Creating an Email Marketing Campaign in 5 Simple Steps

You have a list of emails and you've chosen an email marketing service. Now what? How do you actually start an email marketing campaign that'll drive leads and conversions?

That's the million-dollar question. Everyone gets such a large number of daily emails, so it can be incredibly difficult to create one that stands out. However, if you follow these 5 steps, you'll at least be on your way to email marketing success.

1. Segment your list.

Your entire audience shouldn't get the same email. For instance, you wouldn't send the same offer to both your prospects and your current customers. Take a look at your list and decide how you want it to be segmented. You can segment by persona, lifecycle stage (prospect, lead, etc.), initial campaign by which you obtained their information, or any other way you'd like to do it for the sake of your email marketing campaign.

2. Create a conversion goal for each audience.

What's your end goal for each list? What's the purpose of sending them an email? This can be any number of things - a click through to your website landing page, a click to your social media profile, a PDF download, a call, or any form filled out. Remember, sometimes people need a smaller conversion to make before the big one. For instance, maybe somebody's not ready to reach out to you via your contact form yet, but will be engaged by a relevant blog post or eBook you've written.

3. Write.

Craft each email with care. Keep them as short and simple as possible. The quicker you get to the point, the more likely it is that recipients will actually read through to your call to action. For more help with this step, read Lisa's Content Marketing Emails that Survive the "5-Second Test". Don't forget to make your subject line stand out and drive people to click.

4. Track.

Make sure you're tracking goal completions. Whatever you decided was a goal, have tracking set up. This can be done through Google Analytics custom URLs, your email marketing service, or any other platform you're using (such as Hubspot). Just be sure you're tracking - it'll be hard to make improvements and follow up with people if you have no data!

5. Follow up.

Don't just shoot one email out and leave it at that. Craft a new email to follow up with those who maybe didn't convert. What else can you offer to them or tell them that might lead to a conversion? Is there an easier conversion that they might be more ready to make? Or maybe your subject line wasn't compelling enough. Play around with it, but don't flood their inboxes, as that'll most likely lead to unsubscribes.

In conclusion, yes, the title of this post mentions "simple" steps. And, when broken down, these steps are actually fairly simple. However, please note: setting up and running an email marketing campaign takes time, research and trial & error. But according to Conductor, when it comes to ROI, organic search and email are the best marketing channels. In fact, email drives the highest number of qualified leads for B2B companies.

If you need help with your email marketing campaign, contact ArcStone today! We'll do all the email marketing heavy lifting so you can get on with your day.