Email marketing can open up a world of new opportunities for a business. From drawing new clients in to reinvigorating the interest of current relationships, it’s a smart business move that can result in a variety of benefits.

Within your emails you can include information about a new product or service, current promotions or even upcoming events that you think will interest your customers. As a marketing professional, no matter what industry you are in, there will be something that you can sell to them to increase business revenue, website views and overall interest in the company.

If you’re considering starting email marketing within your business and harnessing the power that it can bring, here are the top six steps that you should take to begin the process.

1. Do It Yourself or Outsource

Before you start to send out emails, you need to decide whether you will use customized, in-house templates or if you will outsource the work to a specialized email marketing company. The choice, of course, will be dependent on your budget, how much time you have to start the campaign and your business’s personal preference.

If you want to start an email marketing campaign and want to create them in-house, your business will have to consider hiring professionals that have the knowledge to design them and send them out. You should also familiarize yourself with the legal requirements associated with the CAN-SPAM Act.

Alternatively, if you outsource the work, you will be able to design them but won’t have the stress of having to send them out yourself.

2. Get Permission

Once you have decided which path is right for your business, it’s important that you ask the permission of your customers as to whether or not they opt into emails. Without this permission, your customers might unsubscribe or simply ignore the emails when you send them out. You also run the risk of clients flagging your emails as spam, essentially severing an important line of communication.

3. Define Your Purpose

By looking through the company email list, you can decide exactly what you want to accomplish before you begin designing. What you include in the email will be dependent on the goals of the business – for example, if you want to drive sales, you can offer a tempting discount or product. Alternatively, if you want to reclaim customers that you have lost, you can remind them of what you sell and why they need it. Whatever the purpose of the emails, it’s important that you keep them short and stylish, and be sure they convey what your business is all about.

4. Encourage Customers To Take Action

In your email marketing campaign, ensure that you include plenty of calls to action. Keeping them interested and engaged in what you are offering, it will spark an interest in them each time they receive an email. Alongside a call to action, you should try to grab their attention by including interesting content, click-worthy subject lines and a good mixture of text and images.

5. Test! Test! Test!

Before you send your first email out to your customers, it’s important that you test the quality by sending it to yourself or your colleagues. Not only will this will give you a good idea of how the email looks, but it will also make sure that all of the links are working and that the design will be successful.

6. Keep Track Of The Success

As you start to build your email marketing campaign, make sure that you keep track of how it is doing by frequently compiling campaign reports. Tracking the click-through rate, deliverability and engagement will give you a good indication as to which parts of the email are successful and which need to be worked on for future campaigns.

Email marketing is a successful way to grow your business, no matter what industry it is in. It can be used as part of a cross-platform marketing campaign (for example with print, direct mail, etc.) in order to expand the number of people that are using your services or buying your products. Email can also get the word out to other potential customers and improve customer loyalty. If you need assistance getting started, contact us. We can help!