  Jeremy Gray – The Geriatric Entrepreneur IBGR. Network. The World of Business at Your Fingertips Is retirement not for you? Me neither! I have always known that retirement did not hold any attraction for me. Those financial product advertisement promising early retirement never resonated. In season 10 we will look at how to launch your second career, in a time of raising interest rates and a falling stock market. I invite you to join me, as I build my business plan to escape the tyranny of the clock which limits my earnings to the hours I work. Over the next five years I plan to build an income portfolio that will support my family into the future. Please join me as I plan that journey.  Episode 33 E-Mail Marketing What you need to know Your customers don’t give their information lightly, and — if used right — email marketing can be both a relationship-building and profit-building tool. How Does Email Marketing Work?
So, how does email marketing actually work anyway? How does email marketing work? Email marketing is the process of targeting your audience and customers through email. It helps you boost conversions and revenue by providing subscribers and customers with valuable information to help achieve their goals. Now let's review when you should use email marketing and some benefits and statistics that support the reason why email marketing is so valuable. When to Use Email Marketing There are many ways to use email marketing — some of the most common including using the tactic to:
Email Marketing Benefits There are over 4 billion email users worldwide, so if you’re looking for a way to reach your customers, email is the perfect place to find them. As of 2020, email generates $36 for every dollar spent. 79% of marketers list email marketing in their top 3 most effective marketing channels. Email visitors are the most likely to convert on forms. Perhaps the best reason to use email marketing is that you own the channel. Outside of compliance regulations, there is no external entity that can impact how, when, or why you reach out to your subscribers. Roughly 72% of ecommerce marketers say the biggest challenge they face with email is low open rates. Getting Started with Email Marketing Before you get overwhelmed with the vast possibilities of email marketing, let’s break down a few key steps to get you started building a strong email campaign that will delight your customers. You can think of these steps as the way to create a successful email marketing strategy. Create an Email Marketing Strategy You can learn how to build an effective email strategy and send emails that people actually want to read. It just takes a plan (one that can be broken down into a few key steps). Think of the following five steps as an outline for your email strategy. We’ll dive deeper into some of these in a moment. 1. Define your audience. An effective email is a relevant email. Like everything else in marketing, start with your buyer persona, understand what they want, and tailor your email campaign to your audience’s needs. 2. Establish your goals. Before you come up with your campaign goals, gather some context. You'll want to know the average email stats for your industry and use them as benchmarks for your goals. For consulting in 2022 Mailchimp reports an open rate of just over 20% and a click through rate of just under 2.5% As you can see, these benchmarks vary greatly by industry. Using this guide will help you create realistic goals for your team. 3. Build your email list. You need people to email, right? An email list (we'll cover how to build your email list in the next section) is a group of users who have given you permission to send them relevant content. To build that list, you need several ways for prospects to opt-in to receive your emails. Don’t be discouraged if you only have a few people on your list to start. It can take some time to build. In the meantime, treat every single subscriber and lead like gold, and you’ll start to see your email list grow organically. 4. Choose an email campaign type. Email campaigns vary and trying to decide between them can be overwhelming. Do you send a weekly newsletter? Should you send out new product announcements? Which blog posts are worth sharing? These questions plague every marketer. The answer is subjective. You can start by learning about the types of email campaigns that exist, then decide which is best for your audience. You should also set up different lists for different types of emails to customers and prospects can sign up for only the emails that are relevant to them. 5. Make a schedule. Decide how often you plan to contact your list and inform your audience upfront. This way, they'll know exactly what to expect ahead of time. Forgetting to do this can lead to high unsubscribe lists and can even get you in their spam. In addition, once you set a schedule, be consistent. It will build trust and ensure you stay top of mind for your audience. 6. Measure your results. This should come as no surprise. As marketers, we measure everything. Being meticulous about every key metric will help you make small changes to your emails that will yield large results. We’re going to touch on the exact KPIs to monitor in a bit (or you can jump ahead). Now that you understand the steps to creating an email marketing strategy, we'll look at what's involved in building your email list.  Episode 34 Lead Magnets and Opt Ins How to Build Your Email List Now to the fun part: filling your email list with eager prospects that are excited to hear from you. There are many creative ways to build your email list (and, no, purchasing emails aren’t one). Tactically speaking, list building comes down to two key elements that work cohesively to grow your subscriber numbers: lead magnets and opt-in forms. 1. Use lead magnets. Your lead magnet is exactly as it sounds something that attracts prospects to your email list, usually in the form of a free offer. The offer can take a number of formats, should be valuable to your prospects, and is given away for free in exchange for an email address. There’s just one problem: People have become hyper-protective of their personal information. You can’t expect to receive an email address without exchanging it for something valuable. Think about a lead magnet that is relevant, useful, and makes your prospects’ lives easier. Here are a few types of lead magnets you could create:
If you’re short on resources, you can even repurpose your existing content to create lead magnets. How to Create a Great Lead Magnet Remember that your lead magnet should be relevant to your prospects. Here are a few guidelines to ensure you’re creating a valuable asset for your potential list. Make your offer solution-oriented and actionable. Provide practical information that solves a problem and creates a realistic way to achieve the solution. Ensure that the asset is easy to consume. Lead magnets should be delivered in a digital format. Whether it’s a PDF, a webpage, a video, or some other format, make it easy for your new lead to obtain and consume it. Create your offer with future content in mind. There’s nothing worse than signing up for a great offer only to be disappointed by the content that follows. Make sure your offer is aligned with the value that you will provide throughout your relationship, otherwise you risk damaging trust. Treat your lead magnet as a stepping stone to your paid solution. The point of your email list is to eventually guide subscribers to a paid offer. You offer free content to demonstrate the value that you provide as a company, and those free offers should eventually lead to your product or service. Create offers that are relevant to each stage of the buyer’s journey. Every new lead will be at a different stage of the buyer’s journey, and it’s your responsibility to know which. Segment your list from the beginning by providing separate opt-in offers that pertain to each stage of the buyer’s journey. You can tell a lot about a prospect’s mindset by the content they consume. Create an enticing opt-in form. Your opt-in form is how you get a prospect’s information to add them to your list. It’s the gate between your future leads and the incredible asset that you created with them in mind. Here are some tips for creating an enticing opt-in form: Create an attractive design and attention-grabbing header. Your form should be branded, stand out from the page, and entice people to sign up. You want to excite readers with the offer. Make the copy relevant to the offer. While your goal is to get people to enter their information, it isn’t to deceive them. Any information on your form should be a truthful representation of the offer. Keep the form simple. This could be one of your first interactions with your prospect. Don’t scare them away with a long form with several fields. As promised during my broadcast here is a screen shot of a landing page/CTA using ConvertKit. As I said it took longer to produce than I was led to believe but even so I would say it was well under an hour. And I am sure I will get quicker the practice. The biggest challenge for me was sizing the images correctly.  Ask for only the most essential information: first name and email are a good place to start. Set your opt-in form for double confirmation. It may seem counterproductive to ask your subscribers to opt into your emails twice, but some research on open rates suggests that customers may prefer a confirmed opt-in (COI) email more than a welcome email. Ensure that the flow works. Take yourself through the user experience before you go live. Double-check that the form works as intended, the thank you page is live, and your offer is delivered as promised. This is one of your first impressions of your new lead — make it a professional and positive one. Next, let's take a moment to cover some universally accepted email marketing best practices regarding how to send marketing emails.
If all goes well, you’ll have built a robust list of subscribers and leads that are waiting to hear from you. But you can’t start emailing just yet unless you want to end up in a spam folder, or worse, a blocked list. Here are a few extremely important things to keep in mind before you start emailing your list that you worked so hard to build. 1. Choose an email marketing service. An email marketing provider (ESP) is a great resource if you're looking for any level of support while fine-tuning your email marketing efforts. Here are examples of features services like HubSpot offer to consider when choosing an email service provider:
2. Use email marketing tips. While you probably don’t think twice about the formatting or subject line of an email you send to a friend, email marketing requires a lot more consideration. Everything from the time you send your email to the devices on which your email could be opened matters. Your goal with every email is to generate more leads, which makes crafting a marketing email a more involved process than other emails you’ve written. Let’s touch on the components of a successful marketing email:
3. Implement email segmentation. Segmentation is breaking up your large email list into sub-categories that pertain to your subscribers’ unique characteristics, interests, and preferences. Our subscribers are humans, after all, and we should do our best to treat them as such. That means, not sending generic email blasts. We talked about segmentation briefly above. The reason why this topic is important enough to mention twice is that, without it, you run the risk of sending the wrong content to the wrong people and losing subscribers. Why should you segment your email list? Each person who signs up to receive your emails is at a different level of readiness to convert into a customer (which is the ultimate goal of all this). If you send a discount coupon for your product to subscribers that don’t even know how to diagnose their problem, you’ll probably lose them. That’s because you’re skipping the part where you build trust and develop the relationship. Every email you send should treat your subscribers like humans that you want to connect with, as opposed to a herd of leads that you’re trying to corral into one-size-fits-all box. The more you segment your list, the more trust you build with your leads and the easier it’ll be to convert them later. How to Segment Email Lists The first step in segmentation is creating separate lead magnets and opt-in forms for each part of the buyer’s journey. That way, your contacts are automatically divided into separate lists. Beyond that, email marketing platforms allow you to segment your email list by contact data and behaviour to help you send the right emails to the right people. Here are some ways you could break up your list:
In reality, you can segment your list any way that you want. Just make sure to be as exclusive as possible when sending emails to each subgroup. 4. Personalize your email marketing. Now that you know who you’re emailing and what’s important to them, it will be much easier to send emails with personalized touches. Sure, you’re speaking to 100+ people at one time, but your leads don’t need to know it. A 2021 report by Litmus revealed that 80% of customers are more likely to make a purchase from a brand that provides personalized experiences. To really drive this point home, consider this: Personalized emails have higher open rates. In addition, 83% of customers are willing to share their data to create a more personalized experience. You’ve gathered all this unique data. Your email marketing software allows for personalization tokens. You have no excuse for sending generic emails that don’t make your leads feel special. Here are a few ways to personalize your emails:
 Episode 35 Email Marketing Automate and Stay Legal Incorporate email marketing automation. Automation is putting your list segmentation to use. Once you’ve created specific subgroups, you can send automated emails that are highly targeted. There are a couple of ways to do this. Autoresponders An autoresponder, also known as a drip campaign, is a series of emails that is sent out automatically once triggered by a certain action. For instance, when someone downloads your eBook. You’ll use the same guidelines for writing your emails that we discussed previously to ensure that your readers find your emails useful and interesting. You should decide how far apart you’d like your emails to be sent, say every few days or weeks or even months. The great thing about autoresponders is that you can set it and forget it. Every user that is part of your autoresponder will receive each email that you’ve added to the series. Workflows Workflows take autoresponders a step further. Think of Workflows like a flow tree with yes/no branches that will execute actions based on the criteria that you set. Workflows have two key components:
The key difference from an autoresponder is that workflows are smart: They can change the course of your automated series based on what your prospect will find useful. For instance, if a new subscriber receives a welcome email and the subsequent email is set up to send them an offer that they already found and downloaded on your site, the workflow tool will know and adapt. In an autoresponder, a user receives a specific set of emails at specific time intervals no matter what action they take. Why is this important? Sending the right email at the wrong time is detrimental to your bottom line. 6. Use email marketing templates. Email marketing templates are another great resource to help you with your email marketing. Unless you’re a designer and developer on top of being a skilled marketer, templates will save you a ton of time — they take the design, coding, and UX-definition work out of crafting your emails. Just one caveat: when making your selection, choose email templates that are proven to be effective. The highest-quality templates come from the most reputable ESPs that have tested them against thousands of alternatives. So, stick with the professionals. And speaking of things like quality work and great reputation, there are some email regulations to be aware of when crafting emails and developing your marketing strategy. Email Regulations Email regulations are consistent with consumers’ desires to know how and why their information is being used. If there’s anything we care about, it’s complying with what our customers—or potential customers—want. 1. CAN-SPAM Compliance Technically, CAN-SPAM is an acronym for Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing (because sometimes the two go together). In practice, it’s a way to protect your subscribers’ right to only receive emails that they’ve requested. The law was passed in 2003 and applies to any commercial emails used for business purposes. Here are the ways to ensure that your emails are CAN-SPAM compliant:
2. GDPR Compliance While some may view these newly implemented email regulations as burdensome and unnecessary, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) actually moves us closer to building long-lasting and trusting relationships with our customers. GDPR is about giving your customers the right to choose. They choose your emails. They choose to hear from you. They choose your products. And that is exactly what inbound marketing is about. Something important to note about GDPR is that it only applies to businesses that operate in the European Union and businesses that market to EU citizens. Noncompliance will result in significant fees that aren’t worth the risk, so make sure to read the GDPR guidelines entirely. Here’s an overview of how you can comply with GDPR laws:
3. Avoid Spam Filters You spend time creating the perfect email and adhering to regulations, so the last thing you want is to end up in a spam folder. You'll want to avoid the spam folder because:
Using a reliable email service provider. Your email service provider’s reputation affects your deliverability, so stick to established, well-known companies. Implementing a double opt-in. Once someone opts into your email list, send an email asking them to confirm. This ensures that your new subscriber is genuinely interested in your emails and will likely be more engaged. And last but certainly not least, you need to consistently measure the success of your email marketing efforts. There are a number of options you can choose from when it comes to your business's email marketing analytics. Email Marketing Analysis By diving into your email marketing analytics, you'll be able to make better decisions that are sure to positively impact your business's bottom line, resonate with your subscribers, readers, and customers, and justify your work to the rest of your company. Here are the best ways to analyse the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns. 1. A/B test your marketing emails. Not all email lists are created equal. Some audiences prefer personalization and others will think it’s spammy. Some audiences will like bright, eye-catching CTA buttons, and others will prefer a more subtle call-to-action. You’ll never know what type of people make up your email list until you test the variables. That’s where A/B testing comes in handy. Surprisingly, not many brands leverage it. A 2021 Litmus study found that 44% of marketers rarely A/B or multivariate test their emails. Only 19% do it often or always. A/B testing, or split testing, is a way to see what type of email performs best with your audience by analysing the results of email A against email B.  Episode 36 How to avoid Spam filters and measure success
Set email marketing KPIs. There are four key metrics to pay attention to when evaluating the effectiveness of your email marketing campaign. Deliverability measures the rate at which emails reach your intended subscribers’ inboxes. Open rate is the percentage of people that open your email once it reaches their inbox. Clickthrough rate (CTR) is the percentage of people that click on your CTAs. Unsubscribes measures the number of people who opt out of your email list once they receive an email from you. 3. Adjust email components to improve results. Many factors impact your KPIs, and it’s going to take some experimentation and guesswork to figure out which tweaks to your emails will yield the biggest changes. If you aren’t getting the numbers you want, try playing with these variables to improve your email results. Deliverability Ensure that you’re following best practices when it comes to avoiding spam filters. Remove inactive people from your email list to keep only engaged subscribers. Check which emails hard bounced and remove those email addresses from your list. Open Rate Play with the language in your subject line to entice people to click on your email. Adjust the time and day that you send your email to see what works best. Clickthrough Rate (CTR) Evaluate your offer to ensure that it provides value to your segmented list. Rewrite your copy to make sure that it’s clear what you want the reader to do. Try different CTAs, e.g., graphic versus Inline copy, bold versus subtle. Unsubscribes First, consider if this is a blessing in disguise, as uninterested parties are removing themselves from your list. Evaluate whether the email you sent is aligned with your brand. Ensure you haven’t performed a bait-and-switch by promising one thing and delivering another. Make sure your emails are providing value to your audience before trying to upsell. 4. Use an email marketing report template. Your data does no good if you can’t report it in an organized fashion. An email marketing report is a spreadsheet where you can record your results in one place to help you make inferences from your KPIs and take action to improve them. Here’s how you should organize your report: Metrics:
While there are many rules to sending a marketing email, the most important is this: Treat your subscribers like humans. You can achieve all of your email marketing goals if you keep this golden rule top-of-mind in every autoresponder, lead magnet, and subject line. When in doubt or if you're ever in need of inspiration, turn to some of the greatest email marketing examples. And remember, your subscribers want to hear from you and they want to relate to you. Be a genuine resource, and they will look forward to opening an email from you just like they would any friend of theirs. Let’s take a look at the nitty-gritty details when it comes to figuring out how to start an email list. Use ConvertKit for Your Email List Software You need software to collect emails. This software stores all the emails of people who sign up to your list and lets you communicate with them whenever you want. I use ConvertKit because they built their software to fit the needs of creators, instead of being a solution for every type of company. Also, a higher percentage of people read my emails with ConvertKit than on other platforms I’ve used like Mailchimp. Here are some of the things you can do with ConvertKit: You can send people broadcasts, which means you send an email to your list one time You can also create sequences, which just means a series of emails that automatically send emails for a certain period There are other advanced features, but you just need to know how to do those three things if you’re a beginner How to Create a Newsletter Understanding the Benefits of an Email Newsletter Those two guides along with the instruction I’m going to give you in this post will give you everything you need. If you buckle down and do this process, you’ll have a list. This whole process won’t take more than an hour or two. . Pick a Topic for Your Newsletter In other words, what will your newsletter be about? Choose a topic that is relevant to what you do, and that you’ll be able to consistently write about over the long run. As an example, if your audience consists of photographers, your newsletter could contain: Photography tips Updates on the latest photography gear Best local places to do a photography shoot 2. Decide on Your Newsletter’s Frequency Next, decide on how often you want to send your newsletter. For example, this could be: Once a week Once every two weeks Once a month Once a quarter It’s important to pick a realistic publishing schedule that you can stick to but isn’t so infrequent that your subscribers forget who you are. Experiment to find a sending frequency that works best for you! 3. Create a Newsletter Template When sending newsletters, it’s a good idea to standardize their design. Not only does this help save you time from constantly rejigging your newsletter’s look, but it also helps build recognition for your brand. And the good news is that you don’t have to create a newsletter template from scratch. That’s because we’ve got a range of email templates that you can customize using our visual template editor. 4. Write and Send Your Newsletter in the Broadcast Editor Now we come to the actual writing and sending of your newsletter—and this will be done in our broadcast editor. Broadcasts are what we call one-off emails in ConvertKit, and they’re perfect for sending standalone newsletters to your subscribers. If you’re new to our broadcast editor, our guide to creating and sending broadcasts in ConvertKit will walk you through its key features. Go Send Your First Newsletter! Useful Links. Federal Trade Commission’s advice on compliance. https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business EU guide to GDPR compliance https://gdpr.eu/ Contact Details mailto:jeremy@business-in-asia.org Or schedule time via Calendly: https://calendly.com/3-continents-consulting My websites include: https://business-in-asia.org/ https://thegeriatricentrepreneur.com/ https://thedentistscfo.com/ My LinkedIn URL https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremy-gray1
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