How to get started with email marketing

Have you been thinking about starting an email newsletter but aren't quite sure where to begin? You're not alone! Many business owners find themselves in the same boat. But the great news is that starting an email newsletter is easier than you might think.

In this blog post, we'll give you a quick overview of everything you need to do to get started with email newsletters.

Why Start an Email Newsletter?

Before we dive into the technical aspects of setting up an email newsletter, let's take a step back and talk about why you might want to start one in the first place. There are two main reasons to start an email newsletter:

1. To stay in touch with your customers/clients: This is especially important if you're a service-based business. By sending out regular email newsletters, you can remind your customers/clients that you're still around and ready to help them with their needs. This can help prevent them from taking their business elsewhere.

2. To promote your products/services: If you have a product or service that you want to promote, an email newsletter is a great way to do it! You can use your newsletter to highlight new products or services, give exclusive discounts, or just share more information about what you have to offer.

Now that we've talked about why you might want to start an email newsletter, let's move on to how you can actually get started.

How to Get Started with Email Newsletters

There are three main things you need to start an email newsletter: an email list, an email marketing platform and an opt-in offer

• Email List: This is a list of email addresses that you will be sending your newsletters to. You can add people's email addresses to your list manually (one by one) or automatically (using a sign-up form on your website).
• Email Marketing Platform: This is the software that you will use to create and send your newsletters. A few popular options include Constant Contact, MailChimp, and ConvertKit. However, there are many other platforms out there, so be sure to do some research and find the one that's right for you and your business needs. Once you've chosen a platform, setting up your account and creating your first newsletter will be easy!
• Opt-in Offer: This is something that you offer to people in exchange for their email addresses. It could be a free ebook, a discount on your products or services, or anything else that would be of value to your target audience.

Now that you know the three things you need to get started with email newsletters, let's talk about how to create and send your first newsletter.

Creating and Sending Your First Newsletter

Creating and sending your first newsletter is actually pretty easy. Here's a quick overview of the steps you'll need to take:

1. Write your newsletter content: This can be as simple as a couple of paragraphs of text or a more complex article with images, videos, etc.

2. Format your newsletter: Once you've written your content, you'll need to format it in a way that looks good and is easy to read. This involves adding things like headlines, subheadlines, images, and white space.

3. Send your newsletter: Once you're happy with the way your newsletter looks, it's time to send it out to your email list! You can do this manually (one by one) or automatically using your email marketing platform.

4. Measure your results: After you've sent out your newsletter, take some time to measure the results. Check things like open rate, click-through rate, and unsubscribe rate. This will give you a good idea of how well your newsletter is performing, and whether or not people are actually interested in the content you're providing.

Wrapping up

As you can see, getting started with email marketing, and creating and sending an email newsletter is actually pretty easy. Just be sure to have an email list of people who gave you express permission to contact, an email marketing platform such as Mailchimp or Flodesk, and an opt-in offer set up before you get started.

Check out our Resources page to see our email marketing strategies in action, and sign up for any offers you like.