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A White Paper Guide from

The

DEFINITIVE

Email Marketing Guide

TAILOR-MADE STRATEGIES THAT WORK FAST

Aggressive Growth Marketing ©2017

www.aggressivegrowthmarketing.com | +44 020 7692 8960

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION........................................................................................... 3

EMAIL MARKETING MISTAKES TO AVOID ............................................ 4

BUILDING A LARGE EMAIL LIST .............................................................. 6

MONETISING YOUR EMAIL LISTS ......................................................... 10

SUBJECT LINE DOS AND DON'TS .......................................................... 13

IN SUMMARY .................................................................................. 17

The Definitive Email Marketing Guide ©2017 Aggressive Growth Marketing 3

INTRODUCTION

Good marketing practices usually involve a variety of different

communication tactics and campaigns. Now that businesses are

embracing the power of the internet, email is now emerging as

one of the preferred communication tactics.

When it comes to email marketing, knowing the best approach

to take can be difficult. Therefore, it is only wise for businesses

to have an active email campaign to share news and keep in

touch with their targeted customers. Not only that, studies have

shown that email marketing still offers positive return on

investment.

With helpful hints and tips to help your email marketing

campaigns, this guide covers:

1. Email marketing mistakes to avoid

Getting your email marketing campaign right

2. Building an email list

How to build up a contact list

3. Monetising your email lists

Making money from your email lists

4. Email subject line dos and don'ts

Promoting best subject line practice

EMAIL MARKETING MISTAKES TO AVOID

Getting your email marketing campaign right

There are various options available with regards to online

marketing. A good online marketing strategy will combine a

variety of methods, such as social media marketing, content

marketing, and email marketing.

To stop making serious email marketing mistakes, here are

some errors to avoid.

No-Reply

Are your emails achieving a low open rate?

If yes, your first step is to check your email address!

Sending from ‘noreply@’ or ‘donotreply@’ is likely to bring you a

low open rate, as recipients prefer an address they can reply to.

Personalisation and transparency go a long way in earning

customer loyalty, so it is important to ensure your emails

include contact details such as phone numbers and links to your

social media.

Image Based Emails

Only a small portion of people have their email

accounts set to turn on images automatically. This means that, if

you send image-only based emails, most of the people in your

email list will see an empty box.


Text-only emails have a higher click through rate than picture

emails. If you do need to send images, repeat everything in

simple text.

Links

If the goal of your email is to get people to click through to your

website, make sure the link included in your email takes them

directly to the landing page of the offer you’re promoting;

nobody wants

to have to scroll their way through your site to find your

promotion.

Botched Subject Line

Ensure that more than one person checks your emails before

delivery. But, before you get to this stage, it is important that

you take the time to develop a subject line that really

highlights your message, and engages your audience; try out

Co-Schedule’s Headline Analyzer for inspiration.

No Mobile

People don’t just work from desktop or laptops anymore, so it’s

crucial that your emails are mobile-optimised. This means that

your text needs to be readable, the buttons, links and CTAs

need to be clickable, and the layout needs to be mobile-friendly

and responsive. Failing to do so is a way to lose customers fast.

Key takeaway: As popular as social media is, email still has a

very strong ROI. But, it’s essential that you get email marketing

right; so, if this is going to form part of your strategy, you MUST

avoid the key errors and pitfalls.

BUILDING A LARGE EMAIL LIST

How to build up a contact list

Are you interested in increased ways to grow your

email list?

Nowadays, there are many available options for businesses to

grow their email list and stay connected with their customers.

For example, there is social media, mobile texting, meetings,

and email.

With so many options it may seem overwhelming and

complicated to choose the most effective method. However,

email is one of the most effective marketing strategies and is

an excellent way to keep in touch with customers and potential

customers.

If you’re looking to start marketing, one of your first actions

should be to build up an email list, so you can reach out to

people who are interested in what you’re offering.

Let’s look at how you can do this, especially if you’re starting

from a brand-new website.

Email sign-up form

Placing a sign-up form on your website, preferably on the

homepage, is key. Make sure it’s easy to see, and shows what

your customers will be signing up for.

You can also offer a free e-book, or a discount code offer to

entice people into joining your email list. Or, you could offer a


link to a sample newsletter, so they know what to expect and

have an incentive to join.

Site registration

If you need your customers to create an account with you,

ensure that email sign-up is part of this process. Ensure that

your CTAs are clearly displayed, and if you’re offering an

incentive for creating an account, ensure it’s relevant to your

target audience.

Direct mail or flyers

Using direct postal mail is another easy way of gaining new

email customers; why not mail them an offer that can only be

redeemed by going online and creating an account? (where

they’ll have to submit their email address).

Additionally, if you host live events as part of your business, you

could provide sign-up forms for people to fill in to redeem a

coupon or discount. Positioning this as you thank them for

attending your event is a simple but effective way of collecting

data and email addresses to add to your list.

Blog

Sharing engaging and relevant content with people is a great

way to build relationships and to get email addresses. By

offering the option at the bottom of your blog for people to sign

up for new blog posts and content, you’ll be able to build your

email list in no time.

Social Media

Social media will always be key when it comes to digital

marketing. With regards to growing your email list, it’s simple

but effective!

Use social media to encourage people to head to your website

and either create an account, qualify for a discount or sign up

for blog content. This way they’ll have to enter an email address

first.

Loyalty rewards

By offering special rewards that require people to sign up to

your business, incentivising customers to refer their friends or

family or by offering freebies on their birthday, you should soon

find your email list beginning to grow with a base of loyal

followers.

Contest

Hold online contests! For example, a giveaway, either on your

site or on social media, and ensure that people who want to

enter must sign up (ultimately providing you with their email

address).

Publications

Content is key, whether this is by guest blogging on larger

websites or by doing interviews on podcasts or even local radio

or TV. These are all opportunities for you to drive traffic back to

your website, where people will be encouraged to sign up.


Similarly, you could work or partner with another entrepreneur

in your field to run a joint webinar with them, and you could

also potentially share email lists.

Quaraloo

Use software like Quaraloo! You can use this survey tool to ask

questions of visitors to your site, but you can also use it to

encourage people to sign up for your email list or newsletter.

Key takeaway: There are a lot of tools available to help with

different aspects of email marketing. Some can help grow your

list, while others can help with pop-ups. There are apps and

plugins that can help collect email addresses from visitors,

whether through giveaways/contests or through landing pages

or even Facebook.

MONETISING YOUR EMAIL LISTS

How to make money from your contacts lists

Besides using email marketing as a basic marketing tool, email

lists are another important aspect which have monetization

potential.

This is particularly important for those who do not have a

product or service to promote, for example, bloggers. Whether

you’re marketing a product or not, there are a variety of ways to

monetize your email lists.

Let’s look at some:

Affiliate

If you’re trying to promote a blog rather than a product,

consider affiliate marketing. By reviewing a product of interest

to your readers in your blog and then including this in a

newsletter, you could find yourself earning commission.

Premium content

Building a solid readership for your blog and turning this into a

premium site with exclusive content that your readers pay to

receive is another way of using your email lists to bring in extra

money.

Adverts

Placing adverts on your blog which promote other websites or

products that are of interest to your readers is another easy


way to monetize your blog and email list. You will get paid each

time someone clicks on an advert.

Niche product

Why not consider developing quality products or services

specific to your niche? The better the quality, the more people

will be likely to pay; marketing to your niche should be a

priority!

List renting/selling

While you are likely to make some money by renting out or

selling your email subscriber list, it is not a wise idea because

you will be giving your competitors the chance to target your

audience with their own content or products.

Commission-based offers

Offering your subscribers an exclusive discount or coupon is an

easy way to gain appreciation and loyalty, and better still, you’ll

get commission for every offer that’s redeemed.

Trading/sharing lists

While it’s not wise to trade or share your list with people within

the same market as you, it can be beneficial to share with

people in a similar niche; for example, a gaming blog’s list can

be beneficial to a comic book one, and vice versa. You’ll both be

expanding your target audiences, and should both then see the

benefit.

Smart links

Keep emails and newsletter succinct and smart. Only include

links to the pages that make you the most revenue; you don’t

want to overload your email and lose potential customers.

Autoresponders

Most commonly used when vacation time comes around,

autoresponders offer much more than this. They can be set to

be sent out at any time, such as after a certain action; for

example, you could set an autoresponder to email out an offer

for an online course when someone visits a related post.

Social

Using your email to promote your social media is key, especially

if you are on sites like YouTube or Instagram that have

monetization options. Use your emails to encourage visits to

these sites.

Abandoned carts

If you have an online store, you have probably experienced

abandoned shopping carts at some point. Re-targeting those

abandoned carts via email is crucial; sending out a friendly

reminder, and perhaps providing an incentive such as a

discount is a great way to get people to come back and

complete their purchase.

Key takeaway: Email marketing takes various forms, including

social media, traditional advertising, and online advertising. It is

also a vital asset for businesses to make money. While these are

all key components to any marketing strategy, email marketing

is a huge area which holds real potential to bring in money, so

once you’ve started building up your email lists, monetizing

them is key.


SUBJECT LINE DOS AND DON'TS

Promoting best subject line practice

What tactics do you use to get customers to open your

emails?

The real trick to email campaigns is to get your recipients to

open your emails. This means, you need to make your emails

enticing enough that they will open them, by getting the subject

line just right.

Think about the vast amount of emails customers receive daily

from several businesses. Do you believe that they have the time

to look at these emails, much less to read them? They are busy!

All they will do is quickly scan the subject lines to find those

emails that are of interest and ignore those that are not

captivating.

If your subject line is:

too wordy,

too lengthy, or

too boring,

customers will ignore your email. Additionally, if your email

subject line is not mobile-optimised so that it can be easily

accessed on a smartphone, it will be sent straight to the trash

folder.

The best email subject lines incorporate elements such as:

1. Short and Spicy

A quick glance at your email subject line and the message should be

clear! A long subject line will get cut off in the inbox. When

writing your email subject line, keep it short, spicy, and to the

point.

People who activate emails via their mobile phones will not be

able to read your complete subject line if it is too long.

Therefore, to ensure readability, you should only use important

words that will get your message across.

Consider these two questions:

1. Is the word “newsletter” relevant in the subject line?

Did you know that, according to a recent study, email

subject lines that include the word “newsletter” have

less open rates?

2. Is an order number important in the subject line?

You can simply write, “Your order is being processed”

rather than, “order #784509245D is being processed”.

Remember that customers scan their email quickly, so

use simple and concise language to get their attention.

2. Compelling question

Is your email going to your customers’ spam folders? If yes, your

email subject lines are not compelling.

Consider writing a compelling question for your email subject

line that is relevant to your readers.


For instance, if you are sending an email about marketing

strategy, you can compose a question like this: “Do you know

what your customers need?” This will pique their curiosity and

make them want to know the answer.

Also, make sure that the question you asked in your subject line

is answered in the content of your email.

3. Personalised touch

People love to know that they are involved. Personalise your

subject line for each recipient. Address them by their first name;

this will make them feel important and connected with you. It

will also increase open and click through rates.

If you prefer not to use their first name, a simple “you” or

“yours” will still spark their interest, but don’t go overboard

with your personalisation!

4. Make it special

Your readers should feel special every time they receive an email

from you.

Write email subject lines that will make them feel as though

they are part of your business and you value their input.

Use phrases like:

• “for you only”

• “exclusively yours”

A 2015 study revealed that personalised email

subject lines that include names boosted open

rates by 29.3% across all industries.

• “our gift to you”

• “private invite”

These phrases will work wonders in getting higher open rates.

You can also share something special with them. This will

increase their loyalty and email conversion.

5. Tell

In your email subject line, tell your recipients what they will find

inside your email.

For example, if they have downloaded an eBook from you and

you are delivering it, let them know in your subject line instead

of writing a simple “thank you”.

Make sure that you deliver what your email subject line

promises, otherwise your recipients will not trust your future

subject lines.

6. Create excitement

Your email subject line should initiate action; start them with action

verbs.

Action verbs will instill a sense of urgency and excitement and

will make your email subject line enticing and clickable.

Key takeaway: You can have the best email campaign, but if

your subject lines are not up to scratch, then nobody will know.

Subject lines that are concise, clear, and create a sense of

excitement are most likely to see the best results.


IN SUMMARY

Getting your email marketing campaigns right is essential, and

has the potential to be extremely rewarding. Whether you're

promoting a product, selling a service, or writing a blog, this

guide should help you with every step when it comes to getting

started.

Here are the key points to remember:

• Avoid using 'noreply@' email addresses.

• Ensure links within your email link to your promotion and

not just your homepage.

• Use sign-up forms on your website to collect new email

addresses.

• Reward loyalty, and use promotions and discounts to

entice new subscribers.

• Consider placing ads on your blog or site to help bring in

commission.

• Always make sure your subject lines are short, sweet, and

to the point.

• Where possible, personalise your subject lines and make

your recipients feel special.

We Innovate. You Escalate.

Forward thinking marketing that will grow your business in 7 days

We are called Aggressive Growth Marketing for a reason. Our team

offers services that are designed to stimulate clear, measurable results

within days.

Kelly Bolton

Founder and Director www.aggressivegrowthmarketing.com | +44 020 7692 8960

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