How to start an Email Marketing Platform

In my last post, I told you how importnt email marketing could be to your affilite marketing business. To summerize…for every dollar spent on email marketing, there is a $40 return on investment, email marketing is 40 times more effective than social media, there will be an estimated 4.3 billion global email users by the year 2023, acording to studies.

With that being said, in order to get your email marketing strategy off the ground, you need 8 things to do in this process.

1. Choose an email marketing service provider.
2. Gather contacts for your email marketing list.
3. Add your contacts into your email marketing account.
4. Set up your Welcome email.
5. Create a useable email template.
6. Practice writing persuasive messages.
7. Spend time on subject-line.
8. Preview and test

In this post we’ll talk about process number one…choosing an email marketing list.

When you choose your email service provider there are a few things you need to consider. First you need to make sure your service provider has all the features you need for t to create simplehe campaigns you’re going to run. Generally speaking, there are must-have features every email marketer should have to be successful…and they are…

TEMPLATES: You need to be able to create simple emails quickly. So you’ll need a provider that has flexible layouts that are moble-friendly. You also want them to have a vast range of designs that will help your emails have that professional look.

TRACKING: If you don’t know how your email is performing, it won’t matter what you write or how it looks. You need to be able to make adjustments to what’s working and what’s not. Make sure your sevice provider has a consolidated dash board that will show you open rates, social sharing, bounce rates, clicks and unsubscribes.

MOBILITY: As stated earlier, you want your emails to be mobile-friendly. Studies ahve shown that 53% of email campaigns get opened on mobile devices. That’s a lot of emails to loose by not being able to work on all devices. Make sure your service provider has the capabilities to work on various devices.

AUTOMATION: Your email service provider needs to offer good workflow so you can schedule and send automated messages. One of the best things that automation does is it gives you the ability to run your business 24/7. Automation allows you to make money, anywhere, anytime, even while you sleep.

After you’ve found a service provider that meets these 4 standards you’ll want to know…

What’s Your Budget

You don’t need a large budget in order to be an effective email marketer. As a matter of fact, there are a few service providers that you can use for free. I’ll talk abut those providers in a future post. The point i’m making here is, you need to know before-hand what kind of expenses you are able to take on when choosing a service provider.

Service providers come in ranges of low, dedim and expensive. You can pay as low as $4 per month to a couple of thousand dollars a month,depending on what plan yu choose. As a beginner I recommend you choose the least expensive plan out there with the most features you can get. As your business grows, you can switch to a more expensive plan at a later date.

I Your Service Provider Safe?

With data security a big issue today, you want one that is safe and secure. Here is an interesting fact…of the 150 billion emails sent daily, 53% have claimed to have lost files thet had sensitive information on them. Research your service providers track record when it comes to security. Ask questions, get statistics, talk to customer service. You want your service provider to be an extention of your marketing and business strategy. You can’t have that with an unsafe service provider.

What are their delivery rates?

In order to engage with your prospects, the messages you sed have to at least land in their inbox. Every service provider can’t ensure that will happen. Ask them before you choose one….”What is your delivery rate?” You want one that is at least 97% or more. You also want to see what kind of relationship they have with internet giants like Yahoo!, Microsoft and Google. You want to find out how compatable they are with them.

The next tip I’m going to give you might be one of the most importnt ones…And that is…

What kind of support.

At some time in your business, you’re going to need help or have some questions you need answering. When that time comes, you’ll want that help to be there. You’ll need to ask quetions like…

…How long will it take to talk to someone?…

…How long will I get answers?…

…Are they available to help 24/7…

In Conclusion

Selecting the right email service provider doesn’t have to be hard…but it is critical to the success of your business. By following some of the tips i’ve laid out in this post, you’ll be well on your way to selecting the right one. Remember th 4 must-have features you need.

TEMPLATES

TRACKING

MOBILITY

AUTOMATION

One more thing you should know…

Your ESP

In case you might not know it, an ESP is the place that holds your indox, sent spam and drafted emails.

When email first came out, Mailbox and SNDMSG were the only ones to choose from… Now you have…

Gmail

Outlook

Yahoo!

icloud

Just to name a few.

If the esp provider that you are using doesn’t measure up to what you’re trying to do, change over to one that does.

These are some of the tips I’m following myself in starting an email marketing campaign.

I hope that I’ve given you some benificial content you can chew on.

In my next post, we’ll talk about “How to gather contacts for your email marketing list.

Until then, I hope you all the success in your quest to becoming an affilliate marketer.

P.S. Make sure you protect yourself and your loved ones in these trying times.