Email Marketing: Make It All Work
By: Jackie Schwabe, Mba
Tags: Entrepreneurship, Email Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Entrepreneur, Email Marketing Tips

Practical Business

Email Marketing: Make It All Work

When you think about building an email list, it can get overwhelming thinking about all the technology you need to work together to make it all work. Keep in mind that some of the systems are redundant, and you may not need all of these. Also, consider where you are in your business and what type of business you are in. If you are in an MLM, you might not need a website.

So, consider these are options to consider making it all work, but you may not need it all right this minute. Here are the things you should at least consider.

A website — What platform will you use to build the site? You can choose self-hosted WordPress, or you can build your website another way. Square space is a very simple tool that I have also seen people use. However, you can find lots of contractors that can help with WordPress, so it is a safe bet for a longer-term strategy. It is important to have at least a high-level understanding of how all the technologies work together. For most needs, a self-hosted WordPress will work great.

A website host — Pick a website host that will work with you based on your needs. Remember that bigger is not always better. But you want the host to have a good reputation and provide excellent customer care. If you’re a newbie, you may need hand-holding — in that case, a good choice is a host called Mom Webs. I have also personally used BlueHost, SiteGround, and GoDaddy. Right now, I have one site on SiteGround and one on GoDaddy. Honestly, GoDaddy can be a bit expensive, but SiteGround requires you be a bit more technically inclined.

I am not in the business of doing the tech stuff for folks, but if you want a very strong recommendation on a great company to help you select a website host and to build a basic WordPress site — let me know — I can send you to someone that will take care of you.

A social media presence — Create social media accounts on platforms your audience likes to use. Update it often with relevant information and content for your audience. Choose at least the top three that your audience likes to use. Consider using automation via software like Hootsuite.com too.

A few things to consider here. Don’t go hog wild. Pick one social platform and get really consistent. Then add another one. You want to pick one that your audience uses, but also one that you have at least a little familiarity with. Also, don’t start out with Hootsuite right away — it is super expensive. There are great tools to try out that are free and many of the special social media platforms have great tools for post scheduling. I use Buffer for Facebook, Twitter, and sometimes Instagram. I like Laters for Instagram but recently stopped using it as I am not a big Instagram poster. I like Tweet Deck for Twitter. It is pretty great. I like Tailwind for Pinterest, there really isn’t any comparison there. If you blog on your website, you can import your stories on to Medium.

Whatever you do, start small and get good at one thing before you start the next one. If you keep adding up tools it can get expensive. So, make sure you take advantage of the trial and then move from there. If you want some tactical support, let me know. I have a great company I use that I love.

A targeted and compelling freebie — You may need or want more than one freebie that you create based on where your targeted audience member is in their buying cycle. Don’t go too nuts here either. Get yourself a free Canva template. Build a nice two-pager or something and then get bigger and more refined from there. The key is to get it done — not do it perfectly.

A landing page or sales page — Treat your freebie as you would any product you’re going to sell to your audience. Create a sales page for it so that your audience knows the benefits of getting it. While you can build a landing page using a standard WordPress new page, using software like ClickFunnels is also very helpful and makes it quick. I use ClickFunnels, WordPress, and in some cases Kajabi. However, don’t be me. Do things simpler. I would start with the ClickFunnels free trial and see if you like it. If not, try LeadPages or another platform like that.

An email autoresponder service — You must have an autoresponder such as Aweber.com, Drip.com, or ActiveCampaign (or others) to deliver the messages to your subscribers. Don’t be tempted to use your own website and private email because these services are more secure and work better.

In a previous post, I told you about how I used more than my fair share. Again, you can get a free trial on nearly all of these. Pick one and move forward. They are all nearly the same price point. The key things are the ability to send on-demand emails and to send sequences when you get to that point. I found Mailchimp is a good starter package, but it does not give sequence free. Whatever you do, pick one and go. Right now I am using ActiveCampaign and I am pretty happy with it.

A place to store downloads — You may want to use your own server, or you might want to invest in a better system that is more secure to store your freebies and products safely. I have used google drive, ClickFunnels (for small PDFs if you already have the service), dropbox, and a few million others. Even WordPress has a great PDF download plugin that makes this easy. Whatever you do, pick one and go. Personally, I suggest one that is free and easy to start. Why not just go with google drive and use a share link. Get fancy later.

A way to deliver the freebie — You don’t want to attach your freebie to the email. Instead, you’ll want to create a download page or use an automatic system to help deliver it, track it, and segment your audience with it. You can do this in WordPress with a plugin. You can do it in ClickFunnels with an easy asset download. Some of the email autoresponders even allow you to create a download page.

An email marketing sequence of messages — You’ll want to create an email sequence to welcome your subscribers based on the freebie they download or the product they buy and add information to guide them in their choices in the future. There is great news here. There are some great tools out there that can give you a basic starter email sequence like Growth Tools. Just start with their stuff and modify as you go. My suggestion. Start with one or two emails and add as you go. Whatever you do, don’t wait until you have 15 to 30 emails written to start using your sequence. This is about starting and getting better as you go. It is easy to get bogged down in the details here.

To choose which technology you’re going to use, it’s essential to understand what your business stands for, what your budget is, and what you plan to do in the future too. Choosing systems that can grow with you is important as well.

Email marketing can be a little complicated, especially if you already have a few of these tools and you are not sure how all of this fits together. If you need support reach out to a business coach or someone technical to support, you. They don’t have to do it for you, but they can help you strategize on what you have and what you still need to do what you want to do.