The Ultimate Email Marketing Guide For Small Businesses In 2023

Email Marketing Is One Of The Most Important Marketing Channels In The Industry. But Unfortunately, Many Digital Marketers Underestimate It Thinking It’s An Old Marketing Fashion Which Is Wrong By The Way.

Email Marketing Is Still Very Profitable And Cheap Compared To The Other Marketing Channels Like Social Media Marketing And SEO.

In Fact, Email Marketing Generates One Of The Highest ROIs Between All Of The Other Marketing Channels ( It Generates 42$ For Every 1$ Spent ).

Now That You Understand The Importance Of Email Marketing, Let’s Take A Closer Look On How You Can Use It And Take Full Advantage Of It.

P.S. This Email Marketing Guide Is Everything You Need To Know As A Beginner. So, Don’t Complicate It Too Much. Once You Figure Out The Fundamentals, Start Applying.

1- What Is Email Marketing ?

Email Marketing Is the use of email to promote products, services and build relationships with clients.

It involves sending out promotional messages, advertisements, or other forms of content to a group of people who have subscribed to receive such messages in their inboxes.

The main goal of email marketing is to build strong and loyal relationships with customers.

2- Is Email Marketing Still Working In 2023 ?

Do you want to know if email marketing is still working in 2023? Take a look at your email inbox.

It’s crowded with messages from a lot of brands, Right? Do you think all of those brands would bother themselves with email marketing if it wasn’t working for them? I don’t think so.

It’s still working for them. So, Why wouldn’t work for you?

To wrap up, Email Marketing is still working. You still can make so much money only from advertising on email. You should only use it the right way and that’s what I’m gonna show you in this guide.

3- Why Email Marketing Is Important ?

Email marketing is important because your list of subscribers is your list. You own it.

You can contact your subscribers directly with no intermediate between you anytime you want. The thing that allows you to build strong relationships with them.

In addition to the fact that Email marketing is very cheap compared to other marketing channels which makes it an attractive option for all small businesses and startups who want to lower their marketing costs ( Email marketing generates 42$ for every 1$ Spent ).

4- Types Of Email Marketing

1- Promotional Emails:

A Promotional Email is an email that is designed to promote a product, service or offer. The goal of this type of email is to drive sales and increase revenue.

Example :

2- Welcome Emails :

A Welcome Email is the first email that a subscriber receives after they Sign up for a newsletter.

Welcome emails are a very great opportunity for brands to build that first impression with their customers.

Example :

3- Newsletter Emails:

A Newsletter Email is a special type of email that is sent regularly to people who have subscribed to receive updates and information about a company or organization.

The main goal of newsletters is to keep subscribers informed about the latest news, products, and updates of a company.

Example :

4-Abandoned Cart Emails :

This type of email is sent to customers who have added items to their online shopping cart but didn’t complete the purchase.

The main purpose of this email is to encourage customers to complete their purchase.

Example :

5- Re-engagement emails :

A re-engagement email is a type of email that is designed to be sent to subscribers who have become inactive or have not responded to recent emails.

The goal of re-engagement emails is to win back the attention of your recipients and encourage them to engage more with the company.

Example :

5- How To Build An Email Marketing List ?

The first thing that we need to start with to do email marketing is to build our ” email list “.

Therefore in this chapter, I will give you some of my favorite email marketing strategies that you can use to build your ‘ email marketing list ‘ in 2023.

Let’s start with the first one.

4.1- Create A Compelling Lead Magnet :

Nowadays, It’s really hard to persuade someone to sign up for a newsletter or a form with nothing back in return.

Instead, You need to offer people something of great value such as eBooks, Checklists, and Special Discounts To get their contact information.

The stronger your lead magnet is, the more sign-ups you’ll get.

For example, Getresponse offers a 40% Discount on all of their plans:

The lead magnet in this example is the ‘ 40% Off Discount ‘.

4.2- Create A Squeeze Page:

A squeeze page is a page that is designed to convert visitors into subscribers by offering them special rewards ( Free Courses, Checklists … Etc. ).

This page should be well-optimized for email sign-ups and contains a clear call to action to encourage visitors to take action and subscribe.

Here Are Some Squeeze Page Examples:

Example 1:

Example 2:

4.3- Host Events And Webinars:

Another great way to collect emails from your potential customers is through ‘ Webinars ‘.

You can offer your audience a FREE Webinar Training About A Topic ‘ X ‘, In exchange for their contact information when they register their seats.

4.4- Exit Intent Popups:

Exit intent popups are a type of popups that are triggered when a visitor shows signs of leaving the website, such as moving their cursor towards the ‘ address bar ‘.

This type of popup is very effective, especially in reducing the bounce rate of visitors and increasing the conversion rate.

The goal of this type of popup is to capture the prospect’s emails before they leave the website and potentially do not return.

The advantage of this popup is that you don’t distract or annoy your users. The popup appears only when the user is leaving anyway.

How To Create An Exit Intent Popup On Your Website ?

1- Sign up for a free account on Getresponse.

2- Go to Forms And Popups

3- Click on ‘ Create popup ‘

4- Customize your popup the way you want to.

5- When you finish, click on next –) Edit Triggers.

6- Select ‘ On Exit Intent ‘

6- How To Do Email Marketing In 2023 ?

In this chapter, I’ll give you a step-by-step process that you can follow to do email marketing in 2023.

First Step : Define Your Target Audience

Start by identifying your target audience, their needs, interests, Locations … to get an idea of what you can offer them.

How to find your target audience ? Check out this guide: Click Here

Second Step : Build Your Email List

Start growing your email list by collecting your prospect’s emails through sign-up forms, Pop-ups, Squeeze Pages …

This is the most important step in the whole process. Because you can’t do email marketing if you don’t have a list of emails.

Third Step : Choose An Email Marketing Service Provider ( ESP )

You will need to choose an email marketing software to help you manage and automate your email campaigns.

There are many email software options out there in the market that you can use. But, not all of them are trustworthy.

However, If you ask me ‘ What is your favorite one? ‘ My answer would be ‘ Getresponse ‘ For a simple reason ‘ Simplicity ‘.

Getresponse is a very simple marketing software that can help you send your marketing emails, Automate them and Analyze them easily.

Besides Email Marketing, Getresponse offers many more features like Building Websites And Landing Pages, Creating Popups And Forms, Hosting Webinars …

It’s almost everything you need as a digital marketer, you can try it for FREE and see if it suits your needs.

Fourth step : Create a compelling subject line

Your subject line is the first thing your subscribers see when they receive an email. It should be short, attractive and convey the main message of your email.

Fifth Step : Design Your Email Templates

In order to engage your subscribers, your Email templates should be pleasing, Easy to read, and mobile-friendly.

You can use these 4 tips to design your email templates :

1- Use the same colors, fonts, and images in all of your email templates to create a recognizable brand image in your subscriber’s head.

2- Use images and graphics in your templates to increase the engagement rate of your emails.

3- Use a clear and prominent call to action ( CTA ) to increase the conversion rate of your emails.

4- Make your email templates mobile-friendly. Because most people nowadays open their email from their smartphones.

Sixth Step: Write Engaging Content

The content of your email should be clear and easy to understand.

In emails, It’s better to use a conversational tone with your audience rather than using those fancy and unnecessary words.

To give you a real example, let’s take a look at how NEIL PATEL sends his emails to his subscribers ( Neil Patel Is One Of The Best And Most Successful Digital Marketers In The World ).

The email is very clean and short. Anyone can understand it. Don’t you agree?
Try to take this example as an inspiration for your future emails.

Seventh Step : Test Your Emails

Before you start sending emails , try to test them first and see if they work properly.

Eighth Step : Schedule And Send Your Emails

This is the step where you should start sending emails to your subscribers.

Of course, You’re not going to send your emails manually for each new subscriber. But, the whole process will be scheduled and automated based on each segment of your email list.

The last step : Track And Analyze Your Results

Track the results of your email campaigns using metrics like ‘ Click through rates’, ‘ Open rates’, ‘ Conversion rates ‘, And ‘ Return On Investment ( ROI ) ‘.

Finally, Analyze your reports to see what worked and what didn’t, and make adjustments to your future campaigns.

Many marketers stop at the eighth step, they usually forget to analyze their results. Don’t do that. Always measure, analyze, and optimize your campaigns. So you can keep growing your email list.

Talking about growing email lists, let’s take a look at some ‘ Email Marketing Strategies that can help you increase the number of your subscribers ‘.

7- Email Marketing Strategies

7.1- Segmentation:

Segment your email lists into different sub-categories based on their behaviors, Interests, and demographics.

In this way, you can send targeted and personalized messages to each segment separately.

Why Should We Segment Our Email List?

1- Sometimes, some of our subscribers don’t open our messages which makes our email open rate very low. Therefore, we use segmentation to delete those subscribers. Because they’re not active and If they were interested enough in our emails they would open them at least once a month.

2- Sometimes, we want to send personalized emails only to a group of subscribers who showed a particular interest or behavior in our products. Therefore, we use segmentation to target them specifically.

3- In general, each one of our subscribers is at a different level of awareness. some of our subscribers know our products but never bought them before. Some of the subscribers are very close to making a purchase. some of our subscribers don’t know the benefits of our products … Etc.

Therefore, we can’t send all of them the same messages. And if we do, we may lose most of them.

The more you segment your email list, the more trust you can build between your brand and your subscribers.

How To Segment Your Email Lists ?

Most Email service providers allow you to segment your lists by contact data and behavior. So, you can send the right emails to the right subscribers.

Let’s take a look at how you can segment your email lists on ‘ Getresponse ‘ :

7.2- Personalization:

Personalizing your emails can increase the open rate of your emails dramatically

How to personalize your emails? Follow These techniques :

1- Mention your subscribers’ names in the subject lines of your emails.

2- Use the data that you have about your subscribers’ behavior such as their purchase history to send them more targeted and tailored messages. For example, you can send them product recommendations based on what they have previously bought at your store.

3- Use Your recipients’ location information to send them customized emails with relevant offers and content. For example, you can send them the nearest location to your store based on their cities.

The more personalized your emails are, the more likely your subscribers will engage and purchase from you.

How To Create Personalized Emails ?

7.3- A/B testing :

What Is A/B Testing ?

A/B testing is the process of comparing two versions of the same email to determine which one performs better.
Still confused? Let me give you another definition.

A/B Testing or what we also call ‘ Split testing ‘ is the process of sending two versions of the same email to a group of our list in order to determine which version works best for us.

The main goal of A/B testing is to improve the performance of our email marketing campaigns based on confirmed results.

How A/B Testing Works ?

Let’s take a step-by-step process on how A/B testing works and how we can apply it in our campaigns:

First Step: We choose an element of our email that we want to test, such as ‘ The Subject Line ‘, ‘ Sending Time ‘, ‘ Images ‘, ‘ Call- To – Action ‘ … Etc.

Second Step: We Create Two versions of the same email, each version with a different value for the selected variable.

Third Step: We divide our email list into 50/50 groups and we send each group one version of the email.

Fourth Step: We track the performance of each version with the following metrics :
1- The open rate ( How many people opened our email ? )
2- The click-through rate ( How Many people clicked on the links in our email ? )
3- The conversion rate ( How many people took an action when they received our email ? )

Fifth Step: Based on the results of our A/B testing, we choose a winner between the two versions and we implement it for our future campaigns.

How To A/B Split In Getresponse ?

7.4- Timing :

The timing of your emails can have a huge impact on the performance of your campaigns.

Therefore, you should try to test different send times such as; mornings versus nights, Mondays versus Saturdays… Etc. In order to determine the optimal send time of your audience.

When you figure out when to send your emails, the open rate of your campaigns will increase dramatically.

7.5- Email Automation :

Email automation is an email marketing strategy that allows you to send targeted and tailored messages to your subscribers based on their actions and behavior.

How Email Automation Works?

In order to implement an email automation strategy on your website, you need to follow these 4 Steps:

First Step: Define the trigger that will initiate the first automated email ( This trigger can be a new subscriber, a new purchase … and so on ).

Second Step: Design the workflow that your email will follow, this could include a series of messages that are sent out over a period of time or a single email that is triggered by a specific action from your visitor.

Third Step: During this step, you should start creating the content of your automated emails.
For example, you can create a welcome message for those who subscribe to your list or you can send product recommendations for anyone who has bought an item from you.

Fourth Step: The last step is to analyze and optimize your automated emails.
For example, you can adjust the send time of your emails, frequency, or content.

How to Build an Email Automation Workflow ?

8- How To Increase The Deliverability Of Your Emails ?

I believe that Email deliverability is the second most important step in the email marketing process after subject lines.
But Unfortunately, most beginners in email marketing underestimate this step.

So, How Can We Increase The Deliverability Of Our Emails In 2023?

The First Step Is To Delete Those Subscribers Who Don’t Open Your Emails. So, You Keep Only Those Who Are Active And Interested In Your Content.

The Second Step Is To Keep Your Spam Complaints Very Low. How ? Very Simple.

All You Need To Do Is:

1- Don’t Send More Than 3 Emails Every Week.

2- Send Only Quality Content.

3- Make The ‘ Unsubscribe Button ‘ Very Clear And Obvious For Your Subscribers ( If You Don’t Make It Easy For Your Subscribers To Unsubscribe From Your List, They Will Take The Shortest Path And Mark You As ‘ Spam ‘ Which Is What We’re trying to avoid )

The Last Step Is To Use Short Subject Lines. Wait, Does It Mean Long Subject Lines Are Not Converting?
No, Long Subject Lines Work Sometimes. But, In Most Cases Short Ones Work Better. And They Got Opened More Than The Other.

Conclusion

That’s It For Our Email Marketing Guide, I Hope You Like It.

Now, It’s Time For You To Start Applying These Email Marketing Strategies To Your Business.

To Learn How To Increase The Conversion Rates Of Your Website, Take A Look At This Guide : Click Here