Email Marketing 101: Tips and Tricks

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCASTEmail marketing should still be a priority. Although we can market on social media, we’re posting on borrowed ground that doesn’t belong to us. If the platform disappeared tomorrow, you’d lose your following.Once an email is on your email list, it belongs to you.If you send an email to your list, you can expect an open rate of 30-50% depending on your list. On Messenger, the open rate is between 70-80%. However, the reason that rate is so high is that people aren’t used to it yet. This is why there’s still a place for email.You need to be sending marketing or newsletters through a proper email provider, not just Outlook. Plus, you need to provide an opt-out. MailChimp, Drip and Infusionsoft are great options that offer opt-outs automatically.HTML emails often cause email providers to see them as a bulk email. This can cause delivery rates and open rates to decrease. Text-based emails work and are better for producing increased open rates.Keep your emails consistent. At least once a month is a good minimum.THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…You should always be adding value to your recipient’s lives through your emails. Tips, ideas and strategies are a great place to start! Obviously, a strong call to action is a must. However, start by adding value and then attempt the sale.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISSIs email marketing still worth doing? – 05:30Open rates in email compared to Messenger – 07:15Collecting email addresses for your list - 09:10Best email platforms for your list – 10:44HTML or text only? – 11:42Always add value to your emails – 18:42LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODEEpisode 6: 5 Tried & Tested Strategies to Build Your Email ListMailChimpDripInfusionsoftTranscript below Hello, and welcome to episode 32 of the Social Media Marketing Made Simple podcast, and I am your host Teresa Heath-Wareing. I hope you're having a great Monday, if you're listening to this as it comes out on Monday. Or whatever day it is that you're listening to this, I hope you're having a good day.So this week I've been out and about, I've had a bit of a busy week, and I've attended Marketed Live, which is an event here in the UK. It's an event aimed at, obviously, marketers and people who work in social media, and they have some great speakers talking all about various different things to do with the future of marketing and social media. And it kind of got me thinking a bit about, do you attend many conferences? I know in this digital world we live in, it's amazing that you can be, I don't know, cooking dinner in Australia and listening to my podcast, phenomenal what a world we live in, and how amazing it is that if you want to learn anything, you can just go online and learn how to do that thing. But sometimes I honestly think that it's worth having that one-to-one interaction with human beings in the same place. Because actually, not only is it great to see the speakers and connect with them, but also it's so good to meet other people in your industry, like-minded people who you can talk through things, who you can share ideas with.So it was a really lovely event and I was really glad I attended. But I understand it takes a couple of days at the office, you got to pay to get there, you got to pay for the events, so it is a big investment in your time, but I do genuinely think it's a worthwhile investment. And actually, if you get the tickets early, and I know Marketed Live have already released the 2019 tickets, if you get them now before they announce their speakers and get closer to the event, you can actually get these at a really low cost. So it's the same with all events, but I would definitely have a look at that one.So the other thing I've been thinking about, and I decided that I wanted to talk about it on here before I get in today's content, is I've decided to challenge myself. Now, most people won't believe this, but I'm actually not that keen putting myself on camera. Like most people, I am super critical of how I look and how I come across, and there are a million times that I've recorded me on camera, on Insta stories, or wanting to put it somewhere, maybe on Facebook or whatever, and then I've taken one look at it and thought, uh-uh, and I've deleted it and forgotten the idea. So I am going to set myself a challenge, and I'm going to become accountable because I'm going to tell you now what that challenges, and I would like you to come and have a word with me if you see that I am not meeting that challenge, if you see that I am not carrying out what I've said I am going to do.Okay, so the thing I'm going to do is, every day for 30 days ... So I'm going to start the challenge when this podcast comes out, which is Monday, the 1st, and I'm going to run it until the end of October. And my challenge is, every single day, I am going to appear on either Insta stories or Instagram TV, depending on how long I want to talk for, and I'm going to share with you one tip and it's literally going to be really quick, really direct, and really helpful, useful tips. Now, they're not going to be big, complicated things. This is going to be back to basic stuff. It's going to be explaining how to use hashtags or how many you can use. It's going to be explaining a content idea, or a scheduling tool, or something like that.But do you know what? I train an awful lot, and sometimes you get to a point where you think surely everybody knows that because obviously I talk about it so much. But actually, the truth is, lots of people don't know some of these things. So I'm going to go back to basics. Like I said, October 1, I'm going to show up every day over on Instagram, so if you're not following me, go and find me over there, and I'm going to start sharing some tips for you. And like I said, they're not going to be the most massively confusing or crazy tips, they're just going to be some real basic stuff that you can change and do today. Go over there and have a look, and if I'm not doing it, then you need to tell me.Okay, after four amazing interview episodes, I love doing them, I hope you enjoy them, too, today's episode is just me all on my own. As I've said, the interviews will come back, but I'm going to mix them up with these sessions where I'm just talking on my own. So today, we're going to be talking about email marketing. We're going to be looking at, with all these new technologies, is email marketing still a thing you need to do. We're going to be considering of how it fits into social media. And then we're going to be looking at some email marketing platforms, and some of the things you might want to think about when doing email marketing and how to use some of those emails. Is email marketing still worth doing? To start us off, is email marketing even still worth doing it? With things like Messenger advertising, and direct messages, and social media being so great, is email really worth still putting time and effort into? 100% yes. From my opinion, I think email is still a very valid and key part of any marketing strategy. The first reason I think that is because when you market on social media, and I've said it before, you market on borrowed ground, it doesn't belong to you. So it's all very well and good having loads of followers, and loads of likes on a page, or loads of connections through LinkedIn, or whatever it might be. However, if something was to happen to that platform tomorrow, or you were to break a term and condition, then you would no longer have those connections. Also, with the constant algorithm changes, what might work today, suddenly then doesn't work tomorrow.So it's always best to try and get that data onto your own email list in a good and proper way, obviously, and if you're in the UK and Europe, then obviously complying with GDPR rules. However, it's always helpful to get that email onto your email list because then it belongs to you and you have another way in order to connect with that client, or prospect, or audience member. Obviously, once you've got that email address, don't think, that's it, I don't need to put anything on social media for them. You still want to try and capture them and market to them in different ways. However, having their email just gives you another option. Open rates in email compared to Messenger At this point, I just want to address sort of open rates and how that's comparing next to something like Messenger. Now, if you send an email today to your list, you can expect an open rate between, let's say, 30% and 50%. Now, obviously this is different for everybody. It depends on the size of your list, how warm you list is, who you are, what you're talking about, et cetera, et cetera. However, you're probably talking 30% to 50% tops, so I would say. And your click through rate, well, that is going to be down near 5% to 10% if you're lucky. And when you look at Messenger marketing, i.e, when someone sends you a message, a business sends you a message within instant Messenger within Facebook, the open rate on that is anywhere between 70% and 80%, and the click through rate is something crazy like 40%. I think that's great and amazing. And if you can do Messenger alongside your email, then brilliant. But I also think that the reason that...