in the comment box right away.

Also Read:

• Best Email Marketing Templates Softwares and Tools in 2023
• Email Marketing: Best Softwares to run campaigns in 2023