How to Do Email Marketing: An Easy Guide for Beginners

Email marketing is undoubtedly one of the most powerful tools that you can use to drive sales to your business and build stronger relationships with customers. Whether you’re a business owner or a freelancer, learning how to do email marketing can help you grow your brand. 

If you’re new to it, however, the whole process can seem overwhelming – from building an email list, setting up campaigns, creating email content to measuring results with analytics. 

But don’t worry! In this email marketing guide, we’ll cover the essentials and walk you through everything you need to know to get started and do email marketing easily.  

What Is Email Marketing

Email marketing is a direct and highly effective way to communicate with your prospects and clients. It involves sending targeted email campaigns to a specific group of people (leads or customers) to promote a new product, share a special offer, or simply stay in touch.

Unlike other forms of digital marketing, email marketing doesn’t require a huge budget or technical expertise, making it accessible to just about anyone.

Why Is Email Marketing Important for Your Business

Email marketing brings various benefits to all types of businesses, but here are some of the key ones. 

First and foremost, it offers one of the highest returns on investment (ROI). The average ROI generated is $36 for every $1 spent on email marketing. This makes it one of the most cost-effective ways to reach your audience and grow your business compared to other marketing methods and channels.

But it’s not just about the money. Email marketing also plays a vital role in nurturing relationships with your customers or leads. By sending personalized, relevant, and useful content, you can stay top-of-mind with your audience, build trust, and keep them engaged. This ongoing communication helps move leads through the sales funnel, ultimately converting them into customers.

Another major benefit is that email marketing provides measurable results. You can track open rates, click-through rates, conversions, and other metrics that tell you exactly how well your campaigns are performing. This data allows you to continuously optimize your email campaigns and strategy, and make informed decisions.

How to Do Email Marketing Step-by-Step

Now that we’ve discussed why email marketing is so critical for your business, let’s break down the process of how to do email marketing yourself into easy-to-follow steps.

1. Identify Your Audience

When getting started with email marketing, the first step is identifying your audience. Understanding who you’re sending emails to is key because it allows you to speak directly to their specific needs. When you know your audience well, you can craft content that resonates with them, making your campaigns way more useful and interesting. 

Consider key demographic factors like age, location, gender, occupation, and interests. For example, if you’re selling high-end skincare products, your target audience might include women aged 25-45 who are interested in health and beauty. 

Narrowing your focus helps ensure that you’re not wasting time and effort on people who aren’t interested in your product or service. Overall, defining your audience clearly will help you send more relevant, engaging content and increase the chances of converting prospects into clients.

Here’s a nice example of a company identifying the needs and use cases of their customers and using the information to tailor their messaging.

In email marketing, you can use a similar approach – understanding the unique needs of your audience will help you adapt your content more effectively. Further segmenting your audience based on even more precise criteria can be especially beneficial, but we will go into this in more detail below.

2. Set Clear Email Marketing Goals

Another thing that will help you have effective content and campaigns is setting specific, clear goals for your email marketing efforts. Without clear objectives, your campaigns can quickly become unfocused or even feel spammy. So, take a moment to think about what you want to achieve. 

Are you looking to drive sales, boost brand awareness, generate more leads, keep customers engaged, or build stronger loyalty with your existing clients? Your goals will guide everything from what types of emails to send to how and when you send them. 

For instance, if your goal is to generate leads, you might send educational content with a clear call to action that encourages subscribers to sign up for a webinar. Or, if you’re aiming to increase recurring customers, your emails might feature special offers or limited-edition items. 

The easiest way to define your goals is by thinking about your business needs, and what it is that you want to accomplish in the short and long term.

3. Choose an Email Marketing Platform

Your email marketing platform is the backbone of your entire email strategy. It’s the tool that enables you to craft, send, and track your campaigns with ease, streamlining tasks that would otherwise take hours.

The right platform can help you design eye-catching emails, grow and manage your subscriber list, create templates, run test campaigns, automate messages, and track important metrics like open rates and clicks. When choosing your platform, think carefully about which features matter most for your business. 

Define your priorities, then look for a platform that matches both your needs and budget.

4. Start Building and Growing Your Email List

Once you’ve defined your audience, set your goals, and chosen an email marketing platform, it’s time to start building your email list. If you already have a website, the easiest way to start collecting subscribers is through sign-up forms. You can create them yourself, use an external tool, or leverage your email marketing platform in case it offers that functionality.

At SiteGround, we’ve taken the hassle out of this process by offering a lead generation plugin for WordPress, built to integrate seamlessly with our email marketing tool. In just minutes, you can create a sign-up form and add it to your site without coding.

You can also grow your list by offering a lead magnet, such as a freebie or discount, in exchange for emails. For example, you may create a sign-up form that promises a 10% discount on the first purchase, or a free ebook that gives useful tips to your audience or solves a common problem they might have. You can promote your lead magnet on various pages of your website, and share it on your social media channels to increase visits and sign-ups.

Offline events and opportunities could also help you grow your list. If you attend industry conferences and meetups, for instance, you could collect emails by setting up a sign-up station or using QR codes that link to your form. Collaborating with influencers or affiliates is another way to get new subscribers.

Don’t forget to offer them unique incentives (discounts or referral bonuses) to promote your product and subscriber list, and consider running limited-time promotions they can share with their followers. For more detailed tips and tricks, check out our guides on how to build an email list and proven email lead generation tactics.

5. Segment Your Email List for Maximum Impact

Another email marketing tip is dividing your subscriber list into smaller, more specific groups. Segmentation could be based on different criteria like demographics, purchase history, behavior, or where they are in the customer journey. 

This approach helps you connect more meaningfully with subscribers, as each segment will receive content that’s directly applicable and useful to them. For example, let’s say you run an online clothing store. You might create segments for recent customers who purchased a specific type of clothing, loyal customers who buy regularly, and new subscribers who haven’t yet made a purchase. Based on your segments, you could send tailored content like a promotion to recent buyers, a sneak peek of upcoming new products for loyal frequent shoppers, and a welcome discount for new subscribers.

6. Create the Perfect Marketing Email

Creating the perfect marketing email requires great design and content, and it starts with understanding the type of email you’re sending. Some of the most effective email types include welcome emails, promotional emails, newsletters, lead nurturing emails, transactional emails, and re-engagement emails. Each of these has a unique purpose, so it’s important to adapt your content to match the goal of each email type.

Design also plays a huge role in creating the perfect marketing email. A modern, visually appealing layout can make all the difference in keeping your readers interested. Be sure to use a responsive layout so your emails look great on any device, whether it’s a desktop, tablet, or mobile screen. Maintaining consistency with your brand colors and fonts across all emails will also reinforce your brand identity. 

In terms of content, one of the most crucial elements is the subject line. This is the first thing your subscribers see, so your subject line must be short, relevant, compelling, and ideally personalized. It should grab attention and highlight the value your email provides. When it comes to the body of the email, keep it concise and aligned with your audience’s needs and your marketing goals. People’s time is precious, so make sure your message delivers value quickly and clearly.

And, of course, every email needs a clear call to action (CTA). You must tell your subscribers exactly what you want them to do. Whether it’s clicking a button, visiting an article, or making a purchase, the CTA should be visible and compelling. 
Experiment with different types of CTAs – buttons, links with anchor text, or images to see what works best with your audience.

7. Test and Send Your Email

Once you’ve crafted your email, the next step is testing it. Don’t overlook this step! Test your email to ensure everything looks great, and don’t forget to check it on mobile devices too, as most people read emails on their phones these days.

To take your optimization even further, try A/B testing. This means sending different versions of your email to small groups of recipients to see which one performs better. Experiment with different subject lines, email body content, CTAs, images, and even the timing of when you send your emails. With testing, you can gather insights into what your audience responds to best, and refine your approach.

8. Track and Improve Your Email Marketing Campaigns

Tracking the email metrics of each email campaign is necessary so that you can measure the effectiveness of your campaigns and continuously improve them. These metrics give you insight into what’s working and what you can optimize. Here are the top email marketing metrics to pay attention to:

• Open Rate: It shows how many people opened your email. Reveals whether your subject line is attention-grabbing and if your emails are reaching people at the right time.
• Delivery Rate: This reflects how many emails were successfully delivered to subscribers. A low rate could signal issues with your email infrastructure or reputation.
• Click to Open Rate (CTR): This tells you how many recipients clicked on links in your email. It’s a good indicator of whether your content is engaging and valuable.
• Bounce Rate: This measures the percentage of emails that failed to deliver. High bounce rates could indicate problems with your email list or the quality of your content.
• Spam Complaint Rate: This shows how often your emails are marked as spam. A high rate could suggest that your content isn’t resonating with your audience or that you’re sending too many emails.
• Unsubscribed: This tells you how many people unsubscribed from your list. If the rate is high, it might mean your content isn’t hitting the mark or that you’re emailing too frequently.

Start Your Email Marketing Journey Today 

We hope this email marketing guide has given you the know-how to dive into email marketing confidently. Remember to focus on delivering value, keeping an eye on your results, and improving with each campaign. When you’re ready, kick off your first campaign smoothly and stress-free with the SiteGround Email Platform.

How to Do Email Marketing FAQs

Can I Do Email Marketing Myself?

Most definitely! By using the right email marketing platform, you can do email marketing yourself without needing advanced tech skills. This will streamline many time-consuming tasks, like managing subscribers, designing emails, testing and sending campaigns, creating automated email journeys, and even writing the content.

How to Do Email Marketing for Free?

It’s possible to start email marketing for free, as some email tools offer free plans with basic features. But keep in mind that free plans often come with limitations. Most free tools provide only the most basic features, which you can quickly outgrow and find insufficient as your business expands. 

You might find yourself restricted by the number of emails you can send, the quality of design options, and access to important analytics.

For more professional results, it’s advisable to invest in a robust email marketing tool, like SiteGround’s Email Marketing Platform, which can equip you with all essential features from the start.

When It Comes to Email Marketing, What Do We Mean by the Term A/B Testing?

A/B testing is when you send two different versions of an email campaign to small segments of your audience to see which one performs better. For example, you might test two subject lines, different CTAs, or images to find out what grabs attention or drives more clicks. This testing helps you better understand what resonates with your subscribers.