Introduction

What You'll Learn
In this lesson you'll learn not only about email content and templates, but the cooler aspect of mail marketing- The fundamentals of how to execute  a standard drip marketing campaign.

Why is This Important?
Email marketing can seem tedious and difficult compared to other online marketing platforms, but creating your own database of followers is marketing gold and a well executed Drip mail campaign  can make the difference between an actively engaged audience and a legion of prospects who’ve forgotten what you do.

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​If you have 10,000 emails but have no idea where each one came from or what they're interested in learning from you, you may have a nice shiny number of emails, but you have zero leads.

You should be able to look at every email and know:

1. From which page they signed up.
2. At what stage of the buyer journey they are in.
3. What they want to learn from you.

And you don't need complex software to accomplish this. Simply:

1. Lead magnets that have purpose.
2. A landing page for each lead magnet.
3. A separate list for each lead magnet.

Example:
You write a blog post about protein requirements. You link the blog page to a landing page that contains a protein cheat sheet.

That person signs up, receives cheat sheet and gets added to the protein cheat sheet list.
This person is in the Awareness stage and would NOT be receptive to an offer. But they would be receptive to more blog posts.

Then the same person reads a blog about a client success story and clicks a link that goes to your 10 Reasons to Hire a Trainer landing page.

This person is moved from the protein cheat sheet list to your 10 Reasons list and WOULD be receptive to an offer. Because they've asked for more reasons to hire a trainer. They're now in the Consideration stage.

Marketing with purpose.

Email Marketing is not for the faint of heart. Once you send out an email, there’s no going back. If you screw up, the best you can do is send one of those “I made a mistake” follow-up emails…

Embarrassing.

Now, I’m not going to spend time going over how to write an email. 

Instead, I’ll focus on some cooler concepts, like running a “drip campaign.” You’ll be on your way to becoming an email marketing expert by the time you finish reading. 

Step 1: Which Email Marketing Tool Is Best?

Now, I know what you’re about to say: “really?!? I’ve got to register an account with yet another 3rd party company?” Yes, you do, and you’ll thank me for it later. This might be a good time to invest in an online password storage facility like Lastpass, a great online tool for organising and keeping safe all your passwords.

Back to email marketing.

If you don’t want to sign up to an email client, you’ve got two other options.
1. You can either design an in-house system, where you’ll be held responsible for keeping a high deliverability rate and maintaining CAN-SPAM compliance.

2. You can use Gmail/Outlook, which isn’t meant for any sort of serious email marketing campaign.
Stick with the pros, trust me.

For email marketing noobs, I recommend Mail Chimp. It’s a great tool for any business, and if you keep your campaign under a certain size, its free. Mail Chimp also lets you separate your messaging efforts into groups once your marketing list and popularity grows.
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There are too many email marketing tools name, but the top three I usually recommend are:

• Mail Chimp
• Get Drip
• Aweber

You can do a trial with all three, so pick one and start from there.

Step 2: Create  a Branded Template

So you have decided to go for it. You have picked a mail-marketing tool to road test and now you want to get building your branded templates. This can be a fun time for you creating business stationary, watching the template come to life and look professional.

The ready made templates provided by your mail client, look serviceable, but they are a bit plain Jane. By signing up with a paid subscription service, you’ll have access to much more impressive templates. Prepared templates like these are fine in the beginning, but to enter the big leagues, you’ll need a custom branded template. 

Take some time and create a palette and brand-centric design for your marketing emails. Its ok if it’s not perfect, just make sure that it clearly relates to the content on your home page. Maybe it’ s an exact replica of the layout of your home page, maybe it’s as simple as a well-placed logo. The decision is up to you.
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Don’t muddle up your email with unnecessarily detail. Keep in mind that most people are going to be seeing your email for the first time on their smartphones, not a full sized screen. 

​Your email design should be easy to recognise, Have a great headline, easy to read and have the most important content up top. Don't make the mistake of adding a huge logo up top. They know it's you and they just want to read what you have to say.

Step 3: How to Set Up a Drip Campaign

​Not every lead in your main marketing list will want to buy your product or service the first time you contact them. It takes time to build a strong enough relationship that they’ll convert.  The first time you contact a lead they may not feel the timing is right, or they’ll feel the need for additional research, they might have even lost your email in a cluttered mailbox. To run a successful email marketing campaign, you need to stay in the forefront of your prospective client’s mind. This is where a “drip campaign” comes in.

A drip campaign is the process of sending a series of marketing emails to prospective client with the intent of pushing them closer and closer to converting. Once someone agrees to give you their email address, you can set up an autoresponder that will send them emails automatically.
There are a few ways to build leads for your drip campaign, including:

• An optional checkbox where people agree to receive a series of tips and expert insights when signing up for a free account for your online service/product. Keeping in touch with your new signups through email is a great way to build rapport, making it more likely for them to upgrade to your paid service, or purchase your product.
• Offer your visitor additional free content on a recurring basis when they register to receive your eBook or webinar.

Retain clients through drip campaigning
Drip campaigns aren’t just useful for converting new leads, they can help you keep the leads you’ve already converted. This is called customer retention, and the goal of this marketing tactic is maintaining a close relationship with your clients by consistently providing useful content and product/service updates.
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The benefit of getting people to opt in to your drip campaign is that you can be honest about the type of content you will be sending them, as well as the frequency. When you’re upfront about this information, the leads you generate will be very strong, after all, you’ve told them exactly what they’re signing up for and they’re still interested. ​

Tip: Drip interval timing

Customer retention
If the goal of your drip campaign is customer retention, there are a few options for determining the frequency of emails. It may be smart to send more frequent emails in the beginning in order to educate your client about your service. For example, you can ask them something like: “[customer name], sign up to receive our top 5 daily tips for using [name of your product or service].” Keeping your client engaged and interested in your company from the beginning is a great foundation for a long term business relationship.

​Prospecting new clients
If you’re looking to get new clients, it’s better to send emails less frequently. You want to stay relevant, but don’t overdo it or you’ll come off as pestering. Start out with a weekly email that’s packed with the kind of content people will want to read and share. 


Most email service providers have a drip (autoresponder) feature. Typically, they will be able to provide you with a sign-up form that you can place on your pages. Mail Chimp wrote an interesting article on the subject.

Step 4:  How to Segment Your List

Let's start at the beginning!
When you start out sending your mail marketing for the first time, you will undoubtedly want to head straight into a sales slogan like this one maybe..

“Sign up today and you’ll be on your way to a ripped, muscular physique!”

Nice call to action there, but what about all of your clients who are just trying to lose weight? You may have lost them!
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Segmenting your target audience is all about customizing your marketing message with language that’s relevant to each group. In the beginning, don’t worry about breaking down your email list into highly specific demographics. Instead, focus on some simple metrics.

Simple questions to ask to break the list down

1. Is this a brand new lead
2. Have they already purchased your product/service? 
3. Are they signed up for your free service?
4. Are they premium members? 
5. Are they male or female?

So when you start writing your copy you can think about how engaged are they already? If they have signed up to your Free content, mail list and e-book, chances are they are what we call a "warm lead" someone who is very interested in you and your services, so you can tailor your sales copy in the drip em-mails you will send.

You can get more specific as you collect more client data, but the important thing is that you are taking time to customize your message for different groups.

I recommend you check out this informative video by the folks at 3WeeksToLive. They go into more detail on how to segment your marketing email list. 

​Step 5: A/B Testing

If you’re lucky, your email service provider will have a feature allowing you to run A/B tests on your marketing emails. By comparing the results of different emails, you’ll get a better sense of the types of branding and trigger phrases your customers will respond to. Don’t get caught up trying to think of the perfect subject line for your emails, simplicity works best, and is better at avoiding spam filters. A/B testing will let you compare such email variables as:

• Best day of the week
• Best time of the day
• Best wording of your subject line
• Best “Sent From” name

​Mail Chimp has written an excellent article about A/B testing your emails that I highly recommend you check out.

Frequently Asked Questions

HOW MUCH MONEY WILL I NEED TO INVEST IN A MAIL MARKETING TOOL?
Online services, have heavy competition, so all companies will have some sort of trail, free account option or a very basic account option with limited functionality. So if you are not wanting to invest heavily in this area of your business, you could take a trail or free account option and play around and if your need more functionality, then upgrade in the future.

WHAT ARE THE EASIEST MAIL MARKETING TOOLS TO ACE?
These 3 email marketing software tools offer the smallest learning curve with user friendly functionality.

• Mailchimp
• Aweber
• Get Drip
• Infusionsoft
  

WHAT IS A DRIP MARKETING CAMPAIGN?
A drip campaign is the process of sending a series of marketing emails to prospective clients with the intent of pushing them closer and closer to converting (buying products and services).

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