A checklist for successful email marketing campaigns

Marketing /

March 2022

At the top of the looong list of obstacles a business must overcome to be successful, is how to come up with a marketing campaign that doesn’t blow your budget, which let’s face it, may be non-existent at the beginning of your business.

This is where email marketing comes in. Email marketing campaigns are up to 40 times more effective than social media, according to a study done by McKinsey & Company. After all, we all have an email address. Whether you’re shopping online or using social media, you need an email address to be able to do anything. This means email marketing has a huge audience for you to capitalise on.

So, if email marketing is not part of your marketing repertoire, we’re here to tell you – it should be! With a dedicated software platform, it is an effective way of promoting your business, growing your audience, increasing profits, and selling more of your products and services. Talk about ticking all the boxes!

To help you get started with an email marketing campaign, we’ve set up a handy checklist for you to work your way through on your journey to email marketing expertise.

 

1. No idea where to start?

Create an email marketing strategy and set up your account

First things first, you will want to create an email marketing strategy. Though this step may require a bit of planning and forethought, it will make all the other steps that come after it much easier. As they say, every minute you spend in planning saves 10 minutes in execution. By taking the time to plan, you can identify and meet your goals more effectively. All you need to do is answer the following burning questions:

Once you’ve finessed your plan, you can get to work on setting up an email marketing account. Around here Mailchimp is our platform of choice, but the tips in this article can broadly be applied to any email marketing platform. Simply navigate to the website and sign yourself up! Some of the features we discuss in this article require a paid account, but when you’re just starting out you most likely only need a free account; you can upgrade to a paid account with more whizbang features as your audience and business grow.

Resources:

Getting started with Mailchimp:
https://mailchimp.com/help/getting-started-with-mailchimp/

 

2. I’ve got no list, who will I send my mailout to?

Time to build your audience.

As a starting place, you will create an audience and import your list of emails if you have one. It really pays off to take the time to build and maintain a healthy audience. Gathering emails organically from paying customers and legit sign-ups is the only way to go. If you engage in dodgy practices such as buying a list of emails, it could be a 1-way ticket to getting marked as a spammer, then no one will ever see the beautiful emails you’ve put so much work into.

Finally, you can look at ways to grow your list. Pop-up forms are a powerful tool for audience growth, and you can build them in Mailchimp. Imagine: A user is browsing your site, but they’re not quite ready to commit. BAM! A cute form to subscribe to your mailing list a 10% discount pops up. Whether they make a purchase now or later, if they’re truly interested in your offerings, they are very likely to sign up.

Another great way to grow your list is to automatically add anyone who makes a purchase to your list via your invoicing software. Did you know it costs 5 times as much to attract a new customer than to keep an existing one? If they’ve purchased from you before, they are far more likely to do so again, so make sure you keep marketing to former customers! There are integrations for invoicing software within Mailchimp to make this easy for you.

As a best practice, it is recommended to have only one primary audience in Mailchimp and use tags and segments to organize and target your contacts. This way you can offer more targeted content. Upsell former customers who already know you while educating new customers about your products and services. Tags and segments can allow you to send more personalised content, which will increase engagement and in turn get you more sales!

Resources:

Create an audience in Mailchimp:
https://mailchimp.com/help/create-audience/

Import contacts to your audience:
https://mailchimp.com/help/import-contacts-mailchimp/

How to Build Your Email List:
https://mailchimp.com/resources/how-to-build-your-email-list/

 

3. How do I know what to send?

Gather your content and design your email

If you haven’t already, now is a great time to think about who your ideal target market is. Really put yourself in their shoes and think about your marketing messages from their perspective. No matter what your business is, you need to have a clear picture of who your ideal customer is in order to effectively sell to them.

Next, you need to come up with some great content for your emails. Think about the intersection between what your target market cares about and what you about, this is the best content to provide. For example, THE ICONIC’s customers care about keeping up with the latest fashion trends, while THE ICONIC want to be fashion leaders – so they may include a ‘latest trends’ section in their emails with links to trending products. Offer value-adding content first and then sell last – Lorna Jane’s emails have only 3 sell items in their emails and they are the last thing you read in the email.

Finally we get to the fun part – designing how the email actually looks! Make sure it matches back to all the other visuals associated with your business; include your logo and use your signature colours. There are templates available within Mailchimp that can be customised to suit your brand. When you create a regular email, you’ll use a checklist-style campaign builder to add recipients, choose your settings, and design your content.

Resources:

Create an email template:
https://mailchimp.com/help/create-a-template-with-the-template-builder/  

Create an email campaign:
https://mailchimp.com/help/create-a-regular-email-campaign/

 

4. I’m scared that I’ll make a mistake!

Test your email

Each time you create an email, you should check that your content is being sent out the way you designed it. Some email clients (like Outlook, Gmail) can change the design of your email depending on how it is viewed. An easy way to do this is to send your email to family and friends and asking their feedback. You should also ensure your check how it looks on both desktop and mobile.

You can also use an A/B testing campaign to test how small changes can impact your results. A/B testing campaigns are where you send out a bulk email to your audience, but different versions are sent to segments of your audience. Choose what you want to test, like the subject line or content, and compare results to see what was more successful and use this information to inform how you send emails in the future.

Resources:

Create an A/B testing campaign:

https://mailchimp.com/help/create-an-ab-testing-campaign/

 

5. This is taking up too much of my time!

Make a schedule/automation

Automation can help you streamline your communications and make sure your audience gets the right emails at the right time. Choose from template automations with specific triggers, or fully customize your messages.

For example, you may have a friendly welcome email that a potential customer receives when they sign up to your list, or a warm thank you email when a customer makes a purchase. These actions can go a long way with your audience, and you only have to design once, then set and forget.

Resources:

About automations:
https://mailchimp.com/help/create-an-automation/

 

6. How do I know it worked?

Measure performance

Mailchimp will allow you to collect and analyse data on opens, clicks, and other interactions after you send. You can view this information in your email campaign report. It’s important to keep an eye on this data, so you know what is and isn’t working in your emails.

Resources:

About email campaign reports:
https://mailchimp.com/help/about-email-campaign-reports/

 

Email is definitely the way to go If you really want to connect with your customers. It has the potential to convert leads to sales in one click.

But even though we can all agree that email has an important place in your marketing strategy, who has time to devise and execute a targeted email marketing campaign? If you really want to capitalise on email marketing, we can help!

We’re experts in social media and email marketing and can complete it all for you from start to finish.

Give us a call to talk about taking your business to the next level on 03 5222 3328 or send us an email at hello@evolutiondesign.com.au to organise a meeting to discuss your next move.

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