Email Marketing: A Guide For WordPress Websites

Email is considered one of the most effective digital marketing tools today, and it should come as no surprise that a majority of B2B companies leverage the power of email marketing. In fact, 82% of B2B organisations use email marketing technology.

A major reason why email marketing is so popular among businesses is that using it is a straightforward process. You can send emails within minutes of downloading an email marketing service.

Read on to learn four things you need to do to start with email marketing on your WordPress website:

#1Choose The Right Email Service Provider (ESP)

There is no shortage of options for brands that want to capitalise on the benefits of email marketing. Whether you run a small B2B company or a Fortune 500 organisation, you can definitely find the ideal ESP for your brand.

If you run a WordPress website, one option is to use an email marketing service with a WordPress plugin. This way, you can easily integrate email marketing features into your website.

Here are some important features that your email marketing service should to have:

• Templates – With customisable and mobile-responsive email templates, you can easily create different types of emails depending on the campaign you’re running.
• Analytics – An ESP with an analytics dashboard gives you the ability to track and monitor your email performance in real time.
• Automation – This feature enables you to automate the sending of various emails, thereby removing the hassle of manually sending emails.
• Segmentation – Your ESP must have robust segmentation functions so that you can send targeted emails to each segment of your subscribers.

To improve the deliverability of your campaign you could also consider using an email verification service such as Email List Verify.

#2Create A Signup Form

Once you’ve chosen an ESP and installed the plugin on your website, the next step is to create signup forms that you can place on various pages of your website. Your website visitors will enter their names and email addresses, which will turn them into subscribers.

You can create a wide variety of form types such as:

• Slide-out – A floating tab that appears on the top or bottom corners of a visitor’s screen. When a website visitor clicks on this tab, the signup form slides out.
• Lightbox – This type of signup can appear on your webpage immediately after it loads, after a predetermined amount of time, or once your visitor scrolls down to a specific part of the page.
• Bar – From the name itself, this form appears as a bar on the top or bottom of your webpage.
• Button – Generally placed at the bottom of specific pages such as blog posts. This form only appears after a visitor clicks on the button.
• Embedded form – In contrast to a button, this type of form can be seen in its entirety at the bottom of a webpage.

#3Design Your Welcome Email

It’s finally time to craft your very first email campaign. As you’ll likely be getting lots of new subscribers from your signup forms, it’s logical that your first campaign is a welcome series.

Welcome emails make your subscribers feel valued at the onset of their journey; they also help drive revenue for your brand.

To craft an effective welcome email for your business, keep these tips in mind.

Reassure Your New Subscribers

As a B2B company, your subscribers are also business people that are looking for solutions to their problems. This is why it’s important to use your welcome email to reassure new subscribers that they made the right decision to be a part of your list.

Don’t make your welcome email seem like a sales pitch. Instead, highlight the value of your brand by telling your new subscriber how you can help solve their problems.

Make An Offer

Convince your new subscribers that you want to help them by including a compelling offer in your welcome email. You can offer a free download for an informative eBook or whitepaper or a free trial to use your service. If you don’t want to give something for free, you can offer them a significant discount on their first purchase with you.

Set The Right Expectations

To reduce unsubscribes, inform new subscribers of the schedule of your email sends, whether it’s weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly. As an alternative, you can let them decide how often they’d like to receive emails.

Deliver On Your Promises

It’s crucial that you do exactly what you say you will do. Don’t tell new subscribers that you will be sending them bi-weekly newsletters and then proceed to send them an email every day. Doing so will likely lead to unsubscribes and spam complaints, which won’t be good for your reputation.

#4Automate

Make sure that every new subscriber receives a welcome email in a timely manner by automating your welcome series. As a rule of thumb, the best time to send a welcome email is within 24 hours of a visitor subscribing to your email list.

Welcome emails aren’t the only emails you can automate. Here are some others:

• Events – Send automated emails for events such as free webinars or for when you have offers for free in-depth guides.
• Reminders – Send automated emails to remind clients that their free trial is expiring soon.
• Updates – Send automated emails that notify your clients of any important updates within your organisation, such as personnel movement.

Wrap Up

Integrating email marketing into your WordPress website may take some work, but the end result will be worth it. By using email marketing, you can grow your audience, deliver timely and relevant messages to your subscribers, drive traffic to your site via links in your emails, and boost your revenue.