Quick Start Email Marketing
(Top Tips For 2024)

Email marketing is a massive part business these days, it is just as important as social media or website.

So here is my Quick Start Email Marketing ultimate guide on how to quick start email marketing.

If you have any question please do hit the chat at the bottom of the screen.

Quick Start Email Marketing - here where to learn every important tip about email marketing qucikly

With Coronavirus being a worldwide issue these tip or more important then ever with online marketing at the heart of business.

These tips will help you start email marketing with some free tools this a great place to begin.

But if you're not a beginner this will helpful advice.

Subscribers are #1

Fundamentally having genuine opted-in subscribers is everything, the reason for is because without subscribers you have no one email.

What is an opted-in subscriber?

This is a person added to an emailing list that has been given the option to join the email list.

It can be some sort of newsletter, blog update, new product release or any type of advertising.

How to get opted-in subscribers?

There are a few way to do this:

The list you already own – But you need to be careful as the list can become out of date fast.

(so only use subscribers that will be 100% happy to receive email communications)

Use Opt-in forms

If you have a business online having form to collect new subscribers is an easy and fast way to collect.

New subscribers are an essential part of modern society.

Here is a great service I would recommend:

MailChimp account

This service gives you the ability to send to subscribers (you will need to set up an account).

Most importantly in this section, is because the easy to uses sign up forms that are drag and drop to build forms to collect subscriber.

Genuine subscribers will get you better results

Easy to add to your website

MailChimp has an easy copy and paste code that puts a subscriber form on your website.

This helps you collects your data for email marketing going forward.

https://mailchimp.com/

Collecting data from your website

You may already have data you want to market to and it could be just as simple as.

Re-asking these subscribers if they want to receive your email marketing messages.

Please note it may be worth checking the GDPR legislation before doing this.

if you have any red flags or risk do not email market to these subscribers within the EU.

Subscribers are number 1 or your have issues in the future

GDPR fines can be up to 20 million euros

Here is a helpful GDPR blog from litmus

The best advice I can give anyone is it's best to have a clean list to avoid any complications.

litmus blog 5 things you must know about email consent under gdpr

Here is a helpful CAN-SPAM blog from litmus

Also, ensure you are compliant within the United States of America - you must follow the CAN-SPAN act.

https://litmus.com/blog/tag/can-spam

The best advice I can give anyone is it’s best to have a clean list to avoid any complications.

make sure you follow GDPR subscriber rules

GDPR fines can be up to 20 million euros

Going forward with collecting data from your already existing website

If you have forms on your website or apps, do yourself a favour and make sure they are GDPR compliant.

make sure you get explicit consent, the below links will help if you want to get deeper into GDPR.

How to make your web forms compliant - https://www.smackcoders.com/blog/make-web-forms-compliant-gdpr.html

ICO what is valid-consent - https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protection/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/consent/what-is-valid-consent/

make sure you follow GDPR subscriber rules

Keep your web forms GDPR compliant

Going forward with collecting data from your already existing website

If you have forms on your website or apps, do yourself a favour and make sure they are GDPR compliant.

make sure you get explicit consent, the below links will help if you want to get deeper into GDPR.

How to make your web forms compliant - https://www.smackcoders.com/blog/make-web-forms-compliant-gdpr.html

ICO what is valid-consent - https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protection/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/consent/what-is-valid-consent/

Keep your web forms GDPR compliant

Collecting Subscribers from Social Media & Completions

Collecting Subscribers from Facebook or Twitter

As you may be aware social channels is a great way to drive traffic to your website.

So why not use these engaged people to try collecting email subscribers?

All social media sharing can have a great impact on your business.

So why not share an image and link to your website form or MailChimp signup form?

Collect Subscribers from Surveys Monkey

Surveys are great to see how your business is doing for ratings, but it is also amazing for collecting emails.

A useful way to collect subscribers: https://www.surveymonkey.com/dashboard/

Run Completions to gain subscribers

A fantastic way to gain subscriber is by running a sweepstake, or a giveaway by offering a incentive.

Facebook Freebies, Twitter Deals and Completions give away all fall under GDPR

No matter how you gain subscribers have GDPR in mind follow the rules and you’ll never find yourself in trouble.

Here is amazing blog that tells you free does not mean free to GDPR.https://www.newsletter2go.co.uk/blog/how-to-run-giveaways-post-gdpr/

Email account setups need to know

Email from Name

With any email provider, you will need to add an email from the name.

This is the name that is at the top of the email that lets subscribers know who the emails are from.

Email from Address

A valid email address is needed for you to send emails to your subscribers, this can be a Gmail account.

But not all email platforms will accept a normally email account plus its best practice to have a domain-based email account so it can be monitor.

From Email Adress

DKIM / SPF Records

In a nutshell, SPF allows email senders to define which IP addresses are allowed to send mail for a particular domain.

While DKIM provides an encryption key and digital signature that verifies that an email message was not forged or altered.

Reply Email Address

When you send an email to a subscriber and then click 'Reply'.

The reply message is typically sent to the email address listed in the system as the Reply Email Address.

DKIM SPF Records

What you need know to set up your first email

Subject Lines – A good subject line can import your open rate by 10%

What is the subject line?

A subject line is the first part of the email that subscribers see when it lands in their inbox.

This text & maybe emoji gives you a snippet about the offer or content in the email.

What makes a good subject line?

This is a very hard question to answer, as this depends on the type of business you run.

Or how much testing you’re willing to do to find out what your subscribers like.

But here a few rules I stick to when it’s your first few campaigns.

  • Try to use between 3 & 7 words
  • Keep it short and sweet
  • Add Urgency
  • Personation – (First Name, etc.)
  • Try to use Emoji's

Subject line & preheaders are the second most important element if people don't open your emails.

They will never see the great email offer you have ready for them.

So my advice would be keep researching, keep testing and look at your results we will cover this later on.

Email Templates – (59% of all email are view on phones)

What is an email template (HTML & CSS)

An email template is a combination of HTML and CSS, styled around a theme or design.

To best promote the information or product the sender wants to share with their subscribers.

What makes a good email template?

The best email templates I find are lightweight, not confusing and really promotes a very clear message.

Email design I would suggest reflects the brand sending it or themed like a product or Black Friday or Christmas.

Nowadays we know how to make emails look as good as websites and act like them on some email clients.

(check out this cool. interactive email, I created).

Email clients & mobile responsive emails

A good email template should always work on mobile devices.

This is because 59% of all email is viewed on a phone, and this does not include IPads.

iPhones & android not the only email clients to worry about

You need to consider over 90+ major email clients to ensure your user get the best experience from your emails.

A good email template should always work on mobile devices.

This is because 59% of all email is viewed on a phone, and this does not include IPads.

Email Market Share - https://emailclientmarketshare.com

Why having a low File size is important

When I start talking about file size, I am talking about the size of your combined HTML and CSS.

In the old days before we knew all the little HTML hacks and fixes.

Many emails would contain spacer images to force email to look the way, you wanted it to.

But the downside was hosting these little spacer images was a pain when moving to a new host.

Replacing these images was painful but the major flaw is that it increases file size.

The main point here is that file size affects email performance, the email file size can affect deliverability.

Meaning a large email could trigger a spam filter, but this is not the only downside.

If the email is delivered it could load slowly causing complains and using more data than subscribers want to.

The maximum I would recommend is 79 kilobytes, this is to stop having any delivery issue also stops Gmail clipping.

Gmail clipping is where your email is cut down in half and forces you to use the built-in view email as a web page but Gmail removes all responsive elements making the email look bad.

Keep Image size low with quality

Good images

Having quality images can make your email a massive success, so put effort into your images on your email.

The maximum size for most images is 100KB, but if you have one large image that could go up to 500KB.

The maximum size for most images is 100KB, but if you have one large

However, it's more about the total size.

I personally would recommend cutting your images to the width and height of the place holder for your images.

Top tip reducing the image quality will help your email file size.

Alt tags on Images

What's an alt tag?

An alt tag in the most basic format this tag you use to place the text you want the subscriber to see if your images do not load.

What to consider when writing alt text the alt text should describe any text on your image or any offers or ratings.

This is so screen readers can describe the image to visually impaired people.

Giving them better accessibility also to keep your emails FCA complaint if your offer is in the image and not misleading.

Email Accessibility

According to the NHS website 2 million people living with sight loss in the UK.

This topic is important because most email templates are not accessible, because people don’t care or don't know too.

So below I have created some quick adjustments you can make to help your subscribers.

Email on Acid: https://www.emailonacid.com/blog/article/email-development/email-accessibilty-in-2017/

NHS website: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vision-loss/

Here is a WAI-ARIA WC3 rule and regulations:

W3.ORG: https://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/aria/roles

Below are my 5 quick tips to Email Accessibility

5 quick tips email accessibility
  1. Ensure your main content tag has this piece of code to set the language with the lang tag.
  2. to ensure the role="presentation" is on the parent table to your first table above your content.
  3. Is to store content in relevant semantic tags
  4. Is to be more descriptive in your alt tags
  5. To ensure your font-size and line high are reader-friendly to people with poor eyesight.

Good CTA's practice

Call to action placement

Firstly most experts say your call to action should be "above the fold".

Because subscribers should see the call to action without scrolling down.

Secondly, CTA’s must be visible on all email clients.

Thirdly they should be built in HTML this helps to make a template reusable.

but also accessible, in my opinion, images are a big no as a button CTA.

Finally, the link must be working and open is a new window.

No code errors

Some email templates have accidental code errors.

I would recommend always fixing these this will help your emails render better on all email clients.

An email template purpose is to build many email campaign from, then re-use your email template for ongoing campaigns.

So having no code errors is really important and as an email developer.

I would spend at least an hour check over my code before passing it over to be peer-reviewed.

Pier reviews would contain a checklist to ensure all code is correct, then tested on email on acid or Litmus.

becarful of code errors

Personalization

No matter if it’s a first name or a full data populated email, this important part of your content preparation.

The more personal you make the content the better subscribers will engage with your emails.

Do not personalize your email if you’re not sure 100% sure your data is correct.

Unsubscribe Links

This is one of the most important elements to a marketing email, all marketing emails must have a unsubscribe link to comply with both GDPR and CAN-SPAN act.

You must also respect the wishes of your subscribers if they decided to remove themselves from your list.

Google Promotions

First of all Google Promotions is new / re-branded in 2019, also this makes email marketers think about Google Promotions with a separate set of preparations.

Another reason to optimize for Google newest feature is it basically a free version of Google snippets in SEO but for email marketing.

Furthermore, a reason to enable and put effort into this feature is that the new Google is allowing you free banner positions at the top of the Google promotion inbox folder.

Finally, it is really easy to implement, just use litmus new tool and use it at the top of your HTML.

A little note is this feature does not work 100% of the time due to the algorithm Google has set, but when it does work it can help open rates by an extra 5%.

Plain Text

Plain text is important because of people opt-in for this feature, so if you give a bad plain text the user could unsubscribe.

Due to this make sure all key information is in your plain text, including your unsubscribe link.

For the reason that I recommend putting effort into your plain text, treat it as a separate email, if you plain text is bad you could end up on spam filters.

To enable plain text in some email service providers you have to select the multi-part MIME option.

Multi-part MIME means a two-part email one that is defaulted to HTML the other plain text, remember some apple iWatches only read plain text.

So that a great reason to optimize your plain text for a growing market share.

First campaigns

Your first campaign ideally would be a welcome campaign, normally this would be set up to automation when your subscriber first joins your marketing list.

But if you do not have this do not worry, a good newsletter or roundup of what's new or fun or facts is a great place to start.

This Newsletter can or cannot contain offers it's really up to you, but try to make it have an impact or you could lose subscribers.

Try different techniques over your next few campaigns, your list is unique if you take the tip above and put your own personality into your newsletters they will perform well.

Your first campaign

Why you are emailing them

This question for me is not asked enough, many companies send emails because of it on their road map or in the schedule and don't really care about the effects.

In some company's it may work well, but personally and from experience sending any bad or old email will lead to complaints and unsubscribes.

In the long term affecting your list and the ability to monetize your emails in the future.

Weight up positive reaction VS negative reaction

Put yourself into the subscriber's shoe, would you like to receive 3 emails a day?

Well, I wouldn't, I think sending quality over quantity will always make a stronger list or database meaning you will have better engagement.

The right timing

Sending an email at the right time can impact on your email marketing, just think about it would you like to receive an email at 11:00 pm, would you engage with it?

I wound not but that does not mean your subscribers agree with me, so one of my best tips would be.

Test the time you send your emails to see what the open rates are like and click rates are

Then test again over your next 5 to 10 campaigns this can help you build a blueprint for your email marketing.An email open rate is the percentage of subscribers who opened your email vs the list size you sent to.

Open Rates – Are improved by great subject lines.

An email open is you tracking how many open your subscribers have made on that campaign via your email platform.

Open rate is the percentage of subscribers who opened your email vs the list size you sent to.

Clicks Rates – Are helped with amazingly clear CTA's

A click rate is the single click percentage the unique subscribe made if any.

The click rate is the unique clicks you got vs list size, this will normally be lower the open rates.

Both click and open rates need time to be fully gathered.

Or simply because people have not yet opened or clicked your email yet.

So give it at least 3 to 5 days before making any major decisions, well unless the results are amazing.

Bounce Rates

A bounce is when your email service provider tries to deliver the email lots of times.

but can deliver the email, meaning there is a problem with the email being received.

This would give you a bounce rate, this is common but ideally, your bounce rate should be 0%

If you have high bounce rates you should look into why this is.

Soft Bounce

Is where your subscriber's inbox is full or the email file size was too large.

Hard Bounce

Is where an invalid email address has tried to be delivered to and has failed many times?

Unsubscribe rates

An unsubscribe rate is the number of people unsubscribing VS the total list size you sent to.

Meaning the low this can be the better your email is performing.

Also if you're losing a lot of subscribers it will affect your open and click rates and your list size.