How to build an Email List with an Email Marketing Campaign

Why email marketing? In these days of time-consuming social media and short attention spans, email marketing is a proven and effective way to get in front of your ideal clients.

Let’s explore what an email marketing campaign is and the 6 key steps you need to follow for a successful campaign.

What is an email marketing campaign?

It's a strategic and thought out approach to connecting with your ideal audience. It's a way to build a relationship with your audience, to get them to know, like and trust you. And it's a way to get to know your audience - their fears, beliefs and desires - so you can create content that appeals to them.

There are 6 key steps essential to the success of any email marketing campaign:

1. Build your email list
2. Set your email marketing campaign goals
3. Plan your value-add emails
4. Determine what type of emails you’re sending
5. Schedule your email sequence
6. Review your email sequence data

Let’s explore each step in more detail…

Step 1. Build your email list

Do you realise that having subscribers on your own platform is the best way to build a business? It means that you’re not at the mercy of the whims of social media. Suppose Facebook decided to close down the platform or change your access? Would your business still exist? That’s why it’s so important to get your audience off social media and on to your email list.

Your email list is your business asset, something to be nurtured and cared for.

To build your email list you need to create relevant, value driven content that’s of use to your target audience. One of the strategies you can use is an opt-in (or lead magnet). You've probably seen and signed up for these before.

An opt-in is a beautiful way to offer value to somebody to solve a problem. The more closely linked your opt-in is to the problem that your audience wants to solve, the better that opt-in will do.

Once you’ve created your opt-in, you’ll need an email marketing software program to store the gathered email addresses. I recommend Mailerlite for start-up businesses or ActiveCampaign for those ready to tailor content by client segment. You can set up an email sequence so that someone signing up for your opt-in will receive an automated series of emails, and you can also use it to send regular newsletters to your subscribers.

A handy function is the tag system to segment your subscribers. Choose an email marketing platform that gives you the ability to tag. For example if someone joins my list through my free training Fabulous First Opt-ins, I can tag them so that I know that’s how they came to my list and that's what their interest is.

Step 2. Set your email marketing campaign goals

It's important to set specific goals for your email marketing campaign. Your goals will be different for each campaign.

For example:

• If you've got a new subscriber, the goal of the email you send is to welcome that person into your business.

• If the subscriber came in via an opt-in, the goal of your email campaign may be to tell them more about the support you offer, relevant to the opt-in.

• Another goal may be about nurturing your audience. You can do this by giving them unique content that's not available on your website or social media.

• And yet another goal could be about re-engagement. If you haven’t been sending out regular newsletters - that needs to change! Your goal would be to reconnect with your audience, giving them great value to remind them why they’re there.

• If you’re multi-passionate with different niches, segmentation may be your goal. One newsletter may not meet the requirements of separate areas of your business.

Step 3. Plan your value-add emails

When writing your emails, take the time to put yourself in your audience’s shoes. It helps to understand where they’re at right now. Ask yourself what problems they’re having, and how can you solve them.

Your emails need to be thought through and carefully crafted. It’s all about adding value. I give my clients an email marketing template. This allows them to structure their emails more effectively, although you can just use a Word document.

The most important element is the subject line. Your subject line needs to be "open worthy".

Make your audience curious enough to open and read your email. A handy tool to use is Portent Titlemaker.

Consider what is the one thing you want your audience to understand. So, for example, if the email is delivering an opt-in, what's the one reason why they need to open the email and get the opt-in. What’s in it for them?

Step 4. Determine what type of emails you’re sending

Make sure you know what kind of email you’re sending and what you want it to achieve.

A welcome email to a new subscriber is quite different to an email in response to someone signing up for your webinar, which is more transactional.

And emails following up after a webinar to invite people to take the next step would be more promotional.

An email series following an opt-in is a nurture sequence. This is how you let the subscriber know more about you and how you can help them.

An email newsletter is informational, letting your subscribers know what’s new, and giving hints and tips.

Then we have relationship based emails. You may be storytelling or giving examples and case studies to show your value.

Again, the subject line needs to be compelling.

Step 5. Schedule your email sequence

Ok - you’ve created your emails. The next step is to schedule them.

Have a think about when your audience is most likely to open your emails.

• When is your audience likely to be online?

• What time zones apply?

• What kind of habits do you think they have?

• Are they people who read their emails first thing in the morning?

• Or would they be more likely to read emails in the evening?

Choose your time carefully - you don’t want your email to get lost amongst the other emails that come in during the day.

Step 6. Review the email sequence data

The final step is to review your data.

Check the open rate of your emails. The average email marketing open rate is 15-25%. If your open rate is lower, it could be that your subject lines need to be more compelling. Or that your scheduled time needs to change.

Check the click through rate. How many people clicked on the links in your email? The average click through rate is 2.5%. A low click through rate could mean people are not engaging with your content.

Check the unsubscribe rate - how many people unsubscribed? Are they unsubscribing because your content isn’t relevant? Or because you voiced a strong opinion and they disagree?

Don’t panic about unsubscribes - you won’t be everyone’s flavour, and that's fine. Take the unsubscribe rate as a measure. Work out where you think the problem could be. If they're no longer interested, bless them and send them on their way.

If you know in your heart that the content wasn't interesting enough or was too long, do better next time. Aim for short, sharp, concise, fun, engaging content that your audience will find useful.

What’s next

Now you have the 6 key steps to build an email list to create email marketing success:

1. Build your email list
2. Set your email marketing campaign goals
3. Plan your value-add emails
4. Determine what type of emails you’re sending
5. Schedule your email sequence
6. Review your email sequence data

If you’ve found this useful and need help with implementing any of these steps I’ve got you covered with the