Social Media Marketing | List Building Coach | Business Relations Coaching

In this lesson we’ll look at getting started in email marketing. It’s not as easy as simply sitting down to write an email. In fact, that’s not the first step! In this section, we’re going to show you what to do first before you even typed the very first word of your very first email. Don’t worry, you’ll start selling soon enough!

Getting started

One of the challenges faced by business owners (both online and offline) is the challenge of jumping into something with both feet. That is, aggressively pursuing an idea or action that you’ve just thought of and haven’t weighed through.

Jumping in with both feet is okay to do on something that doesn’t require a lot of time or expense or commitment. However, email marketing is not something you want to jump into.

Email marketing may not cost a lot – even a paid subscription to a month email marketing service provider doesn’t cost a lot and is quite valuable – but there is a time commitment as well as an energy commitment that you have to be willing to make before you can expect to enjoy success. And if you can’t make those commitments, then email marketing may not be right for you… right now.

Go/No Go

NASA scientists use something called a “go/no-go” check before launching a space shuttle. They go through a series of checklists and if there is something wrong in the checklist, they say “no-go” and the rocket ship stays on earth. If everything in the checklist is fine, they willingly launch the ship.

You need to do your own go/no-go system to make sure that you’re ready to commit to an email marketing campaign.

1. Estimate how many names you have on your database right now.
2. Estimate the amount of time it will take you to write a newsletter. Don’t worry so much about the design of the newsletter, since you can find templates to help you and once you have it designed you won’t have to worry about it, but writing the newsletter requires commitment and dedication on your part… and since most people aren’t interested in writing large amounts of text, it may be difficult for you.
3. Estimate the total amount of time in a year that you will end up spending on your email marketing campaign. For example, if you estimate (in step 2) that it will take you one hour to write a newsletter, and you want to send out a newsletter every month, then multiply that hour by 12 to get your total annual time estimate.
4. Estimate how much money it will cost you to manage your email marketing system. Factor in the value of your time (because you could spend it doing other things) and factor in any monthly costs associated with any email marketing system you want to use. You should have a total annual cost of managing your email marketing system.
5. Estimate how much profit you earn on an average sale.
6. Estimate how many MORE sales you need to make in order to earn your first dollar of profit with this increased expense. (To do this, simply divide the number in step 4 by the number in step 5). For example, if your email marketing campaign is going to cost you $1000, and the profit you earn from each sale is $10, you’re going to have to make an extra 100 sales in order to earn an additional profit.

This exercise is NOT meant to scare you away from email marketing. It is a highly effective way of doing business. However, you need to be realistic in terms of the cost associated with your business. Before completely scrapping the entire system, try to decide if there is a way to do it more profitably. For example, instead of writing the newsletters yourself, can you find a writer who can do it for you more cheaply? There are writers at www.guru.com who bid on projects and you might be able to find one who costs you less than if you wrote the articles yourself. And if you find a system that is free, there’s even less work for you to do! As well, if you decide to use an occasional marketing campaign – more like a sales update – you don’t have to commit much time to it.

If you want, start small and work your way up to a larger, more dedicated plan.

Publishing plan

Once you have decided on the email marketing campaign that will be most cost-effective for you, it’s time to develop a publishing plan. This sounds more complicated than it really is.

Magazine publishers call it a publishing schedule but it’s just a list of important dates and topics for you to make sure you stay on track.

Although an occasional sales update may not require a publishing plan, the more popular (and more effective) newsletter should.

Your publishing plan should include a list of the topics that you want to write about, any sales that may correspond with the topics or calendar dates, and the dates that are important to you.

Here’s an example of a newsletter that is intended to go out on the 21st of each month for a cleaning company:

As you can see, they have included the month, the article topic, as well as dates they need the article complete, the date they want to have the newsletter assembled and edited, and dates to have the newsletter sent out.

Now it’s your turn: Write down all the topics you can think of when it comes to things you think your audience might be interested in reading about. If you want just one article per newsletter (some have more but one is a great place to start) select 12 and assign months to them… as some are more appropriate at some times of the year than others.

Make notes as you go since these ideas may help you write the articles more quickly when it comes time to write them.

Summary

Getting started is about counting the cost and being prepared. It’s not glamorous work but developing this foundation will help to ensure that you are more successful. Sometimes these regular jobs can become a grind and a burden so having a plan in place can help you to overcome that feeling.

Keep Moving Forward!

–Dave