Bulk email distribution. How to make an email newsletter yourself: step-by-step instructions, features and recommendations

The first erroneous thought that arises in the head of an inexperienced entrepreneur who decides to develop a business on the Internet. It seems like a working website with information posted on it is enough. It may seem to you that you will be able to communicate, have the opportunity through the site to tell the audience everything you want, but this is not so. Let's figure it out.

Let's say 100 people came to your site. You “greeted” them with your face. They looked around, read something (if you have, for example, a blog), made a purchase (if you have an online store) and left. All. If they want, they will “contact” you - they will visit the site again. If not, then you have lost your audience because your visitors remain strangers to you. You can't contact them, they can. The same pager. Now imagine that these 100 people left you their email addresses.

Email is a direct analogue of a telephone number, a contact through which YOU can contact your visitors. True two-way communication, like a telephone. All that remains is to get an email.

How to get an email

A fundamental problem that marketing gurus have struggled to solve. To answer the question, you need to put yourself in the shoes of a site visitor. They don’t just give away email addresses. Compulsion? Will not work. Deception? Even worse.

The only effective way to get an email is to make the person want to give it to you.

Stay up to date. In many cases, the user, if your site is relevant to his interests, will not mind subscribing to notifications about new events on the site, be it the release of new material, the appearance of a new product, and so on. The same function can be served with the sauce “it’s more convenient.”
All the best. A good suggestion would be to send a selection of the best of what's happening on your site. The best articles, the best products.
Exclusive. A more aggressive, but very effective method that refers to the peculiarities of human psychology. Access to something is provided only to subscribers. It could be anything: unique “most useful” materials, competitions, special conditions and functionality. Think about the list of your offers that could be classified as exclusive, and give only to the “selected”.
Discounts and promotions. This information is objectively useful to your audience. Who wants to miss out on a great deal? This point partly overlaps with the more abstract notification function, but here the motive for the visitor is financial, more specific and attractive.

The reasons listed above for sharing your email address need to be shown to your visitors in a simple and clear way. Place static and pop-up subscription blocks on your website. No tricky long texts. Clear, obvious, accessible, understandable. The effect will not be long in coming, and you will soon have an impressive base of contacts.

What to do with email addresses

Having email addresses allows you to speak to your audience through newsletters. You need to use this opportunity correctly, because inept work with subscribers will not only not help, but will also harm you.

Rules for good email marketing

So, you address the audience. Appeal is speech. Speech must be beautiful and elegant, which means your letters must be attractive with every element.

If the subject of the letter does not interest the recipient, then he will no longer get to the content. The topic should not repeat the previous one, but it should arouse curiosity with the originality of the message.

An address I trust

Tell me which sender name is less doubtful: volodyaspamer1999@gmail.? Your company name is your name and should be in the sender's address. He must be recognized. This is why marketers focus on brand awareness.

Life is too short to read long letters

And in the mobile era, when people view your content from small smartphone screens, size requirements have become even stricter. No more than 50 characters per title is a strict rule. Ideally, key phrases, appeals and talking points should fit into 28–39 characters.

WITHOUT CAPSLOCK

Too much uppercase won't help you capture the reader's interest. Quite the contrary. It is necessary to take into account the specifics of perception. Caps may be perceived as shouting. Nobody likes to be yelled at.

I'm talking to you, friend!

Personalization in communication is the strongest tool for increasing the loyalty and interest of the recipient of the letter. It seems as if the letter came not from a soulless robot, but from a friend who knows your name. What attention! It brings us together, incredibly brings us together. Personalization in the offer is an even more advanced tool that works based on the history of the visitor’s actions.

Teaser letter

Email cannot be considered in isolation from the overall business process. A letter is the first stage in a chain, and therefore must fulfill a strictly defined purpose. For example, going to your website, store, specific page. The content of the letter must lead the recipient to this through a clearly formulated call-to-action (call to action). As a rule, this is an element that stands out in the body of the letter, like a button, and the text acts as a catalyst for attracting people to click on it.

A/B testing

Have you decided to make several versions of the letter because you are not sure which one will be the most effective? There is no need to doubt. Using the right tool, you can send all versions of the letter, distributing them so that, for example, 33% of recipients see the first version, 33% see the second and 34% see the third, and then evaluate the effectiveness of each option.

The wizard always arrives on time

And in the context of email campaigns, “on time” means the best time in terms of recipient response activity. There is no perfect moment at which everyone in the world will suddenly want to read emails and click on links. Everything is very individual, and simple practice and observation of subsequent activity will help you find the best days and hours.

Thanks to these not-so-tricky techniques, you will turn your email newsletter into an effective communication channel through which a loyal audience interested in your offer will come to your website.

However, there is a problem, and you already understand it well. How, for example, can you personalize hundreds and thousands of emails? How to format a letter beautifully? It's the same with A/B tests and analytics in general. In the end, not every entrepreneur ALREADY owns his own website, and therefore his first priority is to find a simple and inexpensive way to get a high-quality, beautiful “digital office” for his business.

With the advent of website builders, the life of small businesses and private entrepreneurs has become much easier. No need to contact programmers and designers. You don't need a system administrator to support the server. It is enough to choose one that does not require specific skills to configure, and independently modify it to suit your needs.

All that remains is to add an email newsletter application to the site. A minute to install, a couple of clicks to create a beautiful letter, convenient selection of recipients, and your newsletter is ready to send.

I still continue to be amazed at how much companies lose by not using email marketing. But what’s even sadder is that a certain group of entrepreneurs perceive email marketing as spam. But email is the fastest and cheapest channel of communication with the client base!

With email marketing you can:

automate the warming up of potential clients,
collect information from the market,
attract targeted traffic to the site,
sell.

The most important thing is that these processes can be automated. This means that email marketing is one of the most effective marketing tools!

To confirm this, here are a few numbers from Hubspot that should finally convince you of the benefits and necessity of email marketing:

1. 91% of subscribers check their email daily

2. 74% of consumers prefer to receive commercial communications via email

3. 66% of subscribers made an online purchase after receiving a promotional message

4. Email Marketing Demonstrates a Return on Investment (ROI) of 4,300%

How many companies in our country use email marketing? How many good specialists are there on the market?

I decided to help you take the first step towards implementing email marketing and tell you how to create an email newsletter.

In this article I will tell you:

- - Pros and cons of the mailing services I've used
  - How to create an email newsletter step by step in the MailerLite service
  - How to segment subscribers
  - How to create subscription forms
  - What mailing options can you send?
  - How to Integrate MailerLite with Other Marketing Tools
  - How to create an automatic email chain

Sections of the article

In addition to step-by-step instructions, at the end of the article you can find video instructions in which I show in detail how to create an email newsletter in MailerLite.

Why MailerLite

This is a question that is probably running through your head. Why did I choose MailerLite over a dozen other more popular mailing services?

Two reasons - price/quality ratio and the lack of double subscribers.

Price

I previously used MailChimp, one of the most popular newsletter services. Mailchimp has excellent conditions for companies that implement email marketing: up to 2,000 subscribers you can use the service absolutely free, but at the same time have restrictions on sending letters - up to 12,000 letters per month.

In addition, you need to think about the fact that your subscriber base will grow and you will need to factor in the cost of the mailing service. This was an important factor for me.

For example, for a plan of 15,000-20,000 subscribers, MailerLite charges only $40 per month, while MailChimp charges $150 per month. The price is almost 4 times higher.

Overview of tools in MailerLite

Drag-and-drop

Drag-and-drop is a popular email designer and editor that MailChimp also has.

This means that there are available blocks from which you construct your letter:

title,
text,
button,
delimiter,
picture,
text and picture,
picture gallery,
automatic video embedding.

And you can immediately see how it looks in the mobile version.

Thus, the letter is constructed very quickly and simply. There is a built-in photo editor: if you need to crop, edit a photo, add text to it, you can do this directly in the service.

Tracking mailing results

You can always view statistics in MailerLite:

types of email clients,
opening letters,
link clicks,
unsubscribes,
spam complaints.

There are all the necessary statistics that an email marketer needs.

Subscription forms for the site

In MailerLite, creating subscription forms is much easier and more convenient than in MailChimp.

You can write absolutely any text on the form, you can immediately assign a subscription sheet where the subscriber should go, you can assign two subscription sheets at the same time, which is very convenient.

For example, I segment all new subscribers and at the same time add them to the main database so that they receive not only offers related to their segment, but also a general newsletter.

Automatic email chains

A special advantage of MailerLite is that you can use all the functionality at once - without switching to paid mode. By creating a free account, you get all the functionality up to the first thousand subscribers.

In MailChimp, you won't be able to use autoresponders in your free account.

MailerLite account overview

Let's go through the registration stage together.

We may include the name of the company or organization. If you want, you can put the invoices you receive for paying for the service towards your expenses. We indicate the name of your company, your phone number, email, password. Click “Create an account”.

We receive confirmation:

- Thank you for registering, as soon as you start composing letters, the “Drafts” and “Sent” sections will appear on this page.

Let's see what's in your personal account.

Letters- empty.

Subscribers- 1 (that is, I myself as the author).

Forms- nothing has been created.

Automation- not created. We can change the information in the settings, let's take a look. Upload your photo. We can add our first and last name so that later this information will be automatically added to the author field of the letters being sent.

Users. If you have someone else on the team - someone who will be responsible for email marketing, you can add a new user: enter the email and select access (User or Administrator).

account settings. Time zone: be sure to set the time zone that is relevant to the bulk of your customers. This means that if the majority of your subscribers are in Moscow, then you need to find the Moscow time zone and set it. To send not at a time convenient for yourself, but at a time convenient for your subscribers. Therefore, my default is Moscow-St. Petersburg-Volgograd - this time zone.

MailerLite logo in letters - hide it if you want, leave it if you want.

Integration. You see the services that MailerLite is already integrated with.

You can select Facebook and connect it to the page. Accordingly, users who click on your call-to-action page may be included in an automatic subscription list.

SumoMe

SumoMe is one of my favorite services that allows you to create pop-ups, various conversion tools. You can integrate with it - and all subscribers who go through these tools will immediately get into your database.

WordPress

Integration with WordPress is the main thing you need if your site runs on this engine. You can integrate, then download the plugin from MailerLite, install it - and easily install subscription forms on your website in one click, which are created according to the WordPress form.

Read also Subscriber base: 4 simple and quick strategies that will allow you to attract subscribers for email newsletters without a budget

Next you see the rest of the services with which MailerLite is already integrated: Developer API, CreateForm, Privy, OptinMonster.

What else might be of interest to you here is unsubscribe page.

You can design and write any text you want for people who unsubscribe from your email list. You can make some additional offer for them. You can send or redirect them to some page on your site.

For example, for those people who unsubscribe from the mailing list, I suggest reading my best articles and book reviews page:

At least people return to my site, some of them then re-subscribe.

Help. If you have any questions, there is a knowledge base, contact email and phone numbers. And there is an online chat.

MailerLite functionality

Let's move directly to the functionality.

Functionality for working with subscribers

Let's start with subscribers.

At the beginning we have one subscription list. If we want to create a new group, click on the “Add new group” button. Next - “enter the group name”.

Here it could be, for example: "Clients from Moscow"(any variant of the name, you define it yourself) - button "Create", we see - zero subscribers.

The main sheet is named after your company name.

To rename it, click on the gear and select "Change group name" and enter the name of the subscription sheet. For example, "Main List". The contacts of all clients will be stored here, and these clients will receive some informational letters and newsletters with useful content from us.

If we need to export the entire database (email addresses of our subscribers), we can click the appropriate button and our database will be uploaded.

Subscription list statistics

average opening rate
average click rate,
average subscription rate,
average unsubscribe rate,
growth of the subscription list,
subscriber engagement (read often, sometimes, never read - you will see how active your subscribers are),
type of email client (where people most often open your emails - email services, services, etc.) and main domains.

Segments

If your subscription list is segmented, then here you will see statistics by segment. So far we can see here “all subscribers” and those who have “never opened”.

You can easily add a new segment according to specified parameters, for example, “Muscovites”. To do this, select the field - City, then “equals” and “Moscow”. After which you save the received segment and can send letters exclusively to subscribers from Moscow.

Custom fields

These are fields that can be added to the subscription form. Place of residence, phone number and so on. If you need to add another field (for example, a company website), click “Add”, then enter a title for the field and format (text, number or date) and save.

This is how the basic setup takes place.

How to add subscribers to the database

Adding one subscriber

Now let's return once again to our subscription lists.

When we start from scratch, some people can be added immediately - for example, some colleagues or clients will want to receive newsletters from you. To do this, you need to load their email into the database.

To add one address, you need to click on the green button with a picture of a man (a pop-up hint “Add new subscribers” will appear). The fields here are optional. Most importantly, check “this person has given me permission to add them to my list.”

Adding a group of subscribers

The next option for adding to the subscription list is "Copy/Paste from Excel"(to see the function, open the subscription sheet by clicking on its name - and then “Add new subscribers”). Paste it into the input field and the service will automatically pull up this data.

Second option - "Import from a CSV or TXT file."

Typically, all email newsletter services export the list of subscribers to CSV (including programs like Outlook, etc.) You will need to do this export: click “File not selected” (to select), select the directory and the desired file where you uploaded contact information, pull up the file in this way - and the subscriber database will be downloaded to you.

If you need to delete a subscription sheet in the future, you need to select the subscription sheet and click on the “Delete” button.

Subscription forms

Now I will show you how quickly a subscription form can be created. To do this, click the “Add new form” button.

How to quickly create a new subscription form

First, we will need to come up with a name for the subscription form. For example, "Subscribe to the newsletter." Select the desired form format - add it to your website or get a subscribe button.

We chose the first one and move on to selecting recipients: which sheet will subscribers who subscribe through this form fall into (if you have several sheets, they will be visible as a list, and you can mark as many sheets as you like). Click “Save” and get into the quick form editor:

Here we see a double confirmation screen.

If the mark is ON, the person will receive a notification letter after subscribing (“Hello, please confirm your subscription”), if OFF, the additional confirmation will be canceled (some options immediately disappear from the settings). When selecting ON, you can configure confirmation letter(topic, sender, content - by clicking on the Edit button, or Edit). For example, send an email with the subject: "Please confirm your subscription to the newsletter".

In field " Sender"- we can specify a different email, name, etc. In the content, you can tighten the title, enter the text we need, add a call to action (for example, a button called “I confirm”). Such a letter will be sent to the user.

When you are finished editing, click the “Finish” button.

Subscription Thank You Page

You can leave the default option, which MailerLite already has. Or you can create your own version - add your own title, company name, logo.

If you want to send a person to some other thank you page (for example, you are giving something in return for a subscription), you can specify a link, and then after clicking the “Confirm” button, the person will be redirected to the page you need.

It is possible to copy and paste the form code onto the site where the form should be located (any place on the page). If you need the full html code, then click “Show HTML” - and in the window that opens, click “Copy to clipboard”.

Editing a subscription form

What can be edited in the subscription form:

title (newsletter) of the form - for example, “Subscribe to the newsletter”;
body text - for example, “Subscribe to our weekly newsletter”, give reasons why this is useful;
rename the title (title) of the button to “Subscribe”;
a thank you message or a transition URL - for example, “Thank you, you are subscribed” (if there is a double confirmation function, you can add “You will receive an email in which you will need to additionally confirm your subscription to the newsletter”).

The form is easy to customize and can be edited as much as possible, as they say, “to suit you” - and this is its big advantage, unlike MailChimp.

Setting up the design of the subscription form

Design

Go to the tab "Design".

Here you can change the width of the form, background, frame, font color, header color, design of the “enter data” field (curvature radius, colors, etc.), button color and page background (this is a separate advantage) - the background can simply be colored , or can be specified by a picture (there is a choice of template ones, or you can take your own). You can create a very beautiful shape.

Email marketing is considered a convenient and inexpensive way to attract customers. It is actively used by Internet entrepreneurs and others. How to make a newsletter via Email, how to increase its effectiveness, what myths are associated with it - read the article.

Basic misconceptions

It is generally accepted that mailing is easy and simple. It is enough to have a database of addresses and regularly send letters with offers to buy this or that. However, look in your drawer. How many emails do you send to spam? How much do you delete without even opening it? When was the last time you bought something after receiving an email like this?

Technical knowledge on how to send mass emails is clearly not enough to achieve good results.

Firstly, the address base must be legal; subscribers purchased or received from a partner will not meet your expectations. Ideally, a target audience should be gathered.

Secondly, the letters should contain interesting and useful information. The form of presentation of the material is no less important. You need to write in such a way that you want to read the letter. Headlines are extremely important, otherwise no one will open the newsletter.

The plan is important. You should know in advance when and what you will tell your readers about.

A simple conclusion follows from this. You need to learn how to do an email newsletter correctly. Read books, take part in trainings and, of course, try in practice, look for your own approaches and methods.

How to send email campaigns correctly

The purpose of letters from a company is to sell your product. But this can be achieved in different ways.

The first way is play. A certain fictional character is created - the hero of the letters. Stories are told on his behalf, and he can also share his opinion or impressions about something. The purpose of such letters is, first of all, to entertain the reader, but also to offer a product. Playing and selling must be kept separate. As an analogy, we can recall an interesting program with advertising blocks.
The next path is educational. This is exactly the strategy that is followed in the Megaplan newsletter. Letters are a kind of business magazine filled with useful information. Articles are written by the authors or reprinted from other sources. Thanks to this approach, audience loyalty and an expert image of the company are formed.
The third option is direct sales. It is considered the most ineffective of all possible. These are the emails that most often end up in spam. Even with this approach, only 20% of the information should be selling, and 80% should be useful. Otherwise the method will not work.

How to form a database and not become a spammer?

When choosing a newsletter, you find yourself on a slippery slope. Letters are a real invasion of personal space. People don’t like this, so they click the “Spam” button and complain. It is important to ensure that the information is interesting and relevant to readers.

How to make email newsletters useful? Don't write about your company or how good your product is. Take on broader topics that will hook your audience. About success, about life around you, share working secrets and techniques. Let your emails help people solve problems, even if they haven't purchased anything yet.

The effectiveness of mailing is directly related to the quality of the database. Accept the fact that a maximum of 20% of addresses will be working, and 80% are dump boxes that are not even checked. The database will be of higher quality if it includes people who signed up themselves because they were interested in something. To collect just such addresses, you need to treat mailing as a serious project that requires an investment of effort and time.

Regularity

Naturally, you need to contact your audience regularly. If you don't plan for it, then you shouldn't start. Most often, letters arrive once a month or once a week. It is better to send high-quality material, but less often, than low-quality material, but often.

It is believed that the most effective regularity is in the range of two letters per week to one letter every two weeks. Frequent calls are perceived as a sign of importunity, and if you remind yourself too rarely, they may completely forget.

Technical points

So, you have decided on the content of the letters and the frequency, and have collected a database of addresses. What's next? How to send a newsletter by email?

If the database is small, then a very real task is to send letters without using paid services. How to make an email newsletter yourself? Very simple.

When you finish your email, fill out the To, Cc, and Bcc fields. Addresses must be separated by commas. There is a limit on the number of recipients. For example, in Mail.ru there cannot be more than thirty of them.

In addition to the fact that this method is time-consuming, there is another danger in it. Spam filters perceive letters with a large number of recipients as unwanted. To bypass this protection, you need to send messages not in bulk, but send each one separately. With a large database, this is simply impossible to do manually. How to make an email campaign yourself in such a situation? You will have to resort to the help of special mailing services.

How to send email to everyone: links to services

There are three most popular today: SmartResponder, Subscribe, UniSender. All three are domestic. Thanks to this, they have a Russian-language interface and Russian-speaking technical support, which is very convenient.

They also all provide official documents for services, which is extremely important for legal entities.

UniSender and Smart Responder are democratic. If the database is small and there are few letters, then you are given the opportunity to use the services for free.

In addition to email, you can send SMS messages through these services. It is also very important that you have access to statistics: how many emails were opened, how many were sent to spam, how many people clicked on the site, etc.

Another advantage of the services is that they are actively involved in training their users on how to effectively send emails to unfamiliar subscribers. You will receive articles and books the very next day after you complete the registration procedure.

Now you not only know how to create a newsletter based on Email, but also have information on how to make it interesting, effective and help promote your business.

It's no secret that successful online stores squeeze maximum sales from their audience. Optimizing primary conversion is a good thing, and, of course, you need to constantly work in this direction. But 70% of the profit of large online stores comes from repeat sales, often generated by email marketing.

Where to begin

Many site owners assume that it is imperative to notify the audience about new products every day. But with this approach, soon your entire mailing list will turn into spam, and you will definitely not increase sales, but, most likely, you will only receive negative feedback from customers and unsubscribes.

Determine the main triggers for which you will send emails. It can be:

1) Product triggers

Seasonal sale.
Holiday discounts.
Thematic newsletter.
New products and special offers for subscribers.

2) Behavioral triggers

User behavior (after a certain number of days after registration or the last order, it is necessary to stimulate the client for further purchases) is individual for each site; you need to always track user transitions and understand where they get lost. Collect statistics on individual users to send information on products that interest them.

3) System triggers

Transactional (order confirmation, dispatch, receipt at the warehouse or delivery services).
Track abandoned carts and provide gentle reminders about abandoned items.
Notify about changes in the operation of the site, delivery, terms of service.
Be inspired by the experience of large e-commerce companies such as ozon.ru, enter.ru, kupivip.ru, asos.com, ebay.com, etc. Look for ideas for communication and organization of letter structure.

Segment your audience, divide it by gender, age, region, subscriber activity, try to ask about what types of products are of interest to specific users, make personalized newsletters. Often, segmentation is carried out during subscription, when the user indicates his interests in the questionnaire, but later such division can be supplemented by purchases and actions of the visitor on your site.

Mailing structure and template

Once you have decided on the triggers, you need to choose the structure and template of the newsletter, as well as its general direction. It is better to stick to a friendly tone of letters and use original signatures. The main thing is that your letters are interesting to customers and motivate them to make purchases.

I completely agree with the advice of Alena Melon from the Academy of Sales Letters, UniSender: “There are only two really important questions: “How did you collect this database?” and “What will you write to her?” The question of choosing a platform, it seems to me, is secondary.”

For beginners, it is better to use ready-made templates offered by services. Once you have mastered the basics, you can move on to professional platforms and order custom letter designs.

Also, when organizing your mailing, pay attention to the continuity of the letter template and the user’s transition page (specifically with the landing page), so that the person does not have the feeling that he was deceived and got lost on the site.

Experiment with content in the body of the letter, add videos, various graphics, and interactive elements.

The page we get to when going to:

Take a look at this page (how exactly my segment is defined):

Offers women's clothes.
Once again informs that everything is correct, this is the promotion page “- 25% on winter wardrobe", and we see a banner with the same girl as in the letter.
Opens Russian version site, and shows the conditions for the Russian-speaking audience segment (delivery, currency, content).

How to send and collect statistics

Let's get acquainted with the services that carry out mailing. Of course, you can organize a newsletter yourself, but this will make it harder for you to track statistics on user openings and conversions. Each service has its own advantages and limitations; free test modes help you choose yours. I will list the most famous and convenient:

1. mailchimp.com - a well-deserved leader in organizing email newsletters, easy settings and fast moderation of letters, organization of split testing, a large selection of ready-made templates, there is a free tariff for up to 12,000 letters per month for a base of 2,000 people. The entire interface is in English, but Russian is supported both in the body of the letters and in the fields.

2. unisender.com offers free training in the “Sales Letter Academy”, which will be very useful for beginners. The functionality of the service is quite broad, including detailed analytics on letters and simple integration with Google Analytics. Just like mailchimp, it allows you to set up email chains and do segmentation. The free plan is available for a base of 100 people and includes sending 1,500 letters.

3. sendsay.ru - the service has enormous functionality, it also has the ability to send SMS messages. Sendsay statistics allow you to track literally everything: the number of transitions from mailing lists, the number of clicks on links in letters - there is also a built-in map on which all the actions of subscribers are visible. The free plan is available for a base of 200 addresses and includes sending 1000 letters per month.

pechkin-mail.ru;
epochta.ru;
smartresponder.ru;
AWeber;
Constant Contact;
Campaign Monitor;
Blue Sky Factory;
Emma.

Always track your email statistics and work on improving them. Here's an example of the most important metrics to track:

Percentage of emails delivered.
Open rate.
Transition percentage.
Number of spam complaints.
The number of clicks on links in an email.
Sales from sent letters.

Conclusion

P.S. If you would like to learn more about email marketing, leave your comments on questions of interest.

We've released a new book, Social Media Content Marketing: How to Get Inside Your Followers' Heads and Make Them Fall in Love with Your Brand.

In this article we will talk about how to make an effective email campaign, what format and tools to choose for implementation. Before you create your first chain of letters, figure out why you need them.

Goals could be:

Attraction of new clients.
Increasing the loyalty of existing customers.
Increase in sales and traffic.
Education.
Information about promotions, new products, events.
Order fulfillment status.

Analyze the work of your competitors, write down the techniques that you liked and apply them in your product. Then figure out how your subscribers will benefit. Email marketing will only benefit your company if it is interesting to the recipients. To do this, draw up a portrait of your target audience.

How to make an email newsletter: step-by-step instructions

It is very important to correctly collect your contact database. The success of the entire project depends on it. Do not buy a ready-made email list, as it may not have readers interested in subscribing to you. There are different ways to find target audience through the website:

Subscription form. It should be noticeable, but not interfere with navigation through the resource. Place it in the header, footer or sidebar.

Registration and ordering. Add a checkbox asking you to subscribe to emails before or after confirming the user agreement.
Pop-up (pop-up window). Set limits on impressions per visit so that the offer is not intrusive.

Separate page. Create it for only one action – subscribing. Write a convincing text, think over the design.

Button “Notify about the arrival of goods”, sales or new products. This way you will receive the address of a client who is ready to purchase.

Every two to three months the database must be updated – cleared of duplicates and incorrectly entered data. And also from users who have not read you for more than three months (or ask them to confirm their interest in your letters).

We make email newsletters through website forms

The number of subscribers largely depends on the online form. We will tell you about the basic rules for creating it.

After subscribing, the user should see a confirmation. Make a message thanking your subscriber for their action.

Do not add a form to the footer if the site has a lot of articles and endless scrolling. The reader will not have time to open it, since new content will be constantly loaded.
Please ask for subscription confirmation, as without it your messages may be considered spam.

Make sure that pop-up windows are not intrusive. Set them up so that they appear no more than once per visit, within a few seconds of navigating the site.
Be concise. Don't force users to fill out a large number of fields. All you need is email, name and, if necessary, clarification of interests.

The text should have an attention-grabbing headline and a short text in which you can write what you will write about, why it is useful and how many times a week a person will receive letters.

You can easily create a form using one of the constructors:

Selecting the format and frequency of mailings

You can send informational messages (tips, articles), reviews of new products, video tutorials, comics, advertising, one-time commercial offers, and holiday greetings.

Other options:

Thanks for your purchase.
Greetings.
Personal recommendations.
Information about services.
Reminder about purchase, payment or checkout stage.
Abandoned cart message.

It is not necessary to choose one scenario, combine several, track the reaction of your subscribers.

How often to send emails

You can do this once a week or several times a month. At the beginning of a project, experiment with frequency and look at the number of unsubscribes and views. Then make shipments with equal regularity.

Make an editorial plan

Create a document in which you enter all the information about the process of working on the content. The order of its release, the degree of readiness, the deadline.

Register a corporate domain

Free email services Gmail and Yandex do not inspire confidence among users.

Choose a service to automate your work

Mailchipm. An English-language service that does not have a Russian translation, except for the one built into the browser. It offers 4 types of campaigns: testing, simple text, RSS and regular. There are applications for mobile devices, 300 letter templates, analytics, API integration with Facebook, Twitter, Google, Shopify. Several plans are available, including free.

Unisender. The site is in Russian. You can start working after a simple registration process. Three ways to create letters: with a ready-made design, in the block editor and with your own design. There is a statistics section, technical support, integration with CMS, CRM and API, the ability to create forms, SMS mailings. The cost depends on the selected service package; there is a free option.

Esputnik. A functional service with a simple interface, block templates and three types of campaigns: email, SMS, web-push. There are detailed analytics, Russian-language support, and an editor for unique content. Several plans are available.

Think about your content

Pay attention to the subject line and the preheader (the part of the text on the right side of the title line). They should attract attention and encourage you to open the letter. Use intrigue, promise of benefit, provocation. Structure your text to make it easy to read. Use gamification and other fun formats to attract users’ attention. Give the reader the opportunity to unsubscribe—place the unsubscribe form so that it is easy to find. The page must be displayed correctly on all devices and in all browsers.

Segment your audience before launching your campaign based on different criteria to make it more personalized.

How to do email marketing for free

The process of creating such a project is practically no different from what is described above. All the same steps, but you need to spend more time choosing a service for automation. There are no completely free options, but many sites have trial periods and other options.

If the number of contacts in your database is:

No more than 2000 people (12000 sends/month), MailChimp will do.
Up to 2500 readers (15000 submissions/month) – Sendpulse.
Up to 5000 clients (6000 shipments/month) – Rumailer.
Up to 500 contacts (2500 sends/month) – Directiq

Paid plans usually have advanced functionality and are more convenient to work with.

Analytics

You can see the number of unsubscribes and unopened messages in the statistics of the services you use. This will help you understand which materials you like and which need to be improved or completely eliminated. Add a survey to your email opt-out form, in which you try to find out what exactly the subscriber doesn’t like. Ask your readers questions to get their thoughts on your work.

The third method helps you choose headlines and a good time to send. Come up with several names and choose different watches. Then divide your audience into two or more groups and send them different options. This way you can choose the best option.

Summarize. To make an effective newsletter, follow the following plan:

Set goals and analyze competitors.
Build your subscriber base yourself.
Select formats and sending frequency.
Write a content plan.
Register a corporate domain and select a service.
Think over the design, layout and text and launch a test campaign.

Don't forget to analyze the results of your work. This is the only way you can benefit from email marketing.