If you’ve come up with a business idea that you can go with, that’s a job well done. You’ve taken the first step towards building an actual business, but you must then follow through with the execution.

The next step is to get startup financing to put down the foundations of what would become your business. Once you open up shop, you then have to put thought into marketing, and that’s where hair-splitting commences.

There are many ways to marketing your startup, ranging from traditional to online methods. Among all online marketing solutions that are proven to work, the most old-school one is perhaps email marketing. 

Even to this day, email marketing still has power because there will always be opportunities to market your business as long as people still use email in some capacity.

With a good bit of thought and effort, you too can harness this power through these 6 simple tips.

Keep in mind that we may receive commissions when you click our links and make purchases. However, this does not impact our comparisons and recommendations. We try our best to keep things fair and balanced, in order to help you make the best choice for you.

1. Choose the right email marketing platform

Very much like choosing a type of web hosting, blogging platform, theme layout, and so on, choosing an email marketing platform can be rather daunting due to the variety of options and lack of common knowledge about them.

Plenty of people have their own blogs and some even separate web hosting for them, but it’s safe to say that not everyone partakes in email marketing.

Among them, MailChimp is perhaps the most well-known. It works for most people and it does most of the things that are expected from an email marketing platform.

However, it may lack some of the features that the more discerning entrepreneur may wish for. Whichever you do choose, remember to put it up against four basic criteria.

The chosen platform must have customizable email templates, audience segmentation so you can send targeted emails according to customer profiles, opt-in forms to let you do things like raffles and user registration right on the email itself, and detailed analysis to monitor whether your email marketing campaign is doing well so far or not.

Keep in mind that the marketing platform that you choose should be well versed with automation capabilities, I have seen many email autoresponder tools fail to deliver on funnel creation.

Here is a complete guide on free autoresponder tools and how to use them to set up your transactional emails that I found online.

2. Short yet strong subject lines

Just like with titles on blog posts, videos, and other things, the subject lines on your emails should be short. It’s recommended that you keep them shorter than 50 characters since having more than that can have it cut off in the recipient’s inbox.

Despite the shortness, it must still grab the recipient’s attention, so it must be succinct like with any other headline. That’s where your creativity and savvy can come in since the email subject line is like a really short sales pitch.

3. Build a mailing list before launching

A lot of people tend to wait until launch to start doing everything, and that’s why plenty of would-be entrepreneurs burn out before they really get started with their businesses. As the old adage goes, “Victory loves preparation,” so you need to do whatever you can before you even launch.

That includes building a mailing list before launch so that you’ll be ready to send those emails once you’re about to launch.

Get Uplead today

4. Make everything mobile-friendly

It goes without saying these days that a significant percentage of people now access their email on mobile devices, reportedly a 500% jump from 2012 to 2016. Therefore, it’s imperative that you design your marketing emails to be easily viewed on them. Responsive design isn’t just for websites—it works for emails too.

5. Know your metrics

Being able to track your progress is crucial as it lets you become aware of successes and failures, adapt to changes, and learn from mistakes. Your metrics are what keep you from treading the email marketing road blindly, so make sure to look at your email marketing campaign’s metrics to plan your next move.

6. Prioritize engagement

This seems rather cliché, but it’s a wonder how some people treat selling like they’re writing a dissertation. It’s not that it can’t be as technical as that, but there’s more to it than just a cut-and-dry process. Interfacing with customers is the essence of sales, and the key is convincing them to engage.

Unlike other marketing campaigns wherein it’s all about giving more and more value and then presenting a call to action, email marketing is about doing both at the same time in every email. Whatever value is given in that email must be convincing enough for them to engage in return.

Email marketing is a tried and tested method, so all you have to do is to execute it properly in order to get more customers. Be good to your subscribers and give them good value so they will want to be your customers in due time.