Creating an email for your business isn’t hard once you know your options. And there are a lot of options. But based on your own business needs, you can narrow your choices and make some decisions.
Before you go any further, go through this email strategy checklist. After that, you are ready to get started creating your email.
1. Choose an email newsletter app
There are many email newsletter products that are free or low-cost, and others that are much more sophisticated and can be costly. I’d suggest that business owners new to email marketing use something simple to start. But if you can, also find a product that allows for some automation.
If, for example, you can program your email to send every week automatically with the latest story or stories from your website, that would be optimal. Cutting and pasting into an email template introduces the opportunity for errors, bad links and misspellings.
Ask your website manager whether there is an email app that works well with your CMS (content management system). For example, WordPress has many “plugins” that integrate directly and allow you to send email newsletters that tie into your website. Zapier, which is an online automation tool that allows you to connect web apps to one another, is a great “connector” between many CMS platforms (like WordPress) and all types of apps, including email newsletter apps. Here are the apps that Zapier integrates with.
Many professions – dentists, doctors, accountants – have email hosting services tied to templated websites. If your website is created on such a platform, it may very well offer you the option of having content sent out in a newsletter format to those who sign up. The platforms are usually very templated and plug-and-play, allowing businesses or professionals to do what they do best and leaving the web design, development and maintenance to professionals. If you can tie an email newsletter into your site through your website host and your website, that’s optimal.
If you do not have a website that offers automated emails or e-newsletters, you may choose one of several other email hosts that are relatively low cost and offer a lot of options.
When choosing the platform that is right for you, here are some things to consider:
- Features. Does it offer a feature or features you are looking for? If you want a product that allows for creating a template and automating a send, be sure whatever email newsletter app you choose has this feature included. Not a designer? Be sure to choose an app that not only has templates but also has templates that are simple for “nondesigners.” The last thing you want is a labor-intensive newsletter template. Go simple.
- Price. There’s a wide range of products and just as wide a range of prices, from free to thousands of dollars a month. If you have a relatively small email list right now, I’d opt for a lower-cost product to start. You can always upgrade once you have thousands or tens of thousands of subscribers!
- Deliverability. You want your email newsletter to be delivered reliably to your customers. Well-known apps such as Constant Contact and Mailchimp lead the way in deliverability; Active Campaign, which I’ve worked with extensively, is also reliable (but pricier). But less expensive options such as Mailerlite have consistently improved on deliverability, according to emailtooltester.com. That site is a great one for a detailed look at how all the major email newsletter apps perform on deliverability, including a section on how they perform to different email clients such as Yahoo, Gmail and Outlook.
- Usability. Most email newsletter apps will allow you to try the product for free for a week or even a month. Be sure to test drive a product before committing to it. If it’s difficult and frustrating to use, find another solution.
2. Decide on a cadence
Will you send an email weekly? Biweekly? Monthly? Don’t bite off more than you can chew. If you are a small business, start with a monthly email until you build enough of an audience that it makes sense to move to biweekly or weekly.
3. Create a calendar
I’d suggest planning out at least six months of monthly emails or three months of weekly emails. Use the seasons, special events or your own knowledge of your business to determine what the “focus” will be for each newsletter.
4. Create or find an email template
Don’t try to create a new email from scratch every week or every month. That’s just not efficient, and it’s not necessary. A “template” that has two or three areas to it and can allow for plug-in articles, photos and links is the best way to go. And aim for simplicity; if it becomes to burdensome to create and maintain it will likely fall by the wayside very quickly.
5. Create a recipients list
If you already have email addresses for your customers, you are a step ahead on this. You can send ONE email to your customers asking them to “opt in” to your newsletter. You cannot, unless your customers agreed upon giving you their emails, subscribe them automatically to your regular email. The best approach is to use what is called a “double opt in” email. That means when you ask someone to opt in, you send a confirmation email to them so they can verify that they did indeed opt in to receive your email. Without this step, anyone can opt a person in to an email, and your lists are not as “clean” as a result.
You’ve done the five things needed to get an email newsletter started. Building the list and continuing to feed content to your customers is key to helping it thrive.
