Getting Started with Email Marketing

Did you know that on average email marketing generates $42 for every $1 spent (stats courtesy of Hubspot)? That’s an incredible ROI!

It may seem “old-school” - I mean who even opens the hundreds of promotional emails in their inbox each day? But people do, and some of them buy, and the stats don’t lie… putting focus toward this marketing strategy just makes sense.

So how do you make email marketing a consistent part of your business strategy, especially when you are a busy solopreneur or feeling inadequate in the design department? Read on!

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Which email marketing platform is best for e-commerce?

Hands-down my favorite companion to Shopify is Klaviyo. It integrates beautifully with Shopify making it a breeze to manage subscribers, create segments, pop products into an email, and so much more.

I nearly always end up working with my e-commerce clients to set up Klaviyo - including creating a branded template for them to use, training, and email automations (we’ll get to those soon!). Want to learn more? Grab a discovery call with me and let’s chat.

Which email marketing platform should you use for your small business?

If you don’t have a product to sell online, email marketing continues to be an effective way to sell your services, drive traffic to your brick and mortar, solicit donations, or share your story.

While I wholeheartedly recommend Klaviyo for e-commerce, here we have some options. I’ve used just about all of them over my career, and here are my takeaways:

• If you just want to get your feet wet, Mailchimp is pretty user friendly and they offer a free service (with their branding) for up to 500 subscribers.

• Flodesk has just gorgeous templates and is SUPER user friendly. Perfect if your brand is aligned with the latest minimalist trend, but you don’t have the time or technical skills to DIY your designs. It’s a little pricey in my opinion, so if you are only planning to send out emails once a month or so, it may not be worth the price tag to you.

• I personally use Squarespace Campaigns. I love that it’s integrated right with my Squarespace site so the design interface is familiar. The pricing is also pretty affordable

• I’ve also used Drip, Omnisend, and Constant Contact, but it’s been awhile so I won’t comment on these at this time.

How to add an email signup form to your website

One you’ve signed up for the platform of your choice, you’ll need to start building your list through an email signup form. Depending on which platform you go with, this is usually pretty easily done with an app install or copy and pasting a line of code. I suggest you add this in few places on your site:

• Create a dedicated page for your signup form. This way you can promote and link easily to it on social media, or create a QR code to promote it at a trade show, or on packaging or other marketing materials.

• Add either the form itself or a button link to the form in your footer. This way it will be on every page of your site and has more chance of being seen.

• Optional: Add a pop up. I know these can be annoying but they are effective. Many platforms allow you the ability to have the pop up delay a few seconds so the visitor isn’t bombarded with it. There is sometimes even an option to not have it pop up until they look like they are going to leave, or have looked at a page or two.

Already have a list? If these individuals have already agreed to let you email them (this is important!) you can import them via a spreadsheet and start emailing right away.

How to build your email list

It can be tricky to get people to sign up for your list. We all get SO many emails! One of the best ways to do it is to offer them something in return, aka a lead magnet or opt-in… or as I affectionately like to call “a carrot.” Here are a few ideas:

• Give them a 1st time discount for signing up

• Don’t want to discount? Offer them a chance to win some free product in a monthly giveaway. Bonus points if you connect with another relevant brand or two, and set up a joint giveaway in which you are able to share the list after.

• Share a freebie like a beautiful phone wallpaper you designed, a helpful e-book pdf, or a fun DIY video.

• Be honest. Tell them exactly what they are signing up for. Will there ever be sales? How often will you be emailing them? What kind of content can they expect?

• Promote, promote, promote! Remind folks every few weeks to sign up on social media, place a QR code on your marketing materials, or set up a cute sign at a trade show or at your checkout counter. Remember to promote that “carrot” you’re offering for signing up!

How to set up email automations

AKA: Email flows, drip marketing, funnels, or sequences. Basically an email, or series of emails that are triggered by a specific event - like an email signup, abandoned cart, checkout, or visit to your site.

Most email marketing platforms offer this capability these days. They can be super effective and the beauty is that you really only need to set it up once, let it run, and watch your sales grow. Make tweaks as needed and give the design and copy a little refresh maybe once a year. Easy peasy!

Here are some examples of great email automations:

• Welcome series

  • Trigger: email signup

    • Say thank you for signing up and give gift or discount promised

    • Introduce yourself & brand

    • Encourage them to follow on social

• Abandoned cart series

  • Trigger: customer left items in cart but didn’t purchase

    • 1-2 reminder emails

    • Tell more about product

    • Offer a discount

• Post-purchase series

  • Customer made a purchase

    • Thank you

    • Offer tips on how to enjoy product

    • Request a review

• Win-back or reorder series

  • Trigger: customer hasn’t purchased in awhile

    • Say hi, reintroduce brand

    • Suggestions of items they may like and/or of products previously purchased

      • Offer a discount

• Sunset series

  • Trigger: customer still hasn’t purchased or opened/clicked emails in awhile (it’s good to clean out your email list)

    • Say hi, reintroduce brand

    • Offer a discount

    • Ask if they’d like to remain on list

And so much more! The sky is really the limit here. You can even set up super specific automatons based on product collections and recommendations. Have fun with it!

How often should I email my customers?

It depends on your industry and how much great content and promotions you have to offer. Quality is important to keep customers engaged, but quantity is also important. As you can imagine, you are competing with a lot of other emails in your customers’ inbox - so sending out too infrequently might mean your emails get missed.

Generally speaking, I would say a good amount is at least once a week. For e-commerce, I’d aim to increase this to 2-3 emails or more per week during Q4 and around other gift holidays.

Just getting started and already feeling overwhelmed? Start with once a month, then work up to twice a month, until you make it to a weekly schedule. Focus on getting good automations set up to do the heavy lifting so you are still getting emails out even if you don’t have time to create weekly campaign emails.

How to create a marketing calendar (and stick with it)

So you know what you need to do and how important it is, but you maybe feel like you don’t have the time. I hear you! The best way to make this happen is to create a plan. Map out all your emails on a calendar or spreadsheet for the next month or even year. You probably have a general idea of what content can go where based on holidays, sales, new product launches, etc.

Set aside a chunk of time each week to bust out an email or two and get ahead. When I work with clients on email marketing, we have all of the next month’s emails scheduled the month before (I.e. all of June’s emails are created, reviewed, and scheduled by May 31st). Batching out several emails at once is efficient, and getting ahead will help you out when something else inevitably comes up in the future that takes you away from email time. You’ll thank yourself later!

Need a little help?

You don’t have to do this alone. I offer email marketing services and can help get you set up on a platform, train you, create email flows, or even work with you on a monthly campaign retainer. Want to learn more? Book a discovery call with me today!