Email Marketing is essential for scaling your brand and business and having direct access to your audience and your potential customers. Most people struggle with email marketing because they are thinking of it as a chore, instead of as a meaningful way to create content.

How to Get Started with Email Marketing!

Email Marketing is something that a lot of people get wrong because they don't put the reader first. Making a quality experience for your community isn't that difficult, but getting started can be when you don't know what resources you need, or have any guidance.

Here are some resources that will be mentioned throughout this article: (yes, some of these are affiliate links).

• Email Marketing Software: CONVERTKIT
• LandingPage Creation: LEADPAGES
• Web Hosting: BLUEHOST (with huge discount)

HAVE A CONTENT STRATEGY FOR YOUR EMAIL NEWSLETTER

Before you even build your list, you need quality content for your readers, and that means coming up with a content strategy. You need to be able to answer the following questions:

• Who is my ideal audience for this message?
• When will I be sending emails and how often?
• What is the focus and message of my content and brand?
• Where do I want to send traffic to if they open these emails?
• Why should someone sign up for this email list?
• How will this content create value for the reader?

If you can answer those questions, then you're off to a good start. You'll want to keep this in mind and write your first 5 or so emails that should go out whenever someone signs-up for your list. This is considered your Onboarding Email Sequence. This is how you will shape the experience of each person who joins your list.

WHAT DO YOU NEED TO GET STARTED WITH EMAIL MARKETING?

Obviously, you need a website and an email marketing system to begin email marketing in the first place, but if you are selling a product or service you may also want to invest in LeadPages so that you can build targeted landing pages for your paid products or services. Even if you aren't selling anything LeadPages could be great for building landing pages and managing your Lead Magnets (free giveaway that gets people on your list).

On your website, you need to be producing content that is valuable enough to convince people they should subscribe to your email list. You'll also need to create at least 3 Lead Magnets.

What is a Lead Magnet?
A Lead Magnet is a free giveaway in the form of something like a Checklist or an E-book or any other freebie you feel your audience will enjoy or get value from. The only price they pay is signing up for your newsletter with their email address.

You need to create at least 3 of these so that your audience has some options and so you can target their specific needs and interest. 

If you use LeadPages then you can use popups on your site in order to get people to see it and pay attention to it. If you don't want to use email pop-ups you can also place simple links or buttons or forms on your website to allow readers to signup to your email list.

What Makes a Good Lead Magnet?
Creating a good Lead Magnet comes down to how well you understand your intended audience. A good rule of thumb is to create $20-$200 in value with your Lead Magnet. You should make 3 to 5 pieces of content that directly tie to each of your Lead Magnets, and use them to drive signups for your email list. Each Lead Magnet should also have a dedicated landing page. One of the good things about LeadPages is how easy it makes managing all of your LeadMagnets and Landing Pages.

When you combine this with Convert Kit, you can even put your readers into specific email sequences that match up with the right Lead Magnet based on what they are interested in.

 WHAT MAKES QUALITY EMAIL CONTENT?

Honestly, it starts with trust. The reason quality content on your website and social media platforms matters is because you need people to trust you enough to want to open an email from you in the first place.

Once you've established that trust, the content and design experience of the emails needs to match what they've come to expect from you, that consistency is very important.

Good design can be a factor but don't overthink or overcomplicate this, less is more, keep things simple and clean, even elegant. Minimalism goes a long way in email marketing.

Try to use quality photos and graphics to spice things up just a bit and don't hit your newsletter readers with a wall of text. 

GETTING EMAILS OPENED

Just like I tell YouTube creators, a title is a promise. In this case, a subject line is a promise. Try to be clear instead of clever while also making people curious and tapping into some emotion.

Here is an example:

5 Painful Experiences Only Entrepreneurs Understand

That subject line would make you want to read more right? If you're an entrepreneur, you immediately are being identified by this title, and by using the phrase "Only Entrepreneurs Understand", it's creating a sense of belonging and exclusivity. 

Using the phrasing "5 Painful Experiences" accomplishes a few things, it triggers emotion and memory, piques curiosity, and it also promises to be brief.

These are some core components of quality content.

KEEP A CASUAL TONE

People hate boring, stuffy, formal language. Yes, if you're a business person you need to be professional, that is not the same thing as being boring and beating people over the head with jargon every third word.

If you use a more casual tone in your writing, then you will be more relatable and be able to keep your audience engaged. 

Always consider your own expeirnce as a reader and what made you keep coming back to someone's content. What made you turn away or unsubsribe from someone. Consider making a list of 5 things that you feel people have done right, to keep you loyal, and 5 things people have done that were a deal breaker for you.

Use this as your standard for your own content and the awesome experience you want to create for your readers.