The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Email Marketing
Email Marketing doesn’t have to be confusing. I’ve compiled this ultimate beginner’s guide to email marketing for you to use as a reference to get started on your own email marketing. By following these simple steps and tips, you’ll be a pro in no time! Read on to see how to use email marketing to grow your business with content that converts!
Step 1: Create an email opt-in
1- Decide what you are giving away and create your email opt-in
What is an email opt-in? You’ve seen this before, a website or influencer gives away something they’ve created for free–all you need to do is give them your email address. Some common examples of this are free e-books, a free challenge for a few days, a template, etc. Why do people and businesses do this? So you can sell them something down the line. It allows you to create a relationship with them. In order to do this, you have to know your audience. Who are you wanting to sell to?
2- Qualify Your Audience
This may be hard to hear, but you can’t serve everyone. You can’t be too broad with your offering, or you will miss out on your ideal audience. Think about your audience from Step 1 and their problems. Niche down your offer so they really want it or don’t want it. You need to be polarizing to a certain extent. You want those on your email list to be your client someday, so you grab their attention by offering a taste of what they are needing in their lives. I teach how to create content that converts. That’s what I do. So, I want people on my email list who are content creators. If these people sign up for my content challenge, then I know they will be great for my core content mini class, which will make them my ideal client for my Business Academy. I know this because I’ve already done the qualifying in my initial email opt-in!
3- Solve the Leading Problem with an Obvious Solution
Ask yourself this question, “What problem does my audience have that can be fixed today?” Listen, there are always deeper problems that you can solve as well as the more obvious problems. We’ve discussed these before– fear or not knowing how to do certain things. But with an email opt-in, you just need to solve the top problem. For example, say you’re a marriage therapist and your target audience is newlyweds. Your email opt-in could be something about 10 ways to talk about hard conversations. This freebie would lead to your course for newlyweds all about how to get great communication from the start. Do you see how this works now?
4- Create the Email Opt-in Solution
This leads us to step 4- create the solution to the problems you’ve identified in the earlier steps.
There are many different options that you can utilize for your opt-in freebie.
Some common ideas for email opt-ins that convert are:
- A challenge with a different email each day for a short amount of time
- a PDF or e-book on your topic
- a webinar
- Audio Files
- Workbook/printables
- Recipes
- Templates for creating something
5-Create the Email Marketing Sequence and a Sales Funnel
This is the fun part. Once you’ve done all of the planning and research, it’s time to put your ideas into action! I promise you that implementing this guide to email marketing into your business will completely change things. This is how you make money while you sleep!
Step 2: Creating your email marketing sequence
Click here to read the whole post
1-Deliver the Promised Opt-in Freebie
In the first email, you are simply delivering the opt-in or freebie that you promised the client when they gave you their email address. This first email is pretty simple. You need to confirm the receipt of their email address and then deliver the freebie to their inbox. This email needs to be automatically sent out as soon as they opt-in to your sales funnel. Why? Because they are actively looking for an email from you and this will improve your chances of not ending up in their spam/junk folders. Once they open your email to receive their freebie, it sends a message to their email provider that you are offering something of worth to your clients. So, again, step one is to deliver the email opt-in/freebie they signed up for and let them know you will be continuing to email them more things in the next few weeks.
2- Present the Problem and Show the Solution
In email number 2 of our email marketing sequence, you need to present the problem that they are having and share the solution that you provide to that problem. An easy example for this that I like to use is family photography. As moms, we love having photos of our family, right? But how often are we actually getting them taken professionally? As a photographer you could use the angle that the kids are growing so fast and all moms want photos of their babies before they grow up and leave home. In this example, the problem that you’re solving is that the kids are growing fast and you want to capture them as they are right now.
3- Testimonial Email
In this email, you will establish yourself as an authority on your subject by sharing testimonies from past clients. By setting yourself up as an authority and sharing the stories of other people who have been helped by you, you are helping your new clients to not feel like a guinea pig. This will ease their fears about trusting you to solve their problem. Plus, sharing personal stories always helps people relate to the problem you are solving because they can put themselves in the story. Stories are powerful. Also, don’t forget to end this email with a call to action! Remember, you are creating an email sales funnel that converts to sales. You can’t sell if your reader doesn’t have an opportunity to purchase your solution.
4- Overcome the Objection
The 4th email you’ll send out in your sales sequence is all about overcoming objections. Remember, there’s a reason your ideal client is not buying your product. Do you know what that reason is? Have you asked them? There are many reasons why your potential clients haven’t purchased your product yet. Think about the objections that your clients might have, and show them how you can solve those objections.
5-Shift Their Reality
-aka the paradigm shift- People think it’s one way and you present the solution in a different way. In the 5th email in our email sales sequence, you’ll continue to overcome their objections by showing them a new angle on what they think their problem is. Think about the objection from earlier– now, flip the switch on it. This is similar to the last email where you overcame their objections and showed them you are an authority.
6-Time to Sell
Now it’s time to sell! Don’t be afraid to sell your product. Have a few buttons and links throughout the email that say, ‘book now’ or ‘buy now’. Do not be worried about bugging your potential clients. Having multiple opportunities to purchase from you gives your reader a clear action to take! Open your email with a story of how you are going to solve a problem for your reader with your product and then sell, sell, sell your solution. I mean, you can’t sell unless you sell, right? And you need to sell to make money.
6 part 2-The Power of the P.S.
Don’t forget to use a P.S.! Sometimes this is all people will read as they quickly skim your email. In the P.S., restate in one line what you said in the email. Repeat your Call To Action and remember not everyone is reading the whole email. Make sure there is a button to buy now/book now/join now, etc. The P.S. is the most powerful part of your email marketing! What does all of this equal? More money, honey!
Step 3: When to Email Your List & What to Email
1-Opt-In
It may seem obvious, but the first situation when you should email your list is when a new subscriber opts in for your freebie that you’re offering, or they simply sign up for your emails. (Need to know how to create an email opt-in?Click HERE!) When someone signs up for your email list, they should be getting a sequence of emails that get them to purchase a product or service you are selling. Or, if your audience isn’t ready for an email marketing sales sequence, send them a nurture sequence. The difference between a nurture sequence and a sales sequence is that in a nurture sequence, you let your audience get to know you and you talk to them about the problem you solve. This would involve a series of 3-4 emails that highlight some key pieces of content that you’ve already created. Let your audience get to know you so that you can then send them your sales sequence.
2-Distributing Core Content
Remember the Content Creation Formula I spoke about HERE? When you email your list with the intent of distributing your core content, it’s another way to stretch your content across multiple channels. Remember, you might think that your audience has heard everything you have to say already. But, chances are, they haven’t. Your audience wants and needs to be reminded that you put out a podcast every week, or a new blog post, or even that you’ve created a new IGTV video. Wherever your core content lives, remind your audience that you’ve created new content and tell them where to find it. Also, these content emails are an easy way to take a problem that your audience is experiencing and share how your content solves that problem.
3-Having a Sale or Other Event
Before you hold a sale or participate in an event for your business, you need to send out a short sequence of emails promoting it. The amount of emails and the time between them is dependent on the price point of the sale/event. Remember, the higher the price point the more you need to nurture that sale. Another thing to be aware of, don’t just send out emails for sales and events. Your audience won’t open them because they haven’t been nurtured. Be sure to nurture your list so they are ready to purchase what you are selling.
Whew! Did you make it through all of that info? I know it may seem like a lot to take in at one time. But, I promise you, that adding email marketing to your business plan will bring you more repeat business and will help you to make more money! And isn’t that why you’re in business in the first place?
Are you ready to create a year’s worth of content?
Take my 5 day challenge HERE!
Ready to take your business to the next level? Join my Facebook Group!
You said...