How to create an email marketing plan

We recognize that you have a lot on your plate and that running a business isn't easy. We've highlighted some best practices you should take into account when creating an email marketing strategy to help with the planning process. We guarantee that the effort you put into developing your email marketing strategy will be rewarded.

Define your target market.

Whatever you sell, you need to know who your audience is in order to communicate with them effectively. This may seem like a simple task; after all, one of your most crucial duties as a small business owner is fully comprehending your target market.

Subscribers begin offering a lot of helpful information about their interests and purchasing habits as soon as they are added to your list. You can create custom fields on signup forms to gather information on anything from interests and subscription preferences to age and gender. Customers might only want to receive emails from you when a particular category of products is on sale, or subscribers might prefer biweekly updates to weekly ones.

Registrant sources

How and where subscribers subscribe to your list are some of the most important pieces of information your signup form has to offer. Here are some pointers to aid in email list building.

Groups and segments

The more relevant the campaign, the better the results. Once you've identified smaller groups of people within your larger audience, you can create groups and segments to send your recipients.

In order to only need to maintain one list in your account, groups are a simple way to categorize your list.

Choose your writing topic.

It's time to consider your content now that you are aware of your audience. What message do you wish to convey to your audience? Always keep in mind why your subscribers signed up for your emails in order to send them emails that are relevant to them.

In order to have a reference when creating your emails, it might be useful to list some generic content types you can use in your campaigns.

This is an illustration of a content list:

• upcoming occasions

• recaps and images of earlier events

• Facebook or Instagram posts that have gained a lot of attention

• news reporting

• Information on highlighted or new products

• guides for holiday shopping

When it's time to send a campaign, you can decide which content to highlight depending on who you're sending it to. Consider what content you already have that your audience might find interesting before you start from scratch, such as a viral Instagram or Facebook post or a piece of writing about your business.

To thank them for their interest in what you do, you should also consider what content you can create specifically for your audience or certain list segments. For instance, the nursery art business Gingiber uses pre-built segments to reward its most devoted subscribers.

Guidelines for gathering and creating content

The pressure to consistently produce engaging content that your subscribers love can be great, but it can also be difficult. But when you're developing a campaign, keeping in mind these content creation and content gathering suggestions will help you determine the most effective way to communicate with your audience.

Consider your subscribers to be VIPs.

Those who join your list are so eager to hear what you have to say that they're willing to open their email inboxes to you. This is an honor. Allowing them to be the first to learn about new products and sales will respect it. Alternatively, take it a step further and emulate Oui Shave, a company that rewards its most loyal customers by appointing them as beta testers for new products in exchange for their participation in product surveys.

Keep it practical

When developing your own campaigns, it's a good idea to consider which emails you open and which ones you immediately delete from your inbox. Why do you feel the need to open an email? Our best guess is some knowledge you don't already possess.

Make sure you're providing your subscribers with fresh, practical information.

However, you also need to consider the subject line of your email in addition to the body of the message. The majority of people scan emails quickly before deciding whether to open them, so you'll want your subject line to be clear that a campaign is worthwhile of your subscribers' time.

Our best advice is to keep your subject lines straightforward and descriptive, but experimenting with different variations can help you find a winner.

Display personality

Everyone dislikes reading emails that go on and on. Therefore, add some personality! The likelihood is that your customers signed up because of your tone, voice, and sense of humor. Try to write as you would speak to your customers, and consider their personalities as you do so.

Get Gravitas

Most people receive a ton of emails every day, so make sure yours is brief so that your subscribers can scan it quickly if necessary.

Get motivated

The content you want to use in your campaigns can be saved and organized using apps like Pocket, Evernote, and Pinterest. Look into Really Good Emails as well.

They showcase the most exquisite, refined, and considerate emails that businesses like yours are sending.

Decide on your sending schedule and objectives.

There is no set rule for how frequently you should email your customers, but if you do so excessively, your subscribers may stop reading your emails altogether. In order to keep their subscribers interested in their emails, some users who run blogs or news websites may choose to send daily updates, while others, like Bee's Wrap, may only send emails twice a month.

To keep your subscribers interested, we advise sending an email at least once a month. However, you shouldn't feel obligated to start doing this right away. And if you believe your sending frequency will change for special occasions and holidays, be sure to plan ahead. You don't want to catch your customers off guard if you typically send once a month but suddenly start sending a stream of emails leading up to a Black Friday sales event.

Set up a schedule.

Not everyone sends campaigns on a regular basis, but it can be useful, particularly if you have to work with a team or wear many hats as a small business owner.

Making a content calendar to schedule your campaigns, blog posts, social media posts, and other tasks is one way to ensure that you stay on course.