The Beginners Guide To Email Marketing

Every business should use email marketing because it has a high return on investment, it is easy to do, it is low cost and it creates high quality leads. Imagine you're a small business that's looking to create more sales through a form of digital marketing. On one hand, your could invest your time and money into social media marketing which could result in a return of $12 for every $1 spent, or you could invest your time and money into email marketing which averages around a $40 return for every $1 spent. Now, where would you prefer to spend your time and money? In this blog article and podcast, we're going to walk you through what email marketing is, why you should be investing in it, how it works, and we'll provide you with a ton of tips to help you get started!

Profitworks provides SEO services and Email Marketing services. If you're looking to make a marketing plan for the first time, check out our FREE marketing template. Click here to check it out now!

Executive Summary

• Every business should use email marketing because it has a high return on investment, it is easy to do, it is low cost and it creates high-quality leads
• Email marketing works by giving you a way to be in regular repetitive contact with the same prospective customer in a low cost way
• Emails that appear as personally written emails are generally the most effective method for email marketing
• Offering something of great value to your website visitors in exchange for their email address is the most effective way to grow your email list

Sales & Marketing ROI Podcast: Episode #43

The Beginner's Guide to Email Marketing - Click the link below to listen to the podcast. 

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The Beginners Guide To Email Marketing

Why You Should Be Investing In It

• It has a high return on investment

• It is easy to do

Email marketing is very easy so almost anyone can do it. It isn't necessary to have any technical skills, computer programming skills, or graphic design skills. All email marketing programs come with easy to use interfaces that are as simple to use as programs such as Microsoft Word or Google docs.

• It is low cost

Email marketing is generally very low cost. Usually the per month costs are somewhere between FREE and $199/month depending on how many contacts you have to send to.

Typical Monthly Cost = $49.97/Month

Typical Yearly Cost = $599.64/Year

• It creates high-quality leads

Like we just said, it's going to make your business money. Whether you're doing your email marketing in-house, or are investing in the help of a marketing expert, you can expect a high return on investment for the money you're putting in. Just check out this figure below from Econsultancy.

As you can see by this chart, email marketing is ranked as one of the top marketing channels by those who invest in marketing. Only 5% of those who invested in email marketing considered their return in investment to be poor. By comparison, 24% of those who invested time and money into social media marketing found their returns to be poor. 

So you may be asking yourself, how is such a high return on investment possible? Here are a few reasons to consider:

• It's incredibly cost efficient. Email marketing won't break your bank as it's one of the cheaper marketing channels out there.

• A large number of subscribers actually view your message. According to Smart Insights, the average open rate across all industries in 2016 was 22.87%.

• It's one of the few marketing methods that allows you to speak personally and directly to individuals.

• It allows you to test so you're able to improve your overall metrics as you go.

• According to Campaign Monitor, there are over 3.9 billion email accounts in the world (2013) which is a larger reach than Facebook and Twitter combined.

What Is Email Marketing

To put it in as simple terms a possible, email marketing is a method of digital marketing where a company will email newsletters to a group of subscribers in hopes that it will result in a sale or a lead. Email marketing methods can vary greatly across different platforms, and most are quite unique. Some people choose to send out weekly newsletters with current sales or promotions, while others choose to send out their email campaigns sporadically.

Technically, sending one email to one prospective client is considered email marketing, however, many companies choose to segment up their list of subscribers and send to thousands at one time. This means a single email can result in several sales for your company. The bottom line is that email marketing helps businesses to make money. No gimmicks, no extra costs, it's just a very effective marketing investment for any business. This leads us into our next section:

How Does Email Marketing Drive Sales?

Unlike other methods of digital marketing, email marketing is incredibly direct and it makes it very simple for a user who's interested in your products or services to reach out to you. All they have to do is reply to your email or click on a link to your site and bam, that's it! Other methods of marketing such as putting out advertisements on tv, radio, or even the newspaper require a lot more effort on the end of the user in order for them to eventually result in a sale.

Email marketing has also shown to be incredibly effective because it can be personalized to select groups. If you have a list of potential customers who are members of a certain industry, you can target that industry in any email campaigns that you send. On other marketing platforms such as Twitter or Facebook, this isn't possible. Instead, all of your subscribers will receive the same message regardless of whether it's applicable to them or not.

If you're looking for some more fantastic ideas on how to drive sales from your email marketing campaigns, we suggest checking out this great article from SupaDupa.

So What Types Of Emails Should I Be Sending?

This is a question that we get asked very often. Most people assume that if you're trying to sell a product you should be as salesy as possible, but this actually isn't the case (particularly if you're a B2B company). While sending a list of your current products may work well for a large chain store (think Wal-Mart or Best Buy) for B2B companies and small businesses we've found that the most effective type of email marketing actually isn't through a newsletter or flyer.

Emails Written As An Email From One Individual To Another Individual Are Generally The Most Effective

If you're a B2B company or a small business, our suggestion would be to provide your subscribers with personally written letters. Think of it this way, if you receive two pieces of mail from the same company and one is clearly a flyer while the other is a personally addressed letter, which one are you most likely to look at? While you may browse the flyer if it's a company you're interested in, you'll surely open up the personally addressed letter even if it's from a company you've never heard from before.

We find this method of thinking works well with email marketing as well. Our average open rates tend to be 7-8% better when using a letter template for our clients than a newsletter template, and we also find that the click rate improves 1-2% per email.

How Do I Even Collect Email Addresses?

This actually isn't quite as difficult as people may think. One of the best ways to collect email addresses is simply by asking for that information from previous clients or customers. If they provide you with their email address you now have implied consent to send them any marketing emails. Another simple yet effective way to collect email addresses is to ask for them. Who'd have thunk it, right?! You don't have to pester people, but instead provide them with the opportunity to give you their email address through a form on your website.

Offer Visitors To Your Site Something In Return For Their Email Address

We've also discovered that you'll increase the success of your email address form if you offer something in return for the information they'll provide you. Check out this example from ACUTE Environmental, a workplace safety training services company in Ontario. They'll provide you with an Ontario OHSA Training Checklist in exchange for your email address and some other simple information. Methods like this one are incredibly simple yet effective.

What Are Some Of The Best Programs To Use?

There are a lot of great email marketing programs out there and picking the right one for you can be troublesome. Here at Profitworks we'd suggest going with Convert Kit, but that doesn't mean some of the other programs don't have some fantastic features to offer. Here's our full comparison of some of the most commonly used email marketing programs available.

Key Features (Scored Out Of 10)
Customer Support	9	10	7	9
Statistic Reporting	9	7	7	9
A/B Testing	10	8	10	10
List Segments	10	8	6	5
Automated Timed Campaigns	10	10	10	10
Easy Website Integration	10	7	8	5
Automation Triggers	10	5	4	0
Overall Score	9.7/10	7.9/10	7.4/10	6.9/10
	Learn More	Learn More	Learn More	Learn More

A Story About What Email Marketing Can Do For A Business

A couple of years ago we had a client of ours contact us about our email marketing services. They seemed interested but initially were unsure about how the process would look, or even if it would result in any increased revenue. Once we segmented some of their available email addresses and created their first couple of campaigns they immediately came to realize the potential of their new email marketing campaign.

Over the last two years we've been providing them with our weekly email marketing services which resulted in them becoming so busy with leads and sales that they began struggling in keeping up with their new found clients! We were also able to provide them with an average email open rate of approximately 29%, which was almost 10% higher than their industry average!

Why Having A Great Email Marketing Plan Is Critical To Becoming The Leader In Your Market

• The leaders in almost every market use email marketing
• If you don't use email marketing you are missing out on a significant communication opportunity with your market
• It is a form of marketing that can easily be used to distinguish you as the market leader through sharing thought leadership content and displaying a market leader and mindset

What Is Needed To Have A Market-Leading Email Marketing Campaign

Here are a few of our suggestions as to what you will need to have a market-leading email marketing campaign:

• The best strategy
• The best systems of anyone in your market to collect target prospects emails
• The biggest list or target prospects
• The best email marketing technology. We would suggest using Convert Kit (see chart above on the best programs to use if you missed it!)
• A way to track all web activity for those email users. Tools such as our Web Visitor Identifier are a great option for this!

Need More Help Getting Started?

If you're looking for even more information about how to get an email marketing campaign started, you can download our Guide to Starting Email Marketing by clicking here now! You can also get in contact with us by emailing This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and ask us any questions you may have. We're more than willing to help you get you email marketing campaign underway.

Get a FREE Guide to Starting Email Marketing!

Do you feel you want to invest into email marketing but you're not quite sure where to start? Here at Profitworks we offer a FREE Guide to Starting Email Marketing for anyone who would like to have one, no strings attached! Click the button below to get started today!

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Profitworks provides SEO services, website conversion optimization services, and email marketing services with a focus on making our customers the leaders in their markets.

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