Email Marketing for Startups: Where to Start

There is a rise in startups and small businesses all around the world today. The internet has made it easy to set up an online store or a small blog site. Bringing awareness to the public is often what new startups focus on when beginning. The need for the company to answer potential customers with questions like, ‘Who are we?’ ‘What does our company do?’ And ‘Why patronize us?’ Has seen the need to meet this demand effectively while also reducing costs.

Email marketing is the best approach to use, has shown in a recent study, email marketing produced an ROI of over 4000% compared to other types of marketing, including banner ads. So it’s no wonder most startups concentrate on email marketing. In this article, we will discuss things to know as you start your email marketing campaign.

Build an Email List

Before you can send any emails, you must build an email list. When starting, you can use this accurate data finder to access emails of individuals in the same industry that may be interested in your service. You can also add friends who will receive emails from you and get them to add their friends too. 

You should also have a blog site where you regularly release valuable content to your audience. Ask your readers for their email addresses to get special offers, deals, and maybe tips on the service you render or the product you sell. The content should be SEO (Search Engine Optimization) compliant to rank well on search results. The company can also use promotions and competitions to get people to register their email addresses and stand a chance of winning. 

What you want is emails of people who are engaging with your content in one form or another. What you don’t need are emails from people who do not know about your products. The reason you should resist purchasing email addresses from third parties. Email providers will mark your address, and in no time, your mails will appear in the spam folders of most of your contacts, which is bad for business. It also works against you if most people receiving your mail are not opening it, replying to it, or moving it straight to their spam folders.

Leverage Quality Email Content 

After getting your list, the next step is to send out emails. Learn to include videos and emojis into your email copy. Why? Because studies have shown using emojis will increase the open rate of email by over 50%. Yes, people love emojis. 

The good thing is few marketers are taking this approach, as a staggering 93% of emails are still in text formats alone. Videos can be short testimonials, the launch of a new product in use, or a holiday greeting. As for the design and graphics, you want something memorable, something that will remind them of your brand, something that will leave an impression.

Use Eye-Catching Subject Line

The subject line is one of the most critical aspects of an email. Since the subject line is what the reader sees when they open their email, it has to be something catchy, something that will grab their attention, and that will cause them to open that email. 

The feeling you want to create is one of curiosity. You want a curiosity gap to trigger the readers to open the mail, as this is one of the most crucial aspects you need to take care of. You want eyes reading those letters from your email; you want attention to generate a powerful emotion in your reader—the potential customer. Use emotional trigger words to get a response. Emojis can be great to use with your subject lines as they can help you get click rates.

Test to Collect Data

It is crucial to collect data as you send out your emails. A good way of testing how effective your emails are is by doing the A/B testing. A/B testing sees you create two emails and send them randomly to a percentage of your readership. You then send the one that does the best to the rest of your subscribers. Doing this allows you to see what works and what doesn’t work with your audience. You can test, subject line, designs, the wording of your text, graphics, etc. Although, it’s best to test one or two at a time to make it easier to collect accurate data. 

Optimize for Mobile

This is probably a straightforward piece of advice, but one of the most important ones on this list. Why? The answer is pretty simple. Today, 3.8 billion people worldwide have a smartphone. Of the total 2.6 billion emails users, 1.7 billion use their smartphones to check their emails, around 65% of people, while 0.9 billion people do it through their desktops which accounts for 35%. The number of people who use their phones to digest information, including reading emails, will only increase as the younger generation sees the need for emails. This is a present and future market you cannot miss therefore your mails but be phone optimized.

Personalize Emails

Of course, you can’t send personalized emails to every single person addressing their needs. But what you can do is send emails that follow up with activities done on your site. An example is sending a welcome email to a person who just registered for your mails, a reminder email to a person who started shopping but left the items in the cart, or a suggestive mail to a product bought monthly. While all these emails may not be specific, there are follow-up emails that can get a response. 

And there’s another critical aspect you need to know further. A study showed approximately 75% of shoppers online don’t buy what is in the cart. When the company sent emails reminding the buyers of their products in the cart, over 50% opened the email. And approximately a third of the people purchased the products. What this shows is the personalized mail converted some of the shoppers to buyers. 

The same principle can apply to a welcome email. The email, along with a welcome message, can include the list of services rendered, a social media page, a promotional code for the first purchase, and a code to refer a friend. All this can help to increase click rates. Create a Funnel using various types of e-marketing mails.

Aim For a Good Call-To-Action 

Call-to-Action buttons should be visible, bold, and specific. You don’t want your CTA to read ‘Click Here’ as this is too generic and isn’t telling the person to do anything in the first place. Something more like ‘Find Out If You Qualify,’ ‘Get PromoCode Now,’ Get 20% Discount Now,’ ‘Your Partner Will Thank You.’ You want something along the line of urgency or scarcity. So don’t be flat with your CTA and go all out.

Final Thoughts

In conclusion, in setting up a marketing email strategy, it is crucial to know the basics. It can be tempting to jump straight into purchasing emails from third parties and sending emails that do not necessarily fit your audience. But like in the article, it’s a process and one that you will have to learn. At some point, you will need to hire a digital marketer for their expertise on the subject. Hopefully, we have been able to provide you with the basics to succeed.