Our Email Marketing Plan – From Creation to Implementation
Having trouble implementing your email marketing plan? Join me and find out how to create a great plan that’s simple and easy to implement!
Quick Links:
- TIP: How to create an effective email marketing plan [Infographic Download]
- Episode Overview – Email Marketing Strategies | My Email Marketing Process
- Personal Note from Jenn Neal on an Effective Email Marketing Plan
- Episode audio [Podcast on Spotify]
- Blog Post – Our Email Marketing Plan – From Creation to Implementation
- Related Posts
TIP: How to create an effective email marketing plan
Time needed: 5 minutes
TIP: Steps to create an email marketing plan using repurposed content
- Select an action item
opt in or sale, etc.
- Video
record a video walking through the promotional material and what you want to highlight
- Outsource
send the video to a writer and request an email designed to acknowledge the action and tee up the welcome series (what to expect)
- CTA
include the CTA for the first email to be a reply back. This improves email delivery rates.
- Track
watch your metrics to make sure your open rate is at least 20% or higher
What’s In This Episode
Executing an email marketing plan can be much more difficult than creating the plan. And if implementation of your plan is not done correctly, you won’t get the right results for your business. That’s why I’m sharing inside scoop on how we actually write and execute our email marketing plan here at Formula Done.
Jenn Neal on an Effective Email Marketing Plan
Executing an email marketing strategy is a lot more difficult than creating a plan. Two of the best ways to get people to open your emails is by letting them know what to expect and responding to their needs immediately.
-Jenn Neal
Our Email Marketing Plan – From Creation to Implementation
Do you ever feel like you’re sending out emails for absolutely no rhyme or reason? You’re checking your deliverability rate and seeing the number is discouraging. Not to mention, you’re not seeing the conversions you should be seeing. Well, don’t let it get you too down! Your email marketing plan may be great, but if you’re not implementing it properly, your efforts are null and void. That’s why I’m here to help.
Creating an effective email marketing plan is much easier than actually executing it. And let me tell you, there are a million and one ways that you can create a good email marketing plan. (Trust me, I googled it and you wouldn’t believe the amount of content on creating a plan!) But, creating the plan is not the problem. The problem is the implementation and follow through. What do you need to be able to implement your plan? A great strategy of course! So, I’m going to share with you how to create a plan that’s easy to follow and implement! Let’s jump in!
Email Marketing Plan Basics
While everyone’s tactics are a little bit different, they all have one thing in common. Having your content seen. The goal is to get what’s in your head into your emails in a way that’s engaging and ultimately creates conversions. But, how do you do this effectively?
First off, I like to ensure that no matter what kind of content is being sent out into the world, that once someone makes a move, I am always giving something back to them. It doesn’t matter if they’re interacting with a newsletter, an opt in, or a sales page. Someone in your audience is making a move, and you need to grab their attention and hold onto it!
You want to ensure that not only is your audience seeing YOUR content but that they in turn feel seen. If your prospects are taking action and interacting with you, you should be giving them some type of guidance or information back right away. Think of it like planting a seed – the more you water it, the more it will grow. If it’s neglected, it will die – just like your prospects’ curiosity if they’re left hanging. This is where the bridge email comes in handy!
The Bridge Email
There are several different ways you can grab the attention of your new prospect. The first way is by sending what I like to call a Bridge Email.
Someone just opted into your email list, or signed up for a free product. You’re on their radar and that’s where you want to stay! The bridge email is a very simple email that is going to acknowledge their action by thanking them for interacting with you, and giving them their next steps.
It is also going to be sent with a very simple call to action – a reply to the email simply asking your prospect to let you know that they’ve received your message! If you can get your prospect to engage right away, this is going to drive your deliverability rates up across the board. And let me tell you, with the amount of people that are using email marketing now, deliverability rates are much lower than before. You want to be part of the 19.8% of emails that are delivered into someone’s inbox and opened!
If a prospect has come into your pipeline because of an opt in or free gift, that open rate is MUCH higher. And honestly, you’d be surprised how many people will actually respond to your simple call to action! Once they do, be sure you let them know what comes next – your welcome series!
The Welcome Sequence
Okay, let’s recap a little bit. So, you want your email marketing plan to be effective and help you make conversions. Your first prospect has come down the pipeline, and they’ve received your “bridge email”. They’ve replied back saying that they received your email. You’re replying and giving them their next steps.
This is where your welcome sequence, also known as a story arc, comes into play! When you reply to give the customer their next steps, you’ll let them know that they’ll be receiving a few more emails than regular over the next couple of weeks or so, but to not be alarmed – it’s not forever. Now, your welcome sequence starts.
In the series of emails, you will be giving your clients more information on who you are, what your company is all about, acknowledging their pain points and proving to them that you have the solution they’re seeking. You want them to know that you understand their struggle and are the best person to help them solve their problem. This helps you form a genuine connection with them. After your welcome sequence is over, they’ll move into your next sequence that most people refer to as the nurture sequence, where they will only receive your newsletters and promos.
All this sounds like a great plan, right? Like I said earlier. The planning part isn’t the hard part. It’s the implementation that’s the problem! So how can we make all of this work without messing it up?
Implementing Your Email Marketing Plan
I’m pretty sure if you’ve read some of our other blogs or watched The Content Toolbox (and if you haven’t, what are you waiting for?! Seriously, click this link and check it out! You won’t regret it! And don’t forget to hit the little bell to get notifications every time we drop a new episode!) here at Formula Done, we like to create ways to make your life easier! So why not make your implementation of your email marketing plan easier?
Okay, so I’m possibly the biggest bottleneck in my company, but I know I’m not alone in this. In order to get the implementation right, I rely on my team to help me out! (And let me be real. When I first started out under my old company name Kane and Associates – which you can find out more about in our rebranding episode – my associates were my cats. They were my team at that point. Formula Done has come a LONG way!)
The Implementation Process
In order to implement our email marketing plan effectively, I like to first look at how our prospects are coming into the pipeline. Is it an opt in, a freebie, a new product? So I take this information, sit down and record a loom video of everything I want to highlight for this pipeline. And, once I have that down, I get it over to a writer. (If you don’t have a copy writer on your team, don’t fret! Check out the video of this episode to find out how to doctor this! Just scroll up and click play!) When the copy comes back, I sit down with my team and make sure we are happy with it. We definitely want to ensure that these emails are written in the voice of Formula Done, not someone else’s voice.
If everything looks good in the review, I let my team take over. The copy is all sent over to my automation team. They’re able to plug everything into our company templates and set up the tags and tracking. Then comes testing time. This is huge, because you want to make sure that your new prospects are not receiving the welcome emails multiple times. After it’s all set up, you’re able to keep track of your deliverability and open rates.
Finding Out MORE!
This was all a LOT to take in, am I right? I know that at the moment, it feels like it may be impossible. Not the planning, but the implementation of it all. But, don’t let it stress you out! It’s a lot easier than it sounds. To find out our implementation process more in detail, click play up above and watch (or just listen to the episode up above on Spotify!) the entire episode on our YouTube channel. And while you’re there, feel free to check out more amazing episodes of The Content Toolbox, click the like and subscribe buttons, and don’t forget to hit the little bell to get notifications. Trust me, you don’t want to miss another episode!!
Related Posts
How to create an effective email marketing strategy? (Step-By-Step Guide)
How to Create an Email Marketing Plan (That You’ll Actually Stick To)
How to Plan Your Email Marketing Strategy for 2022
Creating a Successful Email Nurture Campaign
What are some email marketing strategies that have worked for you?
