Everything you need to know about email marketing as a beginner

Let’s talk about email marketing and answer all the questions you may have. 

Email marketing itself is a huge topic when it comes to online businesses and businesses in general. Also, it’s as old as the usage of emails is. You, as well, have already gotten into contact with email marketing, which I’m sure of.

It happens whenever you’re online shopping or browsing the internet and reading about your favourite bloggers. You may be more likely to have heard it under another subject: Newsletter. Whenever you are asked for your email address online or offline, you can be sure it has something to do with email marketing.

But email marketing is so much more than a newsletter you constantly get in your inbox, with offers of new products, discounts, or whatever the provider promotes with their email. 

No, email marketing is so much more than tedious messages sent to your inbox, and we’re discussing it all in today’s blog post.

What is email marketing?

Email marketing is a specific marketing strategy whereby the creator sends emails with purposeful content on topics of interest that represent the brand’s purpose to its clients, readers, or customers.

To make successful email marketing a reality, you require an email service provider (ESP). A good example of an excellent ESP, and my recommendation, is ConvertKit* – we will talk about ConvertKit later. 

As the name suggests, an email service provider provides you with an email service. With an ESP, you can do everything, from collecting emails, storing the collected email addresses into a list, managing your list, organising emails, segmenting and automating, sending emails to your readers, and much more!

Email marketing aims to connect with clients, promote products to a target audience, and ultimately drive sales and grow the business.

But there are also other benefits of why you should be interested in learning about email marketing as much as possible, even if you’re not claiming to be a business owner.

Email marketing is crucial for anybody. 

Because everyone, you included, holds value and influence. Therefore, email marketing could greatly interest creative and disciplined people in building their email lists, whether they have a business or not. 

The best aspect of email marketing is that you can start with a small budget and don’t need a huge team to get started. 

With email marketing strategies and an adequately built email list by hand, you can significantly serve the people willing to hear from you with your written content. But there are more benefits when it comes to email marketing. 

Let’s talk about them!

What are the benefits of email marketing?

1. Complete control

The first benefit of email marketing is one that, at first sight, might not be the most obvious, but it is a crucial one.

Think about social media; you may as well, like many other people, have a considerable following there. Or you may have planned on gathering a following on social media as a strategy for the success of your project. If that’s the case, congratulations!

Now, you could conclude that you don’t need email marketing since you have your social media accounts where you can do all of what we discuss today. Connecting, promoting, growing, converting and so on. 

And you’re right. This is precisely why social media is so powerful. It’s as versatile as it can be. With social media, you can nearly implement every marketing strategy that drives sales.

You’re dependent on social media.

But what would you do if your account got hacked, deleted or even banned from the social media platform? What would you do if your preferred social media platform went extinct overnight? 

Of course, the likelihood of the latter is relatively low, but there indeed are accounts hacked, deleted or banned by the platform because their content is not within the guidelines. Also, a software error could be responsible for losing your followers on social media.

What would you do in such a case?

If you’re dependent on the social media platform and if you can only hope that something horrific like the above scenario never happens to you, then if the worst-case scenario indeed occurs, without email marketing and an email list, you would have to start all over again with building a following on social media from zero. 

But if you put some effort into building an email list, whereby you’re collecting your followers’ email addresses, obviously with their permission, then you have a second base. With your email list, you’re independent of every horrible social media scenario you can imagine.

Therefore, building your email list and learning about email marketing gives you complete control. And especially if you have a relatively substantial following on social media, it’s very calming to know that you have a second mainstay and are prepared for any eventualities.

Your email list can be your mainstay.

But the other way around is also possible. Maybe you’re someone who does not want to show their face on social media, who is perhaps not interested in growing a following there. Or you’ve been trying to grow a following for too long and are desperate because it does not work out how you want it to be. Because let’s face it: growing followers on social media is hard work.

Don’t worry! You don’t need a huge following on social media, or no following for that matter, to build a thriving email list. One thing is entirely separate from the other. 

Building an email list is especially interesting for those struggling with social media. Maybe you’re a genius at writing content, but the standard social media platforms are not your cup of tea for some reason.

If this is the case, that’s fine. For you, learning email marketing may be an extraordinary and successful adventure. 

2. Connect with your audience

You can use email marketing to connect with your audience more personally and profoundly, even if the name suggests it’s about marketing. 

Especially if you’re interested in more than one topic and are talking constantly about one or the other, email marketing might be something for you. 

You can segment your subscribers using your preferred ESP for your email list. This means that you can split your list into several categories.

Depending on what categories you have within your list, you can always organise the content you want to send out by these categories to ensure that the content of several topics finds the perfect audience.

In comparison, you cannot split your audience using only one account with social media. You would have to get more creative there to keep your followers entertained with the content they want to hear from you.

3. Build relationships

Since email marketing aims at a person’s inbox, it couldn’t be more personal. 99% of people with an inbox check their emails daily. Also, there are 4 billion email users. That’s a lot of potential for building meaningful relationships.

You can use your email list to build deeper relationships with, for instance, your readers if you’re a blogger. 

With an email list, you can send them your fantastic content and ask them questions. For instance, 

• what do your readers want to hear more from you?
• What topics are you missing out on?
• Are there any questions your readers constantly have?
• Is there any feedback your readers want to share via email rather than publicly?
• Do your readers have personal experiences they want to share with you?
• Can you help your readers with anything that requires a more personal space, like email?

Think about your quiet followers.

Also, don’t forget that quiet followers do exist. The very loyal but never commenting followers you also want to make happy with your content. With these people, creating a CTA (call to action) on social media or your blog is not applicable since they won’t comment or reply with suggestions.

Therefore, always think about your quiet followers. With an email list and intentional email marketing, you can reach those people who are usually unreachable on social media and the internet. 

With them and, of course, with the more social and extroverted people, you can build meaningful relationships that last and give you valuable feedback to increase the user experience on your blog or website.

4. Grow a following

This benefit is a practical one. 

With email marketing, you can grow a following away from social media. This is especially helpful when talking about blogs or websites in general. A website or blog published on the World Wide Web cannot be saved and remembered as easily as a post or account on social media. There is no single button you can press to interact with it or a follow button you can press to hear from that creator again.

How often has it happened to you that you read something meaningful on an unknown blog, accidentally close the tab, and the website is gone forever? Of course, you can check out your browser history to return to the website, but we often tend to forget about an impactful creator if they don’t appear on our screen without our intervention repeatedly.

That’s a reason that speaks for an email list. 

By building a purposeful email list, you give your reader a chance to bookmark your website and hear from you again. This also makes it especially easy for your reader to remember you because you do all the work to appear in your reader’s inbox to be remembered.

An email list also makes it easy to contact your readers whenever you have news to share with them. How often are you checking your favourite websites as you browse through the internet to see if they happen to offer new content? Me for myself, not quite often enough. 

Through social media and all the connections they offer their users, we are so used to being bombarded with new content without our active turn that it’s rather unlikely for us to search actively for new content on the internet. 

Also, it’s beneficial for you as the email provider to have an email list since there will only ever be people on your list who want to hear from you again. Who else would willingly subscribe to your list if not someone who already likes what content they see from you? That’s a massive benefit of an email list!

5. Promote your products

With the help of email marketing, you can promote your products or services in a more profound way than it would be possible with any other medium. 

As already discussed, a person’s inbox is highly personal, and almost everyone (99%) checks their emails daily. This means that the products and services you promote have a very high chance of being seen by your audience compared to other platforms like social media. There, your content will be seen by approximately 10% of your followers. 

Also, by marketing your products with the help of emailing your list, you are relatively independent of the help of other people since once you know how your ESP works, you can automate your emails and let the automation do the job. 

Don’t forget about the cost-effectiveness of an ESP compared to other marketing strategies. Since you pay per list member and not for the email content, you can be as creative as you wish to properly promote your products to your target audience. 

This is a major plus when it comes to email marketing. You can send out as many emails as you wish, and they can be as comprehensive as you think is best for your readers. 

6. Higher conversion rate

What better way is there to promote your products and convert your readers into active buyers than doing it with people who already gave you the signal that they like your content and want to hear more from you?

The people you gather in your email list have already told you they want to hear more from you by permitting you to use their email addresses. 

Also, several statistics show that if done correctly, email marketing is an excellent way to convert your readers or clients into active customers than most other channels. The ROI (return on investment) is 36$ for every 1$ spent. 

This means there is a lot of potential to bring your product to the right eyeballs to see what you can offer them. Always remember that your email list subscribers want to hear from you. Therefore, they actively subscribed to your list. 

7. Grow your business

With the help of email marketing, you can grow your business organically due to everything we discussed above. 

You don’t need a substantial social media following or millions of visitors to your blog to have a thriving business. Thanks to email marketing and helpful strategies to build your list to become thriving, you can significantly impact your people and serve them in the best and most profound way possible. 

If taking email marketing seriously, you can grow your business by building your email list, gathering loyal customers and serving your readers with valuable content that will help solve problems and bring useful products in front of the right people. 

Building your email list can support you with all the goals you have in mind. But how can you grow an email list? How do you convince people to subscribe to your email list?

How does email marketing work?

To practice email marketing correctly, you first need to gather people’s email addresses to send them emails. With an empty email list, it won’t work as well as with engaging and motivated people who would love to hear from you.

I know everything about a new topic sounds terrifying initially, but listen: you can learn new things and be significant in things you haven’t done yet. Permit yourself to learn at your own pace and be patient. Everyone started at some point. Be proud of yourself that you are willing to learn new things instead!

For me, it was also a very challenging time learning everything there is to learn about email marketing. But do you know what I did to make my life easier? 

Learn from people who already do what you want.

I actively looked for people who already knew and did the things I wanted to learn about. 

This is my number one tip: no matter what area of your life you want to improve or gather new information and experiences, learn from the people who already know and practice what you want to learn and do at some point.

Therefore, I purchased an online course about email marketing. And I highly encourage you to do the same. Of course, you can do your research, learn everything by yourself, and test things by trial and error until you finally get the hang of it. 

The question is: are you patient enough to go through all those errors? Are you motivated enough to learn everything by yourself?

I certainly was not. Hands down, even with an online course that theoretically shows you everything, you will still make a fair amount of mistakes and need to work through the matter yourself. 

Invest in your vision.

At some point in your blogging and business journey, you must decide. If your vision is strong enough and therefore worth your investment, or your vision is a dream that looks better in your imagination. You must invest some money into your blog or business at some point if you want it to thrive and be an actual business that can bring you an income in return. 

Investing in your vision is a great thing! Because it gives your project a more profound layer. Investing in your vision helps you to be more serious about it. I experienced first-hand how tempting it can be to treat your blog like anything but a business. 

If there is only you and your blog, you must be the person who pushes you to give your best and beyond every day. And sometimes, bringing your hard-earned money into play is precisely what you need to make it work out for you the way you envision your project.

Get yourself an email marketing course.

Anyway, I highly recommend you purchase an online course for email marketing. But be careful when searching for the perfect course. You must invest your time carefully to find people whom you can trust and who prove to you that they know what they are doing. 

While learning about email marketing and feeling entirely lost, I purchased the Email Marketing Sprint from Lauren from Restored 316. This recommendation is not sponsored or paid in any way. Also, I paid for the course myself. I’m simply a loyal and pleased customer of Lauren’s work.

I already subscribed to Lauren’s newsletter months before I knew she offered an email marketing course. Therefore, I highly respected the intentional way she treated her email list and pursued her email marketing strategy. 

Therefore, I knew that her course was the perfect fit for me. This course helped me immensely to bring some light into the darkness of email marketing. I believe Lauren put massive effort into this online course and explained the matter in the best and most profound way possible for me. 

I highly recommend you check out her course because she covers all the topics regarding email marketing professionally and extensively. You will undoubtedly learn a lot from this course if you try it.

Always do your research before investing your money.

I will always only recommend something that I am 100% convinced will serve you as well as me. Anyway, I want you to research no matter what recommendation you hear from me. Just because a course helped me massively does not mean it will also be the perfect fit for you.

You could be a completely different learner and digest new information in a completely different way than I do. Or maybe you won’t like the approach of the course and will need something different to learn effectively. 

Therefore, you must find people who have, in your opinion, successfully performed what you want to master and learn. If you already follow others you think would be the perfect fit for you or have another trustworthy source, I’m convinced you can also learn much about email marketing from them. 

It’s not about arguing for one or the other course. Always think about your goals and what you want to achieve. Therefore, always do your research before you invest your money into anything. Remember, you must feel confident with your decision, no matter how much one praises a product. 

What is the best email service provider?

You will need an email service provider to perform email marketing successfully and to gather the email addresses of your readers or clients. This is the software all the emails will be stored and available for you as a list to work with. 

There are countless ESPs available on the internet. Here are some examples of the most popular ones:

• Mailchimp
• Mailerlite
• Flodesk
• ActiveCampaign
• ConvertKit

All of the mentioned ESPs are popular for a reason, and I’m convinced you will be satisfied with either of them no matter what you choose to be best for you. Of course, you can research these ESPs, and I highly encourage you to do so. It’s always best if you form your own opinion.

For my email list, I use ConvertKit. 

I use ConvertKit for my email marketing efforts and am highly satisfied with what the software can provide me. Also, I’m an affiliate of ConvertKit, which indicates that I believe it to be a great ESP for you, too. A few things make ConvertKit* the best email service provider for me. 

1. It’s simple to use

ConvertKit was created with creators in mind. You can see this whenever you are interacting with its interface. It’s well organised, and you get plenty of helpful how-to’s to work with ConvertKit super-fast. 

For me, the ESP I use has to be simple yet effective. Since I do not consider myself tech-savvy, the software I’m working with must meet my expectations, which ConvertKit exceeds. With everything new that is constantly coming up to learn, I only work with manageable software I can learn fast. With ConvertKit, it’s straightforward to start with your email marketing strategy. 

As soon as you know how all the provided tools function, it’s straightforward to begin with building your email list. Even if you are like me, who gets frustrated as soon as I do anything technical, including new software and everything regarding my blog, in this case, you will love ConvertKit!

2. Powerful software

ConvertKit provides everything you could want for an ESP. Whether it’s about automation, starting a sequence (sending out several emails within a specific timeframe regarding the same topic) or managing your email list. 

With ConvertKit, you can do all this conveniently within the same software. Also, it doesn’t matter if you’re a beginner at email marketing or already have a decent email list built. 

As a beginner, you can learn how ConvertKit functions quickly, and as an advanced email marketer, you can make your email marketing efforts even more effective. 

3. A beautiful user interface

I don’t know about you, but in my opinion, if the program or software I’m working with is beautiful and appealing, I immediately like working with it even more. For me, the software I’m working with must be looking its best because this helps me better orient myself on the platform to work more efficiently.

This also gives me the feeling that the people behind the program believe in it and think it’s worth looking at its best, as it happens with ConvertKit. One of the reasons I chose this ESP as my preferred software is because it’s beautifully created. 

It’s clean and well-organised, making it easy for me, as a no-tech girl, to learn about the software quickly and perform my email marketing efforts effectively.

4. Lots of useful tools available

ConvertKit offers everything you need to organise your email list and send beautiful emails to your readers. Still, on their website, you can find many helpful tools to support your success with email marketing. 

Here are a few of the tools ConvertKit offers its customers that can come in handy: 

Get the Free Plan for ConvertKit.

Especially when you’re starting and don’t know how email marketing works and how you will manage everything with building your email list, I highly recommend always getting on the Free Plan* first.

There is no need to spend all your hard-earned money and follow advice from people not walking in your shoes. You know best how much new information you can handle and digest. Also, you decide whether to look around first to see how well you can work with ConvertKit together or if you’ll dive in fully with the Paid plan.

My tip here is always to take it easy initially. Try out the Free Plan* of ConvertKit and do your research while learning all the basics about email marketing. As you go along, you can still decide if the free plan will do for you or if you’ll be more satisfied with the paid plan.

The Creator Plan for ConvertKit.

However, if you already know you want to be on the Creator Plan* (paid version), it’s affordable and worth the investment for all the reasons we discussed earlier. 

For 9$ a month, you can get a lot of additional tools to use to your advantage. And think about it: 9$ could be two cups of coffee less in a month, but a cup of coffee could never serve you as well as an investment into the growth of your business.

You can get more information about the Creator Plan of ConvertKit here*.

Get active.

I know how daunting new information can be, especially when it’s a topic you are unfamiliar with. Learning how email marketing works was also challenging for me. Therefore, I still consider myself a student of email marketing and will probably always be.

There is always something new to learn, especially if you decide to be active as a content creator, online business owner, or have anything to do with the internet. 

But don’t wait too long for your turn. You can start today with email marketing, even if it’s just browsing the ConvertKit website for further information. Never wait for the perfect moment to get started since the perfect moment does not exist in the future. 

Today is the ideal time to get started!

Always remember to make a decision. You don’t need more time, but more information. Only if you have all the information necessary together will you be confident enough to decide.

Email marketing is a vast topic, and there is something new to learn daily. With this blog post, I hope to help you bring some light into the darkness so that you can start with this adventure today.

Everyone started at some point.

Keep up hope, even if you feel a little overwhelmed right now. The topic of building your email list is huge, and today, you’ve got a lot of information, over 4.9k words! 

Give yourself time to digest all this information before diving deeper into the topic. Let me tell you, there is a lot of information about email marketing on the internet. Therefore, getting lost and discouraged by everything you will hear from others that is necessary to succeed is tempting. 

Let me give you this advice today: it’s good to hear the advice of other people who are already successful with what you want to learn. But you know what made these people so successful? Not because they are good at copying other people’s advice. 

These people are successful because they picked up the advice and created something unique. They gave the gathered information personal aspects and made it theirs. 

Allow yourself to create something unique.

Of course, it’s best practice to always listen to people who know what they do because otherwise, you will have a tough time of trial and error, and this is something you want to avoid. 

But give yourself a limit for how much information you will gather. For instance, set yourself a timer for 1 hour. Within this timeframe, you permit yourself to gather as much information as possible about email marketing. As soon as you reach your limit, stop the gathering.

Allow yourself to create something only you can do with the information you collected. There are already too many people who think they should copy others instead of being authentic and their real selves. 

The world does not need more of the same kind but more unique and individual creators, just like you are!

Get active today!

As always, here on the Gloriously Her, at the end of nearly any of my blog posts, let me encourage you to get active today. It’s so tempting to procrastinate, even if there is always something you can get started with immediately.

For today’s topic, let’s dive deeper into email marketing. Get yourself familiar with the matter, and check out the ESPs, as mentioned earlier, to get a clue about what will be the perfect fit for you. This is something you can get active on today. 

Until next time,

Keep evolving into your most glorious self!