In this lesson, we’re going to look at what you need in order to get started in email marketing. We’ll look at some basic and advanced set-ups so that you can choose the strategy that works best for you. Some cost more money, some cost less. Find the one that works for you. We’ll show you what you want to look for.

What you need (and need to know) in order to get started

Getting started in email marketing is fairly easy. You can probably do it with the systems you have right now.

Then, once you build up your database of recipients and you become busier, you may want to move the process over to a more complex system to help you.

But let’s start at the simplest system first and then we’ll look at an advanced system to help you build your email marketing empire every step of the way.

Basic

You can actually start with the systems you already have in place right now. You can very easily place an email capture line on your website… if you use a system like www.godaddy.com, you can add one simply by clicking a button or two.

Or, if you are an offline business – like a restaurant or a car dealership – and you want to build your email marketing campaign, you can simply ask customers to leave their email address with you.

As you collect these emails, you can put them into a group. In fact, your email system probably has the capability to do that already. (For example, with Yahoo.com, you can add all of your email addresses to a list then select which ones you want to appear in their own group, then you can label that group). Every time you get an email address, add it to that group. Then, when it comes time to send out your message (whether it’s a regular message like a newsletter or a periodic message like the sales update) you insert the group name into your BCC: line.

A BCC line means “Blind Carbon Copy” and it means that all of the people who receive the message do not have the email addresses of the others… thus you keep your prospect list private.

If you want to send out a regular message, like a newsletter or e-zine, you can pre-write the document and even pre-write the email. Put your prospect message group in the BCC: line then schedule the mail-out for the date that you want it. If you don’t expect a lot of changes to your message group, then you can schedule it fairly far out (a few months even). However, if someone requests to be taken off your list, it could be a lot of work so you may not want to schedule too far out.

In this way, you’ve been able to create a fairly easy system right from your desktop or online email system.

Advanced

It’s true that the basic system doesn’t cost money. For some businesses that might be an appropriate place to start if you are building your email marketing campaign on a limited budget in your early days.

However, as you enjoy an increase in success, you should really consider implementing an increase in your email marketing campaign. After all, the system described above may work for a few dozen or a few hundred names, but some businesses have thousands upon thousands of subscribers to their newsletter and it’s going to get more and more difficult to manage as time goes on.

Enter an email marketing system.

Good email marketing systems are usually designed to help you do three things:

1. design your message
2. manage your contacts
3. track your reports

When you’re looking for an email marketing system, make sure it does all three.

Design your message. Good email marketing systems will give you templates for either (or both) html or text-based messages. That way, you can start with something that’s already well-designed, input your own content, and tweak it slightly to match the look and feel you want.

Manage your contacts. By managing your contacts, your email marketing system takes a lot of the work off of your hands. You’re able to import lists, for example (if you get a big influx of names or you buy a list of email addresses, you’re able to import them easily). You should also be able to manage emails that bounce back to you. As well, good email marketing systems should be able to perform automatic unsubscribe functions so that someone can unsubscribe to an email if they want to. (Again, compare this to the basic system of using your own email address… people would send you an unsubscribe request and then you’d have to manually remove it from the list. You should also be able to add headers, footers, and signatures to your emails.

Track your reports. This is a powerful function of the email marketing system. It allows you to see your message views, whether or not they click on any of the links in the message, as well as the history of the subscriber.

You get what you pay for, they say. If you have a small list and can manage it on your own, you can use the free and basic email marketing system available with the creative use of your own email address.

For more money – from a few dollars to several hundred dollars a month, you can get a powerful email marketing system.

There are many good ones out there. Check out the free demos of my 2 favorites to see what I use.

Here are my personal favorites:

www.aweber.com
www.1ShoppingCart.com

If you want to see more, simply Google “email marketing” or “autoresponder” and visit some of the results.

Summary

Email marketing systems are good to have to help build your business. If you are just getting started, consider using an email marketing system that is free… and you probably already own it: your email address. It’s appropriate for smaller batches of emails when you’re first getting your name out there. But for a few dollars (to a few hundred dollars) a month, you can build a powerful email marketing campaign with a feature-rich email marketing system designed to help you (My favorite is Aweber). Check them out, find your top three favorites, and give them a try.

Keep Moving Forward!

–Dave

Related posts:

1. Email Marketing Lesson 2
2. Email Marketing 101 – Lesson 1