Email marketing doesn’t necessarily require a huge team or reams of technical nous in order to be successful. It’s certainly possible to jazz up an email campaign with fancy templates, videos, images and logos. Yet, some of the most successful campaigns utilise simple plain text emails, suggesting that it’s the content of an email that is the most important thing.
As of mid-2016 email deliverability is still an issue for legitimate marketers. According to the report, legitimate email servers averaged a delivery rate of 73% in the U.S.; six percent were filtered as spam, and 22% were missing. This lags behind other countries: Australia delivers at 90%, Canada at 89%, Britain at 88%, France at 84%, Germany at 80% and Brazil at 79%.[8]
"You couldn't attach yourself to anyone better than Jim. As far as I'm concerned he's worth EVERY penny he will charge you. Jim is a straight shooter, goes above and beyond when called for, and will be committed to the things he tells you he can do. My business has exploded on the internet and I don't plan on looking back. Jim will tell you what he can deliver and I feel like he is one of the nicest, most down to earth business people I've ever dealt with." Fred J.
MailChimp is a fantastic place for beginning marketers to get started. Their “forever free” plan allows you to create a list on MailChimp for free as long as your list is under 500 users. When you’re just starting out, that’s more than enough. If you don’t want to start paying for autoresponders yet, go ahead and give MailChimp a shot, it is a great first step as an email marketing tool.
Here is where many websites make a mistake. The call to action often asks the prospect to take some action. However, visitors thought often asks, “Why should I subscribe?” or “What is there for me?” Rather than ask visitors to do something, offer them something. The call to action should be in the form of promise or value offer to the reader. Customize the submit button to attract the reader. For example, you can use “send me free tips” instead of submit, “Get instant access” instead of join or “give me access” instead of subscribe.
And that leads us right into understanding service pricing and packaging. The email marketing services we reviewed range from about $5 per month to as much as $20 per month for a range of features. Many email marketing plans include unlimited email sends each month and bill you based on the number of subscribers. If you have a small list, then look for a company that offers a free plan, a low-cost plan for several hundred subscribers, or even a pay-as-you-go plan. On the flip side, many of these services also offer high-volume plans with up to 100,000 or more contacts. Sometimes this requires a custom plan that has to be arranged directly with a sales rep. If you're willing to commit, then look for the companies that offer discounts if you pay yearly rather than monthly. A few offer also money-back guarantees.
There are sites that offer landing page templates but more often than not you will want your landing page to stand out and look professional. What is a landing page template? It is essentially a basic page skeleton for you to edit. If you want to be unique and stand out, then consider building a custom page with personal touches. Or you can have one of our professionals build it for you.A high quality landing page that will convert leads has several major components that are similar to what you would see on a web page.
Loved reading this! Which of these would you recommend so that I could set myself reminders on certain clients so that I can follow up with them in the future? I feel like I am doing a lot of extra steps that I might not have to do if I was using an actual marketing software. I am in the very beginning stages of getting my business out there and I would like to follow up with potential clients down the road with an email… is this a possibility or should I just keep using my excel spreadsheet!?
Funny timing that this post was put up today. I just had a meeting with a marketing consultant who was trying to sell my law firm on a whole new marketing package, including a new website, a social media strategy, etc. This person also said they had 10 years of experience in internet marketing. I told this person I thought each of the lawyers at my firm (who each have very different practice areas) should have an autoresponder set up. I said ideally each lawyer would have a “report” in the form of a PDF (available on their bio page) that would entice subscribers to download the report and sign up for the autoresponder.
An aesthetically pleasing and informational website is an excellent anchor that can easily connect to other platforms like social networking pages and app downloads. It's also relatively simple to set up a blog within the website that uses well-written content with “keywords” an Internet user is likely to use when searching for a topic. For example, a company that wants to market its new sugar-free energy drink could create a blog that publishes one article per week that uses terms like “energy drink,” “sugar-free,” and “low-calorie” to attract users to the product website.
Send new subscribers a “welcome” sequence. This is the message that you send to people right after they subscribe to your email list. It could contain a link to your lead magnet for an easy download, a thank you for subscribing, or maybe a call-to-action to check out your most popular blog posts. Every email list needs a welcome series: don’t miss this chance to “woo” your new subscribers and turn them into loyal fans!
