A Beginner’s Guide to Successful Email Marketing in 2024

If you are not using email marketing for your online business, you are missing out on a huge opportunity and potentially leaving thousands of dollars (perhaps even millions) on the table.

If you ask most bloggers and other online business owners, most of them will tell you that building an email list is the most important thing you can do to ensure the success of your online business. But why is email marketing so crucial?

When people visit your website, it is highly unlikely that they will purchase from you on the first day.

However, once they leave your site, there is no guarantee that they will come back. By the time they are ready to make the purchase, they might even have forgotten about your site, which means they will buy elsewhere.

When you have these potential customers’ email addresses, however, you can regularly reach out to them, build a relationship with them, and market your products to them.

This way, by the time they are ready to make the purchase, you will be at the top of their mind, and they will end up buying from you.

Still not convinced on why you should use email marketing on your online business? Here, take a look at these statistics…

According to a survey by Smart Insights, email is more effective than all other digital marketing channels, including social media marketing and SEO.

In addition, more people use email compared to any other digital channel. As of 2019, there were 3.9 billion email users, with the number set to reach 4.3 billion by 2023. This means that with email, you can potentially reach almost half of the world’s population.

This shows that any business owner cannot afford to ignore email marketing any longer. The question is, how exactly do you implement email marketing for your business?

In this guide, I will give you a detailed step by step guide to email marketing for your business. I will cover everything you need to know about email marketing, including how to build your email list, how to build trust with your subscribers and position yourself as an authority, and how to turn your email list into a thriving online business.

Ready to learn information that will be a life changer for your business? Let’s dive in.

What is Email Marketing?

Email marketing is a digital marketing strategy that involves sending out emails to customers and prospects with the aim of promoting your business to these people.

If you have ever sent an email to potential or existing customers telling them about your business, your products and services, you have engaged in some form of email marketing. Similarly, if you have received an email from a business telling you about its products and services, you have already had an interaction with email marketing.

For instance, this email from Thinkific inviting me for their next live training session is an example of email marketing.

You can think of email marketing as direct mail marketing, only that in this case, instead of using snail mail through the postal service, you are going to be using email.

Email marketing is typically used for the following reasons:

• To convert prospects into paying customers.
• To convince existing customers to make another purchase from your business.
• To let your customer know about new products and services, new offers and discounts, and so on.
• To enhance customer relationships and turn your existing customers into loyal, raving fans who recommend your products and services to their friends and family.

The Importance of Email Marketing

Email marketing is more effective than other popular digital marketing channels like social media marketing and SEO. But why is email marketing so important?

Here are four reasons that make email marketing better than all other digital marketing channels.

Email is The #1 Communication Channel

There is no digital communication channel that is greater than email. Here are some statistics showing why email is the number one communication channel.

• No digital channel has more users than email. For instance, Facebook, which is the largest social media platform, has only 2.6 billion users. On the other hand, there are 3.9 billion email users. Actually, email is the currency of the internet, since most other platforms require an email address in order to sign up.
• Email is more effective at getting your message in front of your target audience. For instance, Facebook limits the number of people who see your posts, which means your posts are only seen by less than 10% of your fans. With email, on the other hand, your message will be delivered to the intended target’s inbox 90% of the time.
• Email provides higher engagement rates compared to social media.

• Over three quarters (80%) of Americans login to their personal emails every day. No other digital platform boasts such numbers.

These statistics prove without any doubt that email is the number one communication channel, which means you can’t afford to ignore email.

You Own Your Audience (Less Dependent On Google & Co)

In 2012, Google made an update known as “Penguin” to their search algorithms, changing the way the algorithms ranked websites on search engine results pages.

With that one change, thousands of websites experienced a significant loss in organic traffic, and many of them were forced to shut down. For instance, this blogger went from 700 visitors per day to just 40. He was eventually forced to shut down his blog.

In 2019, a 21 year old Instagram influencer by the name Jessy Taylor woke up to find Instagram had deactivated her Instagram account. At the time, she had over 100,000 followers on the platform, and had already made over $500,000 from her Instagram account. Being an Instagram influencer was her full time job.

By deleting her Instagram account, Instagram had effectively rendered this influencer jobless, since she would be forced to start over and build her following from scratch.

What these stories show is that if your marketing is dependent on third party platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Google, you really don’t have total control over your audience. These platforms can wake up one morning and take away your audience from you.

With email, however, you have total control over your audience. No one can take away your email list from you. Even if Google penalizes your blog, or if Instagram or Facebook deletes your account, you can still continue reaching your audience through email.

Email Converts And Delivers Unbeaten ROI

One of your greatest objectives as a marketer is to drive conversions – either convert visitors into subscribers and leads, convert leads into paying customers, and so on.

Fortunately, email has been shown to be the most powerful channel for driving conversions. We already saw that email has a click-through rate of 3.7%, compared to just 0.5% for social media.

In addition to driving conversions, email marketing also delivers the highest ROI compared to other digital marketing channels.

For every $1 spent on email marketing, you can make up to $40, which equates to a return on investment of 4000%. This is almost double the ROI of SEO, and four times the ROI of mobile ads.

Email Is Personal And Customizable

One of the factors that makes email such a powerful marketing tool is the fact that email can be greatly personalized and customized to suit the recipient.

When you create content for your blog or your social media profiles, this content will be read by all your followers. This means that you have to create content that appeals to everyone. You cannot create content that appeals to a specific segment of your audience, since you have no way of limiting who sees the content.

With email, on the other hand, you can segment your audience and customize your content to match the needs and preferences of each market segment.

For instance, if you have different products for men and women, you can create two segments, and create two different email campaigns, one targeted at men and another targeted at women.

Campaign Monitor reports that email segmentation can increase revenue by up to 760%. DMA also reports that 58% of revenue generated through email marketing comes from segmented emails.

In addition to segmenting your email lists, email also allows you to personalize your emails to each specific recipient. You can address your recipients by name and include information that is only applicable to them specifically. This can greatly boost the effectiveness of your email campaigns.

According to Campaign Monitor, including the recipient’s name in the email subject line improves open rates by 26%. Aberdeen also reports that email personalization boosts conversions by 10% and increases click-through rates by about 14%.

Phase #1: Grow Your Email List With Landing Pages, Optin Forms, and Lead Magnets

Now that you know what email marketing is, and why it is important for your online business, let us look at how you can implement email marketing within your business.

Before you can start sending marketing emails, you need the email addresses of people to send the emails to. Therefore, the first step of implementing a successful email marketing strategy is to build your email list.

Growing your email list boils down to four key steps:

Step 1: Choose An Email Marketing Platform That Supports Your Online Business Growth

There’s more to successful email marketing than just sending out emails randomly. You need to make sure that your emails are well designed, you need a way of managing your different email segments, a way to make sure your emails actually get to your recipient’s inbox, a way to track and monitor the performance of your email campaigns, and so on.

Doing this manually can be a huge challenge and would take too much time. If you want your email marketing efforts to be successful, you need the right email marketing platform to help you manage all aspects of your email marketing campaigns.

When it comes to picking email marketing software, a lot of beginners focus solely on affordability. However, if you want to run effective email marketing campaigns, you also need to look at the features that your email marketing platform of choice offers.

What Makes A Good Email Marketing Platform?

Here are some of the features you should look for when choosing an email marketing platform…

• A drag and drop editor that allows you to create beautiful and highly engaging marketing emails.
• The ability to automatically send personalized and targeted emails in bulk without having to do everything manually.
• The ability to segment your email list and manage the different email segments.
• The ability to schedule emails such that they are automatically sent at a specific time, or based on user activity, such as signing up to your email list or making a purchase.
• Ability to seamlessly run A/B tests so that you can identify variables that work best with different audiences/customer segments.
• Ability to integrate with other tools, such as customer relationship management (CRM) software, social media tools, analytics platforms like Google Analytics, eCommerce platforms, content management systems, and so on.
• Ability to create emails that are optimized for mobile devices. This is very important, since 85% of users have reported checking their email on mobile devices. 42% of email opens also happen on mobile devices.
• Ability to track and monitor how your email campaigns are performing. This includes tracking metrics like delivery rate, open rate, bounce rate, click through rate, churn rate, forward rate, forward rate, earnings per email, and so on.

While you should take these features into consideration, your decision should also be influenced by the goals and objectives of your email marketing campaign, as well as how you intend to use the email marketing platform.

Which Is The Best Email Marketing Platform?

There are many good email marketing platforms to choose from, such as ConvertKit, ConstantContact, SendinBlue, GetResponse, HubSpot, ActiveCampaign, and so on. Our top recommendation from these is ConvertKit.

ConvertKit is a very powerful yet easy to use email marketing platform that works particularly well for marketers, authors, and bloggers. Here are some reasons why you should use ConvertKit…

• You can create beautiful and responsive landing pages and opt-in forms.

• You can easily organize your email list with segments and tags. You can even segment your subscribers based on the product they purchased from you.

• ConvertKit gives you access to a knowledge base where you can learn how to take full advantage of ConvertKit and supercharge your email marketing efforts.

• ConvertKit can be integrated with a wide range of tools, including WordPress, WooCommerce, and so on.
• Super helpful customer support that is accessible via email.
• You can easily create personalized automated emails.
• ConvertKit provides powerful analytics and reporting tools to help you track the performance of your email marketing campaigns.

Step 2: Create A Lead Magnet To Give Visitors An Incentive To Subscribe To Your Email List

In an ideal world, potential customers would give you their names and contact information simply because you asked. However, we don’t live in an ideal world, and no one is going to give you their email address simply because you are asking.

Today, every marketer is trying to build an email list, and customers already have lots of other businesses and entrepreneurs sending emails to their inbox every single day. They are not very enthusiastic about getting more emails from more brands.

This means that if you want a significant number of those visiting your website to give you their name and email address, you need to give them a good reason why they should do that. This is where a lead magnet comes in.

A lead magnet is a free yet valuable thing that you give to potential customers in exchange for their email address.

For instance, if I told you that I would give you access to an online course you were interested in, and all you had to do in return is simply to give me your email address, you would do it, right?

Lead magnets are sometimes referred to as sign up incentives, opt-in bribes, or freebies. They are a very important element when it comes to growing your email list. Here are some reasons why you need to create a lead magnet…

• It allows you to showcase your expertise in your field right from the start.
• It allows you to build trust with potential buyers since you are providing them with something valuable for free.
• It shows potential customers that you are more concerned about helping them, and not just interested in their money.
• It gives your audience a taste of the kind of content they should expect once they purchase from you.

Here are some types of lead magnets that you can use as an incentive to get people to subscribe to your email list.

eBooks

These are the most common types of lead magnets. Their popularity stems from the fact that they are very effective at converting web visitors into subscribers, as well as the fact that they are very easy to create.

eBooks allow you to provide more information and value than you would within a blog post, but in a way that is easy to read and digest. An eBook lead magnet should not be excessively long. Anywhere between 5k – 10k words is okay.

A good example of a website that uses eBooks as lead magnets is OptinMonster. Their eBooks teaches visitors how to reduce website abandonment.

Downloadables

These are the second most popular lead magnetics. Like eBooks, downloadables are popular because they are relatively easy to create.

There are many types of downloadables you can use as an incentive to get people to subscribe to your email list, such as…

• Workbooks
• Checklists
• Planners
• Calendars
• Scripts
• Templates
• PDF guides
• Cheatsheets
• Swipe files
• Resource lists

Here is an example of a checklist being used as a lead magnet on the Printmaker System.

Free Email Course

Offering a free email course is another awesome way of offering great value to your visitors in exchange for their email address.

An email course is simply a set of lessons that are delivered over email over a period of time (usually a couple of days) with the help of helping your subscribers learn how to do something.

The beauty of using free email courses as lead magnets is that they get the subscriber used to opening your emails. This increases the likelihood that they will continue opening your emails even after the email course is over, provided that your email course delivered great value.

Buffer is a great example of a website that offers a free email course in exchange for visitors’ email addresses.

Free Webinars

Using webinars is another great way to bribe your visitors to opt into your email list. With this approach, you are basically giving your visitors access to a pre-recorded webinar in exchange for their email address.

The benefit of using webinars as a lead magnet is that webinars are a more powerful way of showcasing your expertise and positioning yourself as an authority within your area of expertise. The video aspect of the webinar also makes it easier for you to create a connection with your audience.

For example, HubSpot offers several webinars that you can watch for free in exchange for your contact information.

If you decide to use webinars as a lead magnet, I recommend using WebinarJam to host your webinar. WebinarJam provides a ton of tools that make hosting and recording your webinar a breeze, even if you are a beginner.

Newsletters

Newsletters can also be used as lead magnets. For a newsletter to be an effective lead magnet, however, the newsletter needs to provide lots of value. If your newsletter only focuses on your business and your products, you will have a hard time convincing people to sign up.

If you have a high value newsletter, however, it can be a very effective lead magnet, since your subscribers will be looking forward to your emails right from the start.

A good example of a business that uses a newsletter as a lead magnet is The Hustle, which provides updates about the hottest business and tech news every day.

Video Series

As an alternative to webinars, you can also use a video series as a lead magnet. A video series comprises a small number of short videos (about 4 – 7 minutes each) that teach something in an easy to understand manner.

The videos in the series can be delivered to your subscribers on a daily or weekly basis. The videos can be hosted on video platforms like YouTube, Vimeo, or Wistia. However, you have to adjust the privacy settings to ensure that the videos are only visible to your subscribers.

Video series are especially effective if you offer consultancy and coaching services, or if you sell online courses.

A great example of an entrepreneur who uses video series as a lead magnet is Brian Tracy.

Case Studies

If you have helped some of your past clients achieve positive results, you can put together a case study showing how you helped them achieve these results, and then use the case study as a lead magnet to attract subscribers.

The best thing about using case studies as a lead magnet is that in addition to collecting emails, you also get the chance to show potential clients the kind of results you can help them achieve, as well as how you are going to do it. This makes them a great tool for building trust as well.

A good example of a business that uses case studies as lead magnets is Tapad.

Resource Guide

A resource guide is basically a list of websites, tools, software, and business solutions that you recommend to your audience.

For instance, if you run a photography blog, you can create a resource guide recommending tools, software, and websites that will help your audience become better photographers and help them save money, time, and energy.

The best part of using a resource guide as a lead magnet is that they are very easy to create. All you need to do is to come up with a list of the resources you use in your work and add a short description of each.

Since you are recommending these tools to your audience, you can also include affiliate links (that you get when joining an affiliate program), allowing you to earn a passive income while at the same time growing your email list.

A good example of a blog using a resource guide as a lead magnet is Freedom With Writing, which asks visitors to share their email in exchange for a list of blogs that pay writers for their content.

Survey Results And Reports

If you have access to exclusive data about your industry or market, you can create a detailed report from this data and use the report as an incentive to get people to sign up on your email list.

Similarly, if you have significant traffic on your site, you can conduct surveys and then package the survey results into a report and use it as a lead magnet.

Survey results and reports give people insights that help them understand the industry and market better, and you can bet that they will be willing to share their email address in exchange for this information.

Using survey results and reports as lead magnets works best for creative agencies and SaaS companies.

Litmus is a great example of a company that uses survey results as a lead magnet. In exchange for your email address, they give you access to a report about the state of email in 2019.

How To Create Effective Lead Magnets

It’s good to note that there is more to creating an effective lead magnet than simply putting a shoddy eBook or resource guide and slapping a Call-To-Action next to it, complete with fields for a name and email address.

If you want to come up with irresistible lead magnets that will have people signing up to your email list by the truckload, you need to make sure that your email list does the following.

• It solves a problem: If your lead magnet does not solve any problem for your visitors, you will have a hard time convincing them to share their email addresses.
• It provides a quick win: An effective lead magnet is one that helps your visitors achieve something easily and quickly. The longer it takes for your visitors to achieve results from your lead magnet, the less effective it becomes.
• It should be easily digestible: This is closely related to the previous point. Lead magnets should contain content that can be digested easily and quickly. This means that a 100 page eBook, or a month’s long online course might not be a very effective lead magnet. Mini eBooks, checklists, and templates, on the other hand, work so well.
• It should be highly specific: Your lead magnet should be highly focused. Focusing on a very specific topic allows you to deliver great value within a short time, and increases your lead magnet’s conversion rate.
• It should provide instant access: When you ask people to share their email address in exchange for something, they should be able to get it immediately after providing their email address. This is why downloadable lead magnets work so well. Don’t use lead magnets that people will only be able to access a week or more after sharing their contact information.
• It should showcase your authority and expertise: Your lead magnet also needs to position you as an expert or authority in your field. This will help create trust and will increase your chances of converting this person from a lead to a paying customer.

Step 3: Strategically Set Up Your Optin Forms And Landing Pages

Having chosen an email marketing platform that works for you, and with your lead magnet ready, it’s now time to strategically set up your optin forms and landing pages to ensure maximum conversions.

An optin form or landing page is where your visitors are going to key in their contact information. This is also where you are going to offer your lead magnet and give the visitor reasons why they should give you their contact information in exchange for your lead magnet.

For your optin form or landing page to be effective in converting visitors to subscribers, here are three key things you need to keep in mind…

Use A Visually Appealing Optin Form

Visitors don’t spend a lot of time on a website. In fact, over half of your site’s visitors don’t spend more than 15 seconds on your site. This means that within a quarter of a minute, you need to have captured a visitor’s attention and made it clear what they need to do on that page.

This is why your optin form needs to be visually appealing. A well designed optin form quickly communicates the value a visitor will get by subscribing, and guides their eye towards the action they need to take.

Here is an example of a visually appealing optin form from SurfStich.

The form uses a simple, uncluttered design, it quickly communicates the value (get 20% off), and it directs the eye towards the button that they want you to click (Join Us).

Don’t Ask For Too Much Information

Most site visitors view signing up for your email list as an inconvenience they have to endure in order to receive whatever optin bribe you promised.

Therefore, you need to make the sign up process as simple and easy as possible. The more difficult you make it for them, the more likely they are to abandon your form.

One of the best ways to make the sign up process simple is to reduce the amount of information you are asking for.

A HubSpot survey of over 40,000 customers found out that increasing the number of fields in your optin form decreases the conversion rate.

In another experiment by Blivakker, eliminating unnecessary fields from their optin form led to an 11% increase in the number of conversions.

Both these results show that reducing the amount of information you are asking from your visitors can lead to an increase in conversions. If possible, stick to the user’s name and email address.

However, the amount and kind of information you ask for in your optin forms should also be guided by your objectives. For instance, if you want pre qualified leads from your optin forms, it might be necessary to ask for more information. While this will reduce the conversion rate, it will also result in higher quality leads.

Place Your Optin Forms Strategically On Your Site

How and where you position your optin form on your site will also have an impact on conversion. Ideally, you want to position your option form in a location that maximizes the possibility of the optin form being seen by your visitors.

Here are some of the locations you should consider positioning your optin form. You can even place your optin form in multiple locations on your site.

Hello Bar

When you position your optin form as a hello bar, the form appears on the top of every page on your website as a thin, full-width graphic.

The hello bar increases visibility since it appears on every page, and due to the fact that it is positioned at the top of the page. At the same time, the hello bar does not disrupt your visitor’s browsing experience.

Positioning an optin form as a hello bar can be very effective. For instance, by incorporating a hello bar in their campaign, Cosmetic Capital was able to increase their leads by 300% daily.

Since you cannot communicate much value in the space available within a hello bar, you can use the hello bar to send traffic to your landing page.

Here is an example of an optin form positioned as a hello bar on Meera Kothand’s blog.

Header

This is the one of the most popular locations for placing the optin form. Like the hello bar, the header is highly visible because it appears at the top of the page. Anyone landing on your page can view the header without having to scroll any further.

Unlike the hello bar, however, the header is a lot more prominent, which makes it even more effective than the hello bar.

Michael Hyatt provides a good example of an optin form placed within a site’s header.

You can see the “Subscribe Now” button within the site’s header. Clicking on this button directs you to the actual form where you can enter your contact information.

The feature box

The feature box appears just under your website’s header. The feature box can be as prominent as the header, so it is also a great place to position your optin form. However, the feature box only appears on your website’s home page.

Here is an example of an optin form placed within a feature box on our other website, Cleverism.com.

Top of the sidebar

This is another popular location for placing the optin form. The beauty of this location is that the optin form remains visible even while your visitors are scrolling through your site content.

However, since the sidebar does not interrupt the reader’s experience, a visitor can scroll to the bottom of a page without noticing the optin form located on the side bar.

Therefore, to be effective, you need to make sure any optin form located within the sidebar is noticeable. You can do this through the proper use of color and design.

Here’s a good example of an optin form located within the sidebar on Brian Clarke’s CopyBlogger.

At the end of blog posts

You can also position your optin forms at the end of blog posts. While such an optin form will be missed by visitors who do not make it to the end of your blog post, it will capture the attention of readers who have found your content interesting enough that they made it to the end.

When someone has read your blog post to the end, this shows that they like your content, and therefore, they have a higher likelihood of subscribing.

The footer

You can also place your optin form on your website’s footer. Once again, this optin form won’t be seen by those who do not make it to the bottom of a page. However, visitors who scroll to the bottom are definitely interested in your content, and therefore, they are more likely to subscribe.

Another advantage of placing your optin form within your website’s footer is that the optin form will appear on every page within your website.

Here is an example of an optin form placed within the footer on SmartBlogger.

Clicking on the “Teach Me” button brings up a pop-up form where you can enter your email address.

Pop-up optin form

A lot of website users find pop-up forms to be annoying, because they interrupt your browsing experience. However, pop-up forms are very effective at driving conversions, which is why a lot of websites still use them despite being seen as an annoyance.

However, for your pop up form to be effective at converting visitors into subscribers, it needs to be paired with a good lead magnet, and compelling copy.

The best thing about pop up forms is that they can be customized to appear at different times based on user activity.

For instance, a pop up optin can appear when a visitor lands on a page, when they scroll halfway through the page, once they finish reading a post, just before they leave the page, and so on. You can change the effectiveness of your pop up forms by changing when they appear.

Here is an example of a pop-up optin form from SmartInsights. The form has been customized to appear when a user is about to leave the site.

Floating bar

Also referred to as a sticky bar, this is a type of optin form that is designed to remain visible at all times. This means that it will remain in view even when a visitor scrolls up or down the page. This is what makes floating bar optin forms effective, since most of the other kinds of forms will get away from the visitor’s view at some point.

Here is an example of a floating bar optin form on the ActiveCampaign website. It remains visible at the bottom of the page whether you scroll up or down the page.

With your opting form set up strategically to maximize conversions, it’s now time to move to the final step of phase one…

Step 4: Promote Your Landing Pages With Paid Ads Or On Social Media

By this point, you have a good email platform, you have already created your lead magnets, and your optin forms and landing pages are ready to accept users’ contact information. However, for this to happen, you need a way of driving traffic to your optin forms and landing pages.

While there are several ways of driving traffic to your landing pages, the quickest and most effective way of doing this is to promote your landing pages with paid ads or on social media.

However, you should only use paid ads if you have already tested how people convert in your sales funnel, or if you want to quickly test your sales funnel. This will help you to determine if you are getting a good ROI on the money you are spending on paid ads.

Here’s why you should use paid ads to drive traffic to your landing page.

• Paid ads provide higher ROI than many other marketing channels.
• Paid ads allow you to target your audience based on their likes, age, geographic location, income level, gender, and so on.
• Paid ads allow you to track and measure performance, which allows you to optimize your ads for improved effectiveness.
• Paid ads will grow your email list faster compared to free marketing channels.

Instead of using paid ads on multiple platforms, I recommend choosing one paid marketing channel that works best for your target audience and focusing solely on it.

In this guide, I am going to focus on paid Facebook ads, because Facebook is the biggest social media platform.

However, depending on your audience, you can use paid ads on other social platforms, such as Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Snapchat, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok, and so on. You also have the option of using paid ads on Google.

Promoting Your Landing Page On Facebook

To promote your landing page on Facebook, the first thing you need to do is to define your audience. Who exactly are you targeting? Here are some questions you can use to define your audience.

• How old is my target audience?
• What gender are they?
• Where do they live?
• What are their likes and dislikes?
• What job positions do they hold?

After answering these questions, use this information to build a target audience profile for your ad.

Next, you will be asked to choose where you want your ads to appear. You can define where you want your ads to be shown by:

• Device type (desktop or mobile)
• Platform (Facebook, Messenger, Audience Network, or Instagram)
• Ad location (stories, feeds, in messages, and so on)
• Operating system (for mobile platforms).

If you don’t want to edit all this, you can choose “Automatic Placements,” which tells Facebook to show your ads where they feel they will achieve best results.

From there, you will be required to set your budget and schedule how you want your ads to be shown. Once you have done that, you can then go ahead and create the content of your ad and then launch the ad.

When creating your Facebook ad, you should make sure that all people who click on the ad will be redirected to your landing page, rather than your website homepage. Close to one third (31%) of marketers lose leads because their ads redirect users to their website homepage, rather than a specific landing page.

You also need to make sure that the content of your ad is well aligned with the content on your landing page.

For instance, if your ad promises to show people how they can make $1,000 in passive income, the optin bribe on your landing page should deliver on that promise.

Finally, you need to make sure that your Facebook ad has a clear call to action. You want your audience to immediately understand what you want them to do when they come across your ad.

With a well set-up paid ad campaign that is linked directly to your landing page, you will be able to quickly drive traffic to your landing page and grow your email list within a short time.

Now that you have set up the mechanism for quickly growing your email list, it’s time to move on to the second phase…

Phase #2: Follow Through With Content That Builds Trust With Your Subscribers And Showcases You’re The Expert In Your Niche

Getting people to subscribe to your email list is only a small part of the game. If you want to profit from your email list, you need to make sure that these people do not opt out of your email list.

You also need to make sure that they will continue opening, reading, and interacting with your emails. After all, if no one is reading your emails or clicking on the content within the emails, you are not going to make any money from your list.

Question is, how do you get your subscribers to open and engage with your emails?

The answer is to provide them with great content that provides value to your subscribers, builds trust with them, and showcases you as an expert in your niche who can help them solve their problems. Here’s how to do exactly that…

First, Send A Super Helpful Welcome Email Series

One mistake a lot of novice marketers make is waiting too long to communicate with someone who has just signed up to their email list.

When someone has just subscribed to your email list, their interest in your business is at its peak. This is the best time to engage them, before their interest wanes. Actually, most of your new subscribers will be expecting to hear from you immediately after they subscribe.

Since the subscriber’s interest is highest immediately after they subscribe to your email list, welcome emails tend to perform exceptionally well.

According to GetResponse, welcome emails have an average open rate of 82%, which is way higher than the average open rate for other kinds of email.

In addition, when compared to promotional emails, welcome emails drive over three times more transactions and revenue.

Sending a welcome email series to your new subscribers helps you to take advantage of the exceptional performance of welcome emails to keep your audience engaged and to boost transactions and revenue.

A welcome email series serves the following purposes…

• It welcomes the subscriber to your email list.
• It tells them what to expect from you now that they are subscribed to your email list.
• It captures their attention when their interest is at its highest and keeps them engaged.
• It helps you to build trust.
• It gets the subscriber in the right frame of mind to purchase from you.

Basically, the aim of your welcome email series is to build a relationship with your new subscribers and get them to trust that you can provide an effective solution to the problem they are struggling with.

Ideally, a welcome email series should have anywhere between 3 – 7 emails. All the emails in your welcome series should build on each other and drive the subscriber to take a specific action at the end of the welcome series, such as signing up for a webinar, signing up for a free trial, or making a purchase.

Here’s what each of the emails in your welcome series should contain.

1^st Email: Welcome Aboard

This email should be sent within a few minutes of someone signing up to your email list. This first email should do the following…

• Celebrate them for subscribing
• Tell them a small story about your business (who you are, why you do what you do, clients you have worked with, awards you have won, and so on).
• Tell them what they should expect from you (the kind of content you will share with them, how frequently they should expect to hear from you, and so on.)
• Ask them to follow you on your social channels, or ask a question to get them engaged or to get them to share some information that you can use to determine how to segment them.
• Promise them something valuable that they should look out for. This helps create anticipation for your next email.

Here is an example of a welcome email from The Economist. Note how it welcomes you, tells a quick story about The Economist, and tells you what to expect. It also starts priming you to become a paying subscriber.

2^nd Email: Deliver A Quick Win

You ended the first email by making a promise of something valuable. Now is the time to deliver on that promise.

Whatever you are providing at this point should be something that will deliver a quick win for your audience. It could be a strategy, a tool, or even a piece of content that helps them solve a specific pain point quickly.

This email plays a key role in helping you build trust with your audience. You promised something and delivered on it. This shows you are someone who keeps their word.

Providing something that helps the subscriber solve a problem (for free) also helps build authority. It gives them concrete evidence that you can actually solve their problems.

3^rd Email: Build A Connection

The purpose of this email is to build an emotional connection with your subscriber. The best way to do this is by telling a personal story about you or your business.

Did you experience the same problems your subscriber is going through? How did you resolve it? The point here is to show them that you understand what they are going through, and let them know that you are well equipped to solve this problem for them.

4^th Email: Provide More Value

In this email, you want to provide even more value by pointing the subscriber to something that can provide further help with a problem they are experiencing.

You can do this, for instance, by pointing them to posts on your blog that address this problem, or pointing them to a resource guide that they will find useful.

The point of this email is to show that you actually care about your subscriber and their success. This is key in building trust.

5^th Email: Soft Pitch

In this email, you are going to give a preview of what you are offering and how it can help them. Don’t be too salesy at this point. You just want them to know that you have a product or service that can help them fix their problem. If possible, include customer testimonials or short case studies to show that your product has worked for other people like them.

6^th Email: Make Your Ask

So far, you have primed them enough. Now, it’s time to go for your main ask. What do you want them to do? Do you want them to sign up for your webinar? Do you want them to sign up for a free trial or a demo?

7^th Email: Collect Feedback

In this final email, you should collect feedback that will help you determine the kind of content to deliver to this subscriber going forward.

For instance, you can ask them what kind of content they want to see in future (provide them with choices). Alternatively, you could ask a question that will help you segment the subscriber appropriately.

Design Your Content Strategy For Your Email Marketing Campaigns

Even after your welcome email series is done, you will still need to continue delivering great content to your subscribers, otherwise they will forget about you and your business. To do this, you need to design a content strategy for your email marketing campaigns.

A content strategy is basically a high level plan that will guide you in the creation of content for your email marketing campaigns.

Your content strategy should include things like the topics you are going to cover, the format for each of the emails you are going to send, the content delivery schedule, and so on.

Having a content strategy means that you won’t run out of content to send to your subscribers. In addition, you won’t find yourself sending random content that does not help you achieve your business goals.

Here are the steps to follow when developing your email content strategy.

Determine Your Goals And Objectives

Before you embark on any email marketing campaign, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve from the campaign.

Your goals and objectives will determine the topics you are going to cover, how frequently you will send emails to your list, the kind of formats you will use for your emails, and so on.

The goals and objectives of your marketing campaign ]]>

• To create awareness about new products and services.
• To convert leads into paying customers.
• To keep existing customers engaged and maintain good relationships with them.
• To encourage repeat purchases.
• To upsell and cross-sell to existing customers.
• To encourage referrals and turn your existing customers into brand ambassadors.

Brainstorm Content Ideas

Once you have determined your goals and objectives, the next step is to brainstorm content ideas that will help you achieve these goals.

For instance, if your aim is to convert leads into paying customers, you will need to determine where your audience is on their buyer’s journey, and the bottlenecks that are keeping them from moving to the next stage in the buyer’s journey. You can then create content that will help move them to the next stage.

For example, if your audience is stuck on the consideration stage, you can send them expert guides, comparison whitepapers, and webcasts to help them move to the decision stage.

Similarly, if your audience is stuck in the decision stage, sending them case studies, product comparisons, product literature, trial downloads, and so on can help them make the decision to purchase.

Develop An Email Content Calendar

Once you have determined the topics that your email marketing campaign will cover, the next step is to create an email content calendar.

An email content calendar is basically a spreadsheet showing which email is going to be sent when. You should try to schedule at least two emails per month, otherwise your subscribers might quickly forget about you.

Here is an email marketing content calendar from CoShedule that you can use for your own email marketing campaigns.

Build Helpful Subscriber Segments To Send More Relevant Emails

Another mistake I see a lot of novice marketers make is sending the same email to everyone in their email list. Sure, you can do this, but how relevant will your email be to everyone in your list?

Let’s assume that you are using email to promote your business consultancy services. The kind of message that works for small business owners will not work for big corporations.

Similarly, the kind of message that works for someone who has become aware of your business today will not work for someone who has bought your services previously.

Therefore, if you send one message to everyone in your list, you will end up not resonating with anyone in the list, and your email marketing campaign will be a flop.

To avoid this, you need to segment your customer emails. Segmentation simply means grouping subscribers with common characteristics into one email list so that you can send them emails that are relevant to them specifically.

Going back to the previous example, you can create segments of small business owners, big corporations, people who have previously bought your services, and so on. You can then create different email messages that are relevant to each group and send them to that group only.

Segmenting your email list will greatly boost the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns. According to a 2017 survey by MailChimp, email segmentation resulted in a 14.6% increase in open rates, a 101% increase in click-through rates, a 4.7% reduction in bounce rate, and a 9.4% reduction in unsubscribes.

The above findings show how important email list segmentation is.

To segment your email list, you first need to gather data and insights about your subscribers. You can do this with your optin form, or by asking for this information in one of the emails in your welcome series.

You can also get some of this information by looking at your own customer data (such as purchase history) or by looking at data from your site.

Armed with this data, you can then group your subscribers into different segments based on their shared characteristics, such as age, location, company size, product purchased, industry, activity on your website, and so on.

Here are all the different characteristics you can use to segment your email list:

Once you have segmented your list, you can then create different campaigns that are targeted at different customer segments, with the assurance that each campaign will be highly relevant to that specific segment.

Set Up Your Email Marketing Automation To Run Campaigns On Autopilot

One of the best things about email marketing is that it allows you to automate your marketing activities. Once you set up email automation, your marketing campaign runs itself on autopilot, without any further action from you. This frees up your time so that you can focus on other aspects of your business.

With email marketing automation, you basically write all the emails in your email campaign in advance and then upload them on your email marketing platform.

Your email marketing platform will then send personalized emails to your subscribers at the right time, either based on a predefined schedule, or based on user activity triggers.

The welcome emails you receive whenever you subscribe to a new email list are an example of automated emails.

To set up your email marketing automation to run on autopilot, you first need to determine the kind of automated emails that you want to send to your subscribers. There are two main types of automated emails that you can send.

Activity Based Trigger Emails

These are emails that are sent automatically based on action taken by your subscribers, and sometimes, the lack of activity. Basically, an action taken by the subscriber tells your email marketing platform that the subscriber is ready for a specific email.

Some examples of activity based trigger emails include:

• Welcome emails
• Set up/customer onboarding emails
• Cart abandonment emails
• Inactivity emails
• Milestone/birthday emails
• Order confirmation emails

To set up activity based trigger emails, you will need to first define the activities that will trigger the email, and then write the email that will be sent after each trigger activity.

Drip Emails

These are emails that are sent sequentially following a certain predefined schedule. Drip emails are quite effective at moving prospects along the sales funnel. These are particularly effective at promoting new products and services.

To set up an automated drip email campaign, you will first need to write all the emails in your drip campaign, and then schedule how you want them to be sent.

Here is an automation planning worksheet from ConstantContact that you can use to plan your drip email campaign.

You can choose to use activity based trigger emails or drip emails depending on the goals of your email marketing campaign. Sometimes, you can even combine the two.

For instance, a welcome email series is usually a combination of the two types of automated emails. The first email is triggered by someone signing up to your email list, while the other emails are designed to be delivered sequentially following a specific schedule after the delivery of the first email.

Most email marketing platforms will allow you to automate your email marketing campaigns to run on autopilot. Personally, I use ConvertKit, because I find their process of planning and setting up email marketing automation to be very easy.

Phase #3: Turn Your Engaged Email List Into A Thriving Online Business

At this point, you have already built a sizable email list, and you are delighting them with great and valuable content. Now, it’s time to turn this engaged email list into a thriving online business.

6 Best Ways To Make Money Online From Your Email List

There are several ways of making money from your email list. Below, let’s take a look at six of the best and most effective ways of making money from your list:

Promote Your Online Course

If you have your own online course, you can promote it to your email list and convert some of your subscribers into paying customers. If you don’t have an online course already, you can create one and host it on platforms like Thinkific or Teachable, and then promote the course to your subscribers.

For this monetization model to work, however, your online course needs to be within the same niche as your email content.

Here is an example of an email from Danny Margulies of Freelance To Win promoting his online course to his email list.

Affiliate Marketing

This is another great way of monetizing your email list. Affiliate marketing simply means that you are going to recommend products that your subscribers find useful. Each recommended product is tracked with a unique affiliate link, and every time someone from your list makes a purchase, you will be paid a commission.

When monetizing your email list through email marketing, it is very important to balance between promotional messages and valuable content that adds value to your audience.

If you focus solely on promotional messages, your subscribers might opt out of your list or stop engaging with your emails. After all, they didn’t sign up to receive endless promotional messages.

Here’s an example of an email from Brennan Dunn of Double Your Freelancing where he promotes an affiliate product.

Promote Your Software

If you have a software product, you can also generate lots of sales by promoting your software product to your email list.

When using this approach, keep in mind that the focus of your email content should be on your audience, rather than your software product.

Therefore, instead of sending them endless promotional and sales messages urging them to purchase your product, focus on the problems your audience is struggling with, and how your software can help them solve these problems.

Promote Your Digital Products

You can also make good money by creating your own digital products and promoting them through your email list.

There is a wide range of digital products that you can create and sell to your subscribers, such as eBooks, printables, templates, digital photography, themes and plugins, and so on.

For instance, eBooks are quite easy to create, and they can net you good money without a lot of effort. According to the Ecommerce CEO, the eBook market has experienced 93% overall growth in the last five years, and will be worth over $29 billion by the end of the year.

Promote Your Services

Email is also a great way of promoting your freelance or consultancy services. For instance, if you are a freelance web designer, you can use email to let people know what you do and how you can help their businesses.

Over time, you will nurture your subscribers, showcase your expertise in your field, and build trust. Once they are ready to pay for web design services, guess who they will think of first? You, of course!

Once again, the key to being successful here is to not focus solely on the service you are offering. Instead, focus on providing value to your audience with educative and informative emails, and then push for a sale every once in a while. You should keep your emails 80% informative and 20% promotional.

Promote Your Online Conference

Email is one of the best ways of promoting an online conference. You already know that the people in your email list are interested in a specific subject, and therefore, a high number of them are likely to attend your online conference.

At this point, you are probably wondering, how will getting people to attend my online conference make me money?

There are several ways of making money from your online conference. First, if your content is premium and exclusive, you could charge people to attend the conference.

Alternatively, you could also find companies to sponsor your online conference. You can also partner with advertisers and charge them a fee to showcase their products during your online conference. You could also use the conference as an opportunity to market your own products to the attendees.

When To Pitch Your offering Or Product On Email

When someone subscribes to your email list, which you have already started monetizing, you might be tempted to send them a pitch about your products or services right away. After all, the main reason behind your email list is to make money, right? Unfortunately, this is not a very effective approach.

When someone subscribes to your email list, there’s a high chance that they only did so because you had a lead magnet that promised to solve a problem they had at that particular moment. They were willing to give you access to them in exchange for the value you have provided for them with your lead magnet.

Still, just because they are willing to give you access to their inbox, this doesn’t mean that they are ready to spend their money on you. At this point, this person doesn’t have any relationship with you, and they don’t trust you. They don’t even know whether you can actually solve their problem for them.

If you pitch them at this point, most new subscribers will ignore your pitch due to the above reasons. Actually, some will even opt out of your list, because they did not sign up for you to bombard them with sales messages.

What you need to do instead, is to take some time to build the relationship between the two of you and get them to trust you. The only way to do this is by providing them with more value (for free) and showing them that you are an expert in your field. This usually happens over the course of several emails (typically 5 – 7).

Once you have created a connection with them, cultivated trust, and shown that you know your stuff, only then should you go ahead to pitch your product or service.

Sales Funnel Blueprint To Turn Your Email Subscribers Into $20,000+ Monthly Revenue

Now that you have a sizable email list, great content to keep them engaged, and a way to monetize your list, it’s time to come up with a blueprint that will allow you to turn your subscribers into significant and recurrent monthly revenue. This is where a sales funnel comes in.

A sales funnel is a series of steps that are meant to convert the individuals in your email list from leads to paying customers.

The sales funnel reflects the various stages that your customer goes through before buying, from becoming aware of your business, all through to making the decision to purchase from you.

An email marketing funnel typically consists of three main steps:

• Awareness: This is where you attract new prospects, make them aware of your business, and get them to sign up to your list.
• Consideration: This is where you delight your subscribers with great content and show that you can effectively solve their problem.
• Conversion: The focus of this step is turning the already engaged subscribers into paying customers.

Why Do You Need A Sales Funnel?

Most of the people who subscribe to your email list won’t be ready to buy from you at that moment.

Having a sales funnel allows you to prove your worth and build trust with them. This way, once they are ready to buy, you will be at the top of your mind, and they will end up buying from you.

This framework for converting prospects into paying customers is referred to as a funnel because it is usually larger at the top and smaller at the bottom.

In other words, you typically start with a large number of prospects, and as you move along the series of stops, some prospects keep dropping off, until you are left with a small percentage who actually convert into paying customers.

Below, let’s take a look at how you can use the email sales funnel to drive over $20,000 in revenue every month.

Awareness Stage: Collect Emails

This is the first stage of the sales funnel, where people are getting to know about your business. At this point, you have two key objectives:

• Get as many people as you can to know about you and your business.
• Drive as much traffic as you can to your optin forms and landing pages and collect as many emails as you can.

There are several channels you can use to drive traffic to your optin forms and landing pages, such as…

• Your blog posts
• Your social media platforms
• Search engines
• Paid marketing campaigns

The more the people that get into your funnel, the higher the number of people you will be able to convert into paying customers.

Therefore, you need to make sure you have a highly valuable lead magnet to ensure that the majority of those who land on your landing pages and optin forms end up subscribing to your email list.

Consideration Stage: Build Trust With An Email Sequence

Even though they have subscribed to your email list, your subscribers don’t know enough about your business to make a purchase from you. Therefore, you should not start bombarding them with sales messages right away.

Instead, you want to delight them with great, valuable content, and provide them with more information about your business and how you can help solve some of their biggest problems.

At this point, the aim is to get your subscribers to trust your business, to showcase your authority and expertise, and convince them that you are the best person to solve their problems. Some of the things you should be doing at this point include…

• Collect more information about your subscribers to understand their background, goals, and biggest pain points.
• Provide information on how you can help move your subscribers closer to their goals. However, don’t focus on selling your product at this point. The aim is to let them know that there is a solution to their problem.
• Send a highly targeted and personalized email sequence that addresses your subscribers’ pain points and pushes them closer to the conversion stage.

Conversion Stage: Host A Webinar To Convert Your Prospects

At this point, your prospects are ready to make a purchase. All they need is that final nudge to convince them that your product or service will work for them, and that they should therefore purchase from you.

The best way to provide this nudge is to hold a webinar and discuss your product or service in detail. Webinars take advantage of the power of video to allow you to connect more deeply and sell to them more effectively than you would have done using text based channels.

When it comes to running your webinar, I recommend using WebinarJam. WebinarJam is a great webinar platform that makes it quite easy to record and broadcast webinars, even if you are a complete beginner.

During your webinar, you should be highly focused on selling your product or service, whether that is an online course, a consulting offering, software, or a digital product.

Unlike in the previous stage, where you were simply letting your subscribers know that a solution to their problem exists, in this stage, you want to let them know why your product is the most effective solution to their problem.

Therefore, during your webinar, you want to explain how your product works, highlight the features and benefits that differentiate it from competitors, provide case studies and testimonials from previous customers, and so on.

By the end of your webinar, you should have converted a portion of the attendees into paying customers.

From there, you can go back to the first stage and attract more traffic, collect their emails, and move them along your email sales funnel until you eventually convert some of them into paying customers.

If you get it right, your email sales funnel acts as a conveyor belt that provides you with a constant supply of prospects, some of whom will end up purchasing your products or services. In so doing, your email sales funnel provides you with a recurrent revenue month after month.

Use Email Marketing Analytics To Increase Your ROI

Once you create your email marketing campaign and hit send, you’re done, right? You can now sit back and wait for the money to start streaming in, right? Wrong!

Once your email marketing campaign is underway, you will need to monitor the performance of your campaign and figure out how to improve the campaign and get the most ROI from your email marketing efforts. To do this, you need to take a look at your email marketing analytics.

If you have never taken a look at your email marketing analytics before, it can be a bit overwhelming. What should you look at? What should you ignore?

Below, let’s take a look at some of the important metrics you should keep an eye on to determine the performance of your email marketing campaign.

Email Sign Up Rate

This metric refers to the number of people who sign up to your email list as a percentage of the total number of people who view your landing page or optin form. This metric is also referred to as optin rate or email capture rate (ECR).

Keeping track of this metric tells you how effective your landing page or optin form is at converting visitors into subscribers. Of course, you want as many visitors as possible to sign up for your email list.

According to SUMO, the average email sign up rate is 1.95%. However, what constitutes a good sign up rate will vary depending on various factors, such as your industry, the kind of email capture tool you are using and so on.

If you feel that your email sign up rate is low, you can increase it by:

• Reducing the number of fields in your email capture form.
• Experimenting with the placement of your optin forms on your website.
• Making sure that the value a visitor stands to gain by opting into your list is very clear.
• Having a highly visible and clear CTA.
• Using urgency and scarcity tactics to create FOMO.
• Eliminating the number of distractions on your optin form or landing page.

Email Open Rate

Your email open rate measures the number of people who open your email as a percentage of the total number of people who received this email.

Email open rates are a good way of telling if there is something you are not doing right with your email marketing campaign. For instance, if your open rates drop suddenly, this is an indicator that you are doing something wrong.

Generally, you should aim for an email open rate of about 20 – 30%. However, what constitutes a good open rate will vary by industry.

Here’s how email open rates vary by industry, according to HubSpot.

If you feel that your email open rates are not up to par, you can improve them by…

• Making sure that your email list is properly segmented.
• Sending your emails at the right time and on the right days. Generally, go for weekdays over weekends, and opt for morning instead of afternoon or evening.
• Using clear, concise, yet interesting subject lines.
• Using the recipient’s name in the subject line.
• Making sure that all your email content is always amazing and delivers great value.
• Optimizing your emails for mobile users. Majority of people read their emails on mobile devices.

Click Through Rate

Click through rate (CTR) is a measure of the number of people who clicked on the links within your email as a percentage of the total number of opened emails.

Click through rate is one of the best measures of email engagement. It also tells you how effective your email copy is. If a high number of people are clicking on the links in your email, this tells you that the email copy is highly effective, and that your audience found the email to be valuable.

Generally, you should aim for a click through rate of above 7%. However, what constitutes a good click through rate will vary by industry.

Here’s how CTR rates vary by industry, according to HubSpot.

Here are some ideas on how to improve your email click through rate…

• Make sure your email is properly formatted, with all the key information easily visible.
• Make sure your email is optimized for mobile, since most people read their emails on mobile devices.
• Improve your email copy. Create engaging email copy that encourages your subscribers to read through your entire email.
• Segment and personalize your list to make sure that people are receiving emails that are highly relevant to them.
• Include a clear and highly visible CTA in your emails.
• Use button CTAs over text links.
• Include social sharing buttons in your emails.

Lifetime Revenue Per Email Subscriber

This metric measures the worth, in dollars, of every active subscriber in your email list. This is one of the most important metrics to monitor. After all, you are building your email list in order to make money, so you need to know how much money each subscriber brings in.

Knowing how much each subscriber is worth to you will help you determine how much you can afford to spend to acquire new subscribers.

For instance, let’s say your lifetime revenue per email subscriber is $500, and the average lifetime of your subscribers is about 5 years. This means that the annual revenue per email subscriber is $100.

Therefore, if you are spending about $10 to acquire each new subscriber, this is affordable, since this customer will bring in $100 in revenue every year.

To calculate the lifetime revenue per email subscriber, you should divide your annual email marketing revenue by the total number of active subscribers during that year, then multiply this figure by your average subscriber lifetime.

Best Email Marketing Software Tools, Services and Platforms in 2021

It is impossible to run an effective email marketing campaign without a good email marketing platform. However, with dozens of email marketing platforms to choose from, picking the right one for you can be a bit overwhelming, especially if it’s your first time using an email marketing platform.

To make it easier for you to choose an email platform that works for you, we have compiled for you a list of some of the best email marketing platforms. Let’s take a look…

ConvertKit

This is arguably the best email marketing platform, especially for creators, such as authors, bloggers, vloggers, Instagram influencers, online course creators, and so on.

ConvertKit comes with a robust set of features that make it one of the best options in the market, such as…

• A visual builder that allows you to see how your emails will look like in your reader’s inbox.
• Advanced features for list management, including list segmentation and subscriber tagging.
• Built-in landing page creator that allows you to create landing pages to collect emails even if you don’t have a website.
• Ability to easily add incentives and content upgrades to your optin forms and landing pages.
• User-friendly autoresponders that make email automation a breeze.

Constant Contact

This is another popular email marketing platform that works particularly well for marketers with small email lists. It is also a great choice for beginners since it is very intuitive and user-friendly.

Here are some of the features you will find on Constant Contact…

• Dozens of templates that you can use to create beautifully designed emails.
• Integration with a wide variety of tools and services, including social media sharing tools, ecommerce tools, and Facebook ad integration.
• Event management tools.
• Powerful tracking and reporting tools.
• A knowledge base with lots of useful guides that beginners can use to learn and master email marketing. They also offer online training and live seminars.
• A 60-day free trial.
• Very helpful customer support that is available via phone, email, and live chat.

SendInBlue

SendInBlue is one of the fastest growing email marketing platforms. SendInBlue is a great option for those looking for powerful marketing automation.

Here are some of the features you will get from SendInBlue…

• Drag and drop editor that makes it easy for you to create beautiful emails, even if you have no prior experience.
• Ability to combine email marketing campaigns with SMS campaigns.
• Lots of third party integrations.
• Lifetime free package that supports up to 300 emails per day. You can also upgrade to a paid package that provides access to more advanced features.
• Powerful marketing automation tools that are surprisingly easy to use.
• AI algorithms that automatically choose the best time to send emails to ensure highest deliverability.
• Facebook ad integration.

HubSpot

HubSpot is a well-known online company that offers a powerful email marketing tool that also doubles as a sales and CRM tool. HubSpot is a great option for those looking for an email marketing platform that will allow them to quickly scale their marketing automation.

HubSpot offers a powerful set of features, such as…

• Ability to easily connect with tools and services like Outlook, Gmail, and G Suite.
• Drag and drop builder that gives you control over every aspect of your emails, including images, content layout, CTAs, and so on.
• Offers a lifetime free package that is feature-packed. You can also upgrade to the paid version to unlock more features.
• Ready to use templates that allow you to quickly create and send beautiful and highly engaging emails.
• Powerful set of automation tools
• Extensive email tracking and analytics capabilities.

GetResponse

GetResponse is more of an end-to-end marketing platform, rather than just an email marketing platform. Despite being such a capable email marketing platform, it is also quite easy to use, with an intuitive interface.

Here are some of the features that you’ll find on GetResponse.

• Intuitive drag and drop email editor that makes it relatively easy to create good looking emails.
• It has webinar software that allows you to create and host your own webinars right on the platform.
• It has a landing page creator that allows you to create landing pages even without a website.
• It has a Perfect Timing feature, which uses algorithms to help you send emails at a time when they are most likely to be opened.
• Integration with various third party tools, such as ZenDesk, SalesForce, OptinMonster, Google Docs, and so on.
• Several other features, including list segmentation, autoresponders, A/B testing, and so on.

ActiveCampaign

This is another end-to-end platform that seeks to improve not just your email marketing campaigns, but your overall marketing efforts. ActiveCampaign is a great option for those who want advanced automation features coupled with CRM tools.

Some of the features you will find on ActiveCampaign include…

• Logic-based funnels that make it amazingly simple to automate your email marketing campaigns.
• Ability to automatically segment subscribers based on their activity, as well as their social, location, and behavior data.
• Ability to couple your email marketing campaigns with SMS campaigns.
• A simple template editor that simplifies the process of creating email campaigns.
• Lead scoring feature, which allows you to prioritize leads and contacts depending on their qualification score.
• Detailed guides that will make it easy for you to master all the features it offers.

Moosend

This is a simple email marketing platform that most beginners will find easy to use. Moosend is best suited for small agencies and non-profit organizations.

Despite being a simple email marketing platform that is focused on beginners, it has most of the features you can expect to find in a good email marketing platform, such as…

• A visual campaign builder that makes it easy to design and build your emails.
• AI-based cross-selling recommendations.
• Beautifully designed templates.
• Ability to white label the platform and license it to clients at a markup.

Pabbly

This is yet another great email marketing platform that allows you to send bulk emails through SMTP routing.

Some of the features you will find on Pabbly include…

• Drag and drop editor that makes it easy for you to customize your emails.
• Easy workflow automation.
• Well designed, responsive email templates.
• In-built analytics that allow you to track a wide range of performance metrics.
• Ability to schedule emails based on a wide variety of triggers.
• Comes with a free plan. You can also upgrade to paid plans, which come at different prices depending on the number of people in your list.

Omnisend

This is another powerful email marketing platform that made it to this list owing to its intuitiveness and ease of use. In addition to email marketing, Omnisend also gives you access to a wide range of other marketing channels, including Facebook Messenger, push notifications, SMS, WhatsApp, and so on.

Omnisend comes with a great set of features, such as…

• Automation workflows
• Ability to build, customize, and manage targeted communication workflows.
• User-friendly segmentation options.
• Beautifully designed email templates

Email Marketing FAQ

Ready To Grow Your Audience And Email List?

Building an email list and finding ways to monetize the list is one of the best ways of making money on the internet.

This article has provided you with a step by step guide of everything you need to do to build your email list and turn it into $20,000 in monthly revenue. All you need to do now is to implement everything you have learnt and start smiling all the way to the bank.

Here’s a recap of everything you have learnt in this guide on how to build and monetize your email list.

To grow your email list, you need to:

• Choose an email marketing platform that supports your online business growth, such as ConvertKit.
• Create a lead magnet that will give your visitors an incentive to sign up for your email list.
• Strategically set up your optin forms and landing pages to ensure maximum conversion.
• Promote your landing pages with paid ads.

Keep your subscribers engaged with content that builds value and positions you as an expert. You can do this by:

• Sending a super helpful welcome series.
• Designing a content strategy to guide your email marketing efforts.
• Segmenting your subscribers to ensure they receive relevant emails.
• Automating your email marketing campaigns so that they run on autopilot.

Finally, you can now turn your engaged subscribers into a thriving online business by:

• Picking a monetization strategy for your list, such as affiliate marketing or promoting your online course, software, digital products, services, or online conference.
• Creating a sales funnel to provide you with a never-ending supply of prospects that you can turn into paying customers.
• Using analytics to increase your email marketing ROI.

What are you waiting for? Sign up for ConvertKit today and start building your email list.

Was This Article Helpful?