How I Launched My First Email Marketing Campaign In 10 Steps.

In this article, I am going to reveal and share with you how I launched my first email marketing campaign in 10 steps.

But before you read this article, I hope you know What is Email Marketing And How It Works.

And without any waste its time, let’s get to the core of this article.

How do I launch my first email marketing campaign?

How do I launch my first email marketing campaign is one question newbie marketers keep asking themselves.

Well, there are several ways of launching your first email marketing campaign, but permit me to share with you how I launched my own email marketing campaign in 10 steps.

1. Finding the right ESP.

The first step I took in launching my email marketing campaign was to find an ESP that will enable me to send and manage my email marketing campaign and subscribers.

The 2 popular tools I used were MailChimp and HubSpot.

But before settling for these ESPs, I had to consider the following factors:

• My budget. Yes, my budget was limited so I had to look for a cheap email marketing service and this led me to discover Mailchimp and Hubspot.
• How often I was going to send the emails? I was doing email marketing for myself alone, which means I was sending email marketing very often.
• I didn\’t have much people on my contacts list, so I had to figure out ways to get more subscribers.
• As a beginner in email marketing campaigns, I had no skills in designing emails so I had to use the drag-and-drop email editor and template.
• I had the need of using automated email workflows, and thankfully the ESP I used was able to provide that.
• I was focusing more on specific buyers so I had no use for segmentation. But today am using it because my business has expanded and I have more products and services onboard.

2. I built an email list.

The ESP I was using was able to provide me with subscription forms that I embedded on my website to collect email subscribers.

But my biggest challenge was getting subscribers because most of my visitors would just read articles on my blog and leave without subscribing.

And for that reason, I had to plan my sign-up strategies which included giving free offers.

Anothe thing I did was ensuring I kept every promise I made to my subscribers. For example I was sending them one email every week as I promised and was careful not to send unrelated promotional conten so as to not drive them away or make my emails end in spam folders.

3. Welcoming my new subscribers with an email.

I had an automated email that will welcome every single person that subscribed to my email list.

The welcome email included an introduction to my brand and a content that enabled me to establish a relationship with them.

4. Having a clear goal for my email marketing campaign.

Below are the email marketing campaign goals I set for myself:

• To promote a new product.
• Share discounts with my new customers.
• Get more people to download my guide.
• Update my subscribers.

I made sure that all the above goals aligned with my business mission.

5. Building a responsive email design.

As a beginner, I didn’t have any idea of designing emails.

And for that reason, I settled for ESP that allowed me to use a drag-and-drop editor or template.

With the passage of time, I started to make money and my marketing campaign increased so I hired an email designer.

6. Using an email copy to save time.

Soon enough I was able to understand my goals and target audience, so I had to fill my templates with ready-made words.

And that really helped me to ease the stress of having to start writing from scratch, anytime I want to send an email campaign.

7. Boosting my email open and conversion rates.

Everytime I sent an email out, I ensured that my brand name was included in the sender name.

And the aim of this was to enforce trust within my subscribers so that anytime they see my company\’s name on an email, they will immediately open it and read.

8. Testing my email marketing campaign before sending it.

Before I sent out bulk email to my subscribers, the first thing I did was send a test email to my own inbox and then review to see how it will appear to my subscribers.

Also, the test email really helped me to check for typographic and test errors and also correct as well as add forgotten links.

9. Scheduling my campaign for the appropriate time.

Scheduling my campaign for the appropriate time was the 9th step of launching my first email marketing campaign.

I did not want my subscribers to miss any of my email so campaign, so I was following them up to see the best times they were opening their emails.

And from my research I discovered that my subscribers were opening their email around 10:00 am and 2:pm on Mondays to Fridays.

No one was opening their email during weekends. Most of them visited their inbox once a day and some even visited once in a month..

With this results, I realised that email Marketing campaigns tend to perform better if you send them around 10:00 am and 2:00 pm, because many check their emails when they arrive at their offices as well as when they return from launch.

10. Monitoring my campaign results.

The last step I used to launch my first email marketing campaign was to monitor my email marketing campaign results.

And below were the areas I monitored:

Open rate: this was the number of people who read versus those who didn’t read my emails.

Click-through rate: This was the number of people who clicked the link in my email.

Unsubscribe rate: This was the number of people who unsubscribed from my mailing list.

Bounce rate: This is the number of emails that did not open at all.