Email Marketing Basics

Welcome to email marketing 101!

As you may know, although I’ve been providing email marketing services to my clients for over 5 years, I recently started practicing what I preach and began sending out a monthly email newsletter. You can sign up for it here.

If you are serious about your marketing efforts, one of the best ways to get big results from short pieces of content is through email marketing.

Here are some of my key tips and email marketing basics.

Wait, why do I need an email list?

When it comes to social media and content marketing, email is by far and away the most direct and useful tools at your disposal.

Users don’t give away their details willy-nilly, so receiving their email address is a real gift.

Unlike social media, the majority of adults have email accounts, and the majority of those who have email, use email.

This means that the likelihood that your target customer will see your name in their inbox is much higher than the likelihood that they will see your tweet in their Twitter feed.

Another good reason to have an email list is to get around the limitations of using your personal email account to send multiple messages. Email marketing platforms exist for a reason.

Choose a platform

Email marketing platforms allow you to store lists, create email templates, and send out your communications to those contacts.

Some are free while others will charge a fee based on your subscriber count and/or the features you require.

My preferred platform is Mailchimp because it has a nice interface, it’s pretty user-friendly and, well, it’s the first thing I used back in 2010 and I haven’t seen any reason to change. Mailchimp is free up to your first 2,000 subscribers and you can also purchase credits for additional features.

I also use Mailchimp’s free sister, TinyLetter, to send out my weekly link list (click to sign up!) through my personal blog.

Some others you might try are AWeber and GetResponse.

Research the market and find the best platform for you.

Know the rules

There are rules and regulations governing the distribution of email marketing – and many are law.

Most email newsletter platforms/providers will keep a strict eye on how you are using your lists. This is partly to keep in with the law, and partly because each email marketing platform runs on reputation. (This means that if its users are sending out spam, email providers will lose trust in those platforms and their mail will not be delivered as reliably. If emails are not being delivered, that’s bad for business.)

The basics that you need to know are:

1. Any emails that you collect must give full permission to receive your correspondence.

2. A list that has been collected a long time ago, or which has not received emails for some time, is known as a ‘cold’ list. Cold listees will be less likely to open emails and are more likely to unsubscribe.

3. Most platforms will recommend using double opt-in, which means that after your new contact provides their information they will also receive a confirmation email to reconfirm their subscription.

The worst thing you can do when starting a new list is to add each and every one of your Gmail contacts. The open rate will be low, your unsubscribe rate will be very high, and the reputation of your list will rapidly decline.

With that in mind, how do you get started?

Create your list(s)

Within your account, you will be able to segment lists based on customer types, or create multiple lists for different offerings.

When you are starting out, you will probably only need one list. Create your list and give it a descriptive name so that your subscribers know what they are signing up for.

Once you’ve created the list, get the direct link where users can sign up and begin advertising this wherever you want your community members to see it and sign up.

But first…

Make your proposition clear

There are two propositions in particular that must be clear to your audience:

1. What the newsletter will be: what information to expect, and
2. How frequently you will be emailing them.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve signed up for a newsletter and made assumptions about how often I’d receive their messages. I’ve often then received a deluge of 4 or more emails in one week and promptly unsubscribed. This may work for some marketers, but in this case it was much more information than I needed.

A great way to encourage people to sign up is to create an incentive. Depending on your business this could be an informative ebook, a worksheet, or a free consulting call. Any kind of useful download. This incentive can also go a long way to giving your readers a flavour of what to expect from your coming missives.

Create your standard template(s)

Now that you have your list or lists set up, you’re ready to make a template.

Whether you go for an all-out fancy design or a simple column layout, be sure that you have a striking header image.

You’ll also want to send your sample template email to a few different email providers to ensure that it looks good across multiple platforms. (For example, like with different browsers, an email that renders perfectly on Gmail may struggle on Outlook.)

Your template will serve as your standard layout and should save you a lot of time and effort from email-to-email.

Market your list

Encouraging sign-ups is an ongoing process, so be sure to market your list at every opportunity.

Some ways you can do this are:

1. Provide opt-in links on your website – for example on the homepage, and/or in the sidebar.

2. Post reminders on your social media channels – don’t be afraid to repeat yourself for those who may have missed it, but equally try not to spam everyone!

3. Share the love – within the newsletter, remind your current readers that they can forward your newsletter on to a friend who might find your content useful.

Test & adjust

Like with all marketing efforts, you’ll learn which tactics get results along the way.

Your key analytics will be your open rate (what percentage of recipients opened the email), your click rate (how many people clicked and on which links), and any other sales factors relating to these.

Experiment with your subject lines, try different marketing styles to grow your list, and check your results against the industry average.

And remember…

Along the way, trust your instincts and do some passive research.

What would you want to see and not want to see in your inbox?

What can you learn from the emails that you receive and do click through on?

How can you keep things interesting for your subscribers?

Your Turn

Have you started email marketing yet? If so, how’s it working out for you? If not, what’s stopping you? Drop me a comment below or get in touch and find out if I can help.

How Often?

By Nicola Balkind

One of the most common questions that I”m often asked when consulting with a new collaborator is a big one:

“How often should I post?”

It’s one of the easiest questions to answer, but one of the hardest questions to answer well.

The short answer?

As a rule of thumb, I usually say something like:

For blogs, at least one per month, but up to one per week
For Twitter, 1-20 times per day plus retweets
For Facebook, at least 3 times per week
For Google+ and LinkedIn, at least every time you post a blog

If these guidelines sound vague, it’s because they are totally vague.

The long answer?

There’s only one way to find out how often you should post.

START POSTING.

Maybe it wasn’t so long after all.

The only way to learn what’s right for your audience is through good old trial and error. Try things out, gather your results. Then throw out what isn’t working and focus on the things that are working.

This goes for all types of content, but it also goes for how frequently you post.

As you interact on your social media platforms of choice, listen in. Pay attention to the times of day that are working for your audience. What are they discussing, and in what format? Are they liking pictures first thing int he morning and having debates at lunchtime? These things all factor into your social media and content strategy.

The same goes for blog posts. Are you dragging yourself over the coals to produce 3 blog posts per week that nobody reads? Try scaling back and see if one longer, more content rich blog post per week performs better.

Remember: there is no point in creating tons of content that adds zero value. People have limited time, and it is up to you how much of that time you can encourage them to devote to your output.

Weigh and measure the value your offering against their time until you have a recipe for how often to post. Then keep tweaking.

Your turn

How often do you post on your blog and social media channels? What works for your audience?

If you haven’t started yet, what’s holding you back?

Tips for Content Curation

By Nicola Balkind

When you build a content strategy for your business, creating content is probably at the top of your list of priorities.

Planning your content cleverly means not only creating content, but also curating things that are interesting to your audience.

Curated content is the stuff that comes in-between. It’s not filler, and it’s not an excuse to take a break from thinking about what your audience wants to hear from you. This is the time for you to find and share creative work that demonstrates to your readers and customers that your values align with theirs.

User Generated Content

User Generated Content, or UGC, is the media that your audience shares with you. One of the major goals of social media marketing is engagement with fans and users of your product, and UGC is the top tier of that engagement.

It could be an Instagram photo geotagged to your store, a Vine they’ve tagged you in, or a poem that they’ve worked your company name into. Put it this way: it’s online word of mouth.

If you’re lucky, this kind of social sharing is happening organically. If not, you can kick-start the process by running a campaign that incentivises your audience to create UGC and showcases their work.

Either way, sharing UGC lends social proof, places your product in a new and appropriate context, and creates a precedent for more of your followers to share. Encourage it!

Need some inspiration? Check out these campaign ideas.

Twitter Lists

Twitter lists are one of the best and most underused features on Twitter.

By creating a list, you’re curating a segment of your feed. These could be people you follow or people you don’t.

One of the first things I do when I get my hands on a new client’s Twitter feeds is to create a private list called ‘Sources’ and begin filling it with people and publications that are industry leaders, thought leaders, and the people who share useful links.

Curating lists of the top sharers in your area cuts out a lot of the hard work of curation. By choosing the top sharers, you can save time from combing through your entire feed.

Ultimately, you may be a little behind the top curators, but by finding people and sources you trust, you can take a shortcut to sharing the most relevant and potentially viral content in your area of expertise.

Tip: Twitter lists are also a great way to get found. (But only if they’re useful!)

Trusted Websites

Now let’s back up a little bit. While social sharing is now one of the key ways to find links to great stories, it’s important to keep your eye out for the items that are flying under the radar.

Keeping a list of trusted websites, say, in your bookmarks, will give you another place to access inspiring content.

For B2B companies:
Ensure you’re on top of the latest changes in your industry through market publications. While some still tend to be offline, demonstrating your expertise and thirst for the latest knowledge can be a great point of differentiation from your competitors. Start discussions around top stories and use the latest news as a jumping-off point for content creation ideas.

For B2Cs:
Are there any publications your audience particularly cares about? If you’re in entertainment, the latest reviews and features from the broadsheets could come in handy. For retail, keep an eye out for what’s trending in the relevant magazines.

Another way to keep these organised is through a trusty old internet friend… the RSS feed.

RSS

The trusty RSS feed is one of the internet’s forgotten gems. So much so that Google closed the doors on its RSS, Google Reader, in 2012.

However the RSS – short for “Rich Site Summary” or “Really Simple Syndication”, depending on whom you ask – is still one of the quickest and most powerful ways to stay informed.

I personally use Feedly, while Bloglovin’ is a great option for blogs, particularly in the lifestyle space. Click here for some other leading RSS options via Six Revisions.

So, see all those websites I suggested you follow above? Whack them into your RSS reader and you’ll have a goldmine of content to refer back to each time you create your content calendar.

Most RSS readers will allow you to collate and segment your favourite sources by topic, making the process even quicker.

Newsletters

Think back to those trusted sources and thought leaders you follow. Do any of them offer an email newsletter?

Some companies and individuals are getting super smart about their email missives – and they’re right to. Email is still the most effective marketing platform that you can participate in.

Sign up to some of your favourite curators and see what links and resources they have to offer that you can repurpose as curated content. (And if you end up with too many, clean them out once in awhile or try out a widget like Unroll.me to keep them organised!)

Your Own Archives

Finally, another place where you can mine content from is your own archive!

It’s a good idea to keep checking in to see what your top performing content looks like. Is it still relevant? If so, add it to your social media schedule! Creation is curation, my friends.

Those are all the tips I have for you today. What are your secrets for content curation? Shoot me a tweet @robotnic or email me with your thoughts.

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