Hayley Hickmott-Maurice | Copywriting Services

This topic is so huge, I really want to do it justice. Initially I thought one post would be enough to cover the basics but as I started planning and researching I discovered… that wasn’t quite going to work.😅

So, for the next few weeks, my blogs will be on elements of email marketing. That way, I can dive a bit deeper into specifics and make it more relevant and useful for you!

Let’s get stuck into the fundamentals today. 

What is email marketing?

Email marketing is a direct way to promote your products or service to your customers. 

More than that, it promotes to customers who are almost or ready to buy. In the business world, we call these medium-hot leads. 

Email marketing includes one-off emails that you might send a client or customer as well as series of emails that you use to build a message.

Examples of these coordinated sets of emails include welcome series, promotions, news, updates or an information series on a topic of interest. 

Why use email marketing?

Surely social posting has overtaken emails in 2024? 

Of course, it depends on the product and target market but essentially, no. There’s a reason I’ve prioritised an email marketing blog series before social posting (that is coming in 2025, though – watch this space). 

Because email marketing targets a subscribed audience, it can generate 40 times more sales than social media. 

Here are some more email marketing stats that may surprise you.

So why is email marketing such a big deal for small businesses like yours?

📧It lands directly in your ideal customer’s inbox

People check their inbox every day. Email gets your brand directly in front of your customer which puts you ahead of your competition already.

📈Email marketing has high conversion rates

Your subscribers want more from you. If they didn’t, they’d leave. These are the best people to spend time and effort engaging with because they genuinely care about supporting your business and they are ready to buy from you or use your service. 

🏷️Strengthens brand awareness 

Every email is a chance to reflect your brand values and voice. If it aligns with your customers needs, they will remember your brand the next time they need your service. 

Even if they don’t open your email, your icon and name is going to become more familiar to your subscribers. But hey, they will open your email because you’ll have an intriguing subject line 😉.

🤝Increases trust

Eventually, your subscribers will know what to expect from you, enjoy reading your emails and trust that you provide excellent content. 

You show up and you provide the goods!

🧠Heightens your value 

But my value is clear – I make X product or I help people by providing X service… yes but you can offer more to your customers. 

When you send regular emails, you are imparting small bits of your wisdom and expertise to your community. You become a source of intelligence and authority on your topic and industry. And your customers will respect that and be much more willing to buy from you or go to your website for industry insight. 

💰Encourages repeat custom

If a subscriber has purchased once, they are highly likely to choose you over others next time. They know what they’re getting, and what they’re getting is AMAZING, of course. As an added bonus, because they are constantly reminded of your brand and what you offer, they’ll think of you first when a friend or colleague asks for any referrals.

🏠It builds community

Email is more than just leaving messages in customers’ inboxes. It can forge connections and subscribers often feel genuinely involved in the goings on of your business. It can lead to some exciting collaborations and opportunities thrown your way if you maintain a good community spirit. 

🔁It’s a two way street

Guess what? Customers can reply to your email marketing emails!

In fact, this presents a high value source of information because it’s from people who have actually tried or experienced your brand. They can offer feedback that you won’t get from anyone else because they’re not your workmate who’s too polite to tell you the truth – ultimately, they know that their feedback benefits THEM because you use it to improve their experience. It’s win-win!

Do your best to encourage interaction with questions, quizzes and surveys as often as you can.

How to start marketing via email

Like all good things, email marketing takes time. It’s best to put the graft in early on and take your time with your approach rather than rushing in and wondering why you’re not making much progress. 

Here are the key things to sort out before you send your first email. 

Strategy

It cannot be stressed enough – strategy is the most important part of email marketing. 

Strategy involves great planning, flexibility when priorities change and a consistent drive towards a goal.

What does that look like in a tangible way for businesses? 

-Setting a goal

-Breaking the goal into smaller steps

-Planning actions to achieve that goal

-Doing the actions

-Evaluating progress

Want to chat about your email marketing strategy? Get in touch today!

😨It felt quite overwhelming for me when I thought about my big goals. I ended up blocking a whole day to strategise for my business.

I planned one big annual goal, broke that down into 5 or 6 small steps a month then down to 1 or 2 things to achieve in a week. That sounds much more manageable, right?

You’ll need to think about the ‘how’ too. Let’s look at an example.

One of my weekly goals was to gain 2 new projects in October. 

How? 

1. Running an October offer exclusively for subscribers.  

2. Linking my blog content to build my brand image and authority.

3. Sharing pertinent industry and personal insights 

Here’s a snip of my own basic email strategy planning.

Life is life and things will get in the way sometimes. If you need to change actions/reduce actions just make sure to prioritise and still carry out the most important tasks to achieve your goal.

If you’re getting closer to your goal each week and month, that’s good strategy. When you achieve it, you start again. 

Specific goals

We mentioned goals but it’s important to make your goals really specific so that they are achievable. Remember the old SMART acronym? It actually works. Specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. 

A monthly goal could be: Book 3 clients for January by the end of the month. 

Personally, I’m not a fan of goals that just centre around how many views, likes and clicks you get. It can be useful as a small goal to say ‘I want to achieve 20 clicks on my Instagram bio link this week’ as this does build your reputation and brand image but the big progress points should be measured by conversions. Just my humble opinion. 

Choose an ESP

ESP stands for email service provider. There’s loads out there but you’ll need to do a bit of research. 

Questions to ask:

-Does it integrate with my CRM or have a place to store my contacts?

-Does it use automation? 

Does it have the potential to collect some data about my readers and reading metrics?

Here’s an article that runs through some pros and cons of the major ESPs to help you decide. 

Permissions 

Always aim for explicit consent to sign up to your newsletter. This means that someone has clicked a link that clearly says they will be subscribing or receiving news/updates. 

If you try sneaky ways to get implicit consent like signing up previous clients they might unsubscribe which impacts your reputation in the algorithm world. 

Deliverability

Deliverability is the likelihood that an email is going to be seen and interacted with. 

It increases when:

• Your sender reputation is good (regular and consistent emails, emails opened, links clicked etc)
• Your domain is authenticated (most ESPs will be able to walk you through this)

It decreases when:

• Someone unsubscribes
• Emails are undelivered e.g. wrong/old addresses
• Emails are marked as spam

It’s an active process and you’ll need to build up your reputation over time. 

So you’ve got this all set up and ready to go. What next?

Your first welcome email

It’s time to create your first email – woohoo! 🥳

🎯Aim

Even if your overarching aim is to gain more clients/customers your task with your very first email is to welcome subscribers to your brand and tell them what they’ve got to look forward to. 

🤖Automation

You’ll want to create this as an automated email, that goes straight to subscribers when they click that sign up button. They get instant connection and feel valued. 

💥Subject line

Aim for short and sweet and limit emojis to one per line. Show your appreciation and confirm their sign up. Remember your description too as that can be seen in your inbox under the subject line. 

Example:

Hey! It’s great to have you with us. 🙂

Offer inside – open up…

2 min exercise

Have a go at drafting your subject and description line. Remember, it reflects your brand voice so humour, sarcasm, intrigue, questions…whatever your style, show it here!

🥰Personalisation

Use dynamic elements like name tags to personalise greetings. Personalisation has proved to improve click-through rates.

🎁Share benefits and expectations

Tell subscribers why they were right to join and what they’ll be getting from you. This could include: offers, examples, wisdom, anecdotes, entertainment, industry secrets/insights, information, first look at new products… 

🏷️Logo

Your logo should feature on all of your emails somewhere but it’s worth putting it front and centre for your first one and maybe a photo of you too to strengthen that connection. 

📢Call to action

Use one clear call to action for your first email. Maybe it’s ‘Why not check out my blog in the meantime’ or ‘Fill in my survey to tell me what you want to hear about X industry’. Encourage feedback from day one and you’ll start building that community in no time. 

🖼️Images

Less is more. Make sure they’re relevant and add something to the content. 

Optional but good to include:

-An exclusive offer

-A brief feature of your service/a product

-A little snippet about you

-Your social media and website links

No time to create a welcome email series? I’ve got you! 😊 Tell me what you need today.

Next week, we’ll explore the next few welcome emails in your first series and I’ll also explore email segmentation.