Setting up an email marketing system for your current business or establishing an email marketing business costs money. However, the cost is determined by a variety of factors.
You may employ a marketing company to put up a complete system for you in exchange for a monthly charge, or you can create your own from scratch. Either way, you will have to figure out which way is more affordable and delivers the expected results.
For this article, we will focus on starting your own email marketing system for your business. Setting up a successful email marketing system will consist of several parts, and each one will involve a monetary and time investment to be successful. However, the two primary parts of any email marketing system are the subscriber list and emailing system.
The associated cost of setting up an email marketing system is determined by the methods you use to build your email subscriber list and the cost of setting up the mailing system you’ll employ for your campaigns. For this article, we will discuss what you can expect to pay for setting up a successful email marketing system.
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Email Subscriber List
To have a successful Email Marketing System, you have to first have people send out your emails. So, that means you have to build a list of email subscribers and regularly send out your emails to them.
The larger the subscriber list that you build, the more likely you will be successful. The better you attracting the right people to join your subscriber list, the more likely you will be able to convert them into sales leads.
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Top 5 Ways to Drive up a Subscriber List
The exact cost of building a large subscriber list can vary from just as little as $10-20 to get started. Also, with $100+, you can pay for webpage designs and setups. You can, however, get away with not spending any money by using all of the available free services that you can find on the Internet.
- Create a very compelling offer page
The more interesting visitors find your page that you put your opt-in form, the more likely they will fill out the form and become a subscriber to your email list.
This is also how you pre-qualify everyone that comes to your landing page. If they take the time to fill out the form, you should recognize that they will expect some value in return.
- Make it easier to sign up for your subscription
The simpler you make it for the visitor to figure that opt-in form, the better. It is also a good idea to refine your landing pages to be very focused.
In keeping everything simple, use a short opt-in form that contains only a couple of needed responses (name and email address is all that you really need). However, sometimes you may only want to have only a single box for collecting the email address.
- Consider using a QR code to encourage signup
Today’s marketers have tons of tools in their Internet Marketing toolbox. These tools help to make things much easier to become a successful marketer.
Some of these tools can be used by email marketers as well. One of those tools is the QR code (short for Quick Response Code). These are uniquely designed barcodes that can be scanned by using a cellphone or tablet webcam.
The QR code is programmed to take you directly to a specific webpage. So, for example, as an email marketer, you can program the QR code to take the person directly to your opt-in page so that the person scanning the QR code will immediately go to your page.
- Take advantage of social media posting
Social media is one of the best ways to reach your broadest area of prospects. You can take advantage of the coverage of every post that you send out. This will help you maximize the potential for getting new subscribers. It is also a good way to pre-qualify them as they sign up to better improve your email open rates and possibly bump up your click-through rate as well.
- Take advantage of email snippets if available
As an email marketer, you want to take advantage of every opportunity to increase your open rates as much as possible. This is an important aspect of today’s email clients like Outlook (Microsoft) and Gmail (Google).
There is a Preview feature, which allows you to see a bit more of the email beyond the initial subject line. You can use that little extra space to encourage your subscribers to read your posts.
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Email Marketing Mailing System
The real money is in setting up a fantastic email marketing system that will handle all of your email campaign needs. However, there are various levels of services available on the Internet. The price range varies depending on all the features and whether they offer a lot of bells and whistles.
The pricing can range from free to 100 dollars per month, and you will need to do your due diligence to find the best one for your circumstances.
4 Things to Consider When Setting up Your First Email Marketing Mailing System
- Time to create your email campaigns
Creating excellent quality email campaigns is very important, and you need to be sure that you can put in the time to create persuasive emails, subject lines. If you don’t have the time to do it, find a person you can hire to accomplish all that you cannot do.
- Does the system include ready access to analytics and optimization?
Being able to look at the data collected by your email system is very important? This will help you figure out what is working and what may not be working quite so well. It can also help you optimize your campaigns by analyzing the data.
- Does it offer a robust customer service and support system?
Any good email mailing service is going to have a customer and technical service center. So be sure that the service you choose has very robust customer and technical support before you sign up.
- Automation
Being able to schedule email campaigns can really help you increase the number of contacts you make with your subscribers. This is one of the biggest benefits of using an email emailing system. They are filled with several tools that are designed to help boost your business. Most of these services allow you to create and schedule automatic email campaigns that you don’t have to do anything extra with them.