Get The Best Results From Email Marketing For Your Courses

Email Marketing is one of the most popular forms of digital marketing. However, the question is, is it still that efficient, and what is exactly email marketing?  
 

Well, in this article, we will cover nearly everything related to email marketing, starting with the definitions and ending with tips on how to build an email list.   
 

So, if you are ready, let’s start!   
 

What is email marketing?

Basically, email marketing is a form of digital marketing where people use email campaigns as part of their marketing strategy. With a successful email marketing strategy, you will need to create multiple campaigns that are aimed at informing customers from your email list about the newly available products, discounts, etc. 

You can also learn how to choose an outsourcing agency to get these tasks done more professionally.

Main Elements 

• The email List - this is one of the key components of successful email marketing. If you have a quality email list, then the chances of having high conversion rates will automatically increase. 
• Content & Visuals 
• Optimization & personalization
• Strategy   
   

Email Marketing aims to draw attention, create interest then desire, and transfer it all into action. 

Does email marketing still work?

According to statistics, the return-on-investment rate of email marketing is currently 4400%. Roughly calculated, it gives a $44 return on every $1 spent. Therefore, YES, email marketing absolutely does work. However, the overall performance depends on the industry and the quality of the campaign.   
 

For course creators, email marketing is one of the most powerful ways of online marketing, and it gives an incredible opportunity to stay in touch with past clients as well as turn prospects into real-time clients. 

Benefits of Email Marketing 

• Helps you to stay in touch and increase the number of returning customers 
• Positively affects the conversion rates increasing the chances of turning a prospect into a real-time client 
• Makes the user’s experience with the brand (you) more personalized 
• Cost-effective & High ROI rates
• High-quality customer base   
   

So, with email marketing, you will increase sales of the products/services, communicate with the audience, and, most importantly, reach the right people at the right time. It will be great if you also give value to your emails and protect them with dmarc report.

What is the goal of email marketing for course creators?

Why, as a course creator, would you even need email marketing when plenty of other forms of digital marketing are available? Well, your goal is to increase sales, right? And as far as you can recall from the paragraph above, email marketing has one of the highest rates of return on investment.   
 

Let’s take a look at everything point by point; what is the ultimate goal of email marketing for a course creator?   
 

• Inform. If you want to inform your customer base in a more detailed and precise manner about the upcoming products or holiday discounts, an email campaign is the best way to do so. 
• Create interest and attract more clients. Another goal can be to attract more clients. With a good marketing strategy, you will be able to increase product/service awareness and create a buzz around it. 
• Engagement. One of the most common goals of email marketing is the audience’s engagement. In order to encourage the customer to read your email, make it personal, add graphics and images, even interactive elements, and never forget about the Call-to-action button. 
• Convert. Another quite essential goal of email marketing which I have already mentioned is conversion. Your ultimate goal is to convert prospects to clients to make sales and profit. 

5 tips for building an email list

Now, let’s take a look at the practical part. 

Tip 1 - Offer free content 

If you want to motivate people to take action, then offer something in return. For example, you can have an e-book guide on “How to gain more followers on Twitter” and provide the guide to those who fill out a short form that includes the fields “Name” and “Email.” This way, you get a new lead, and they get the desired guide.   
 

However, make sure the content you give away is connected to your business. E.g., As an online dating coach, the high-quality lead for your business would be the one interested in dating. And, if you give away a guide on how to Read Quicker, that would not generate leads interested in your topic. Also, remember that the content you give away should be accurate, reliable, and valuable. 

Tip 2 - Use Pop-ups & Chats 

Whether you use a chatbot that will assist your clients in taking specific actions on your website or popups offering a free product bot will generate new leads. Just make sure to put the required fields of Name and Email.   
 

So, when a customer wants to contact your support team through chatbot, they will have to provide their information and then can get the answer to the concerning questions. 

Tip 3 - Use CTA’s

Assume you are building an email list from scratch. You can use CTA’s on various pages of your website or under multiple posts. However, avoid the words “Sign up” or “Subscribe,” as those are automatically associated with junk emails. Instead, use words and phrases such as “Download” and “Get started.”  

Tip 4 - Use Landing Pages

It is unbelievable how landing pages increase the number of leads generated for companies. Therefore, use this and create multiple landing pages conducting A/B testing. Make sure to have differences in each in terms of colors and text to analyze the final results and understand which works best for further strategy building.   
 

Plus, if you use various landing pages for different segments of your audience, you will raise the chances of getting new leads. Why? Because people in your target audience still do have different interests, income levels, and other demographics, therefore make sure to segment them and target them right to convert efficiently. 

Tip 5 - Put CTA on the About Us Page

Regarding conversion potential, one of the most powerful pages of your website is the About Us page. Therefore, make sure to include a CTA over there as well. 

Tips for growing an email list 

However, besides building the list, you must constantly work on its growth. And here are some tips from Forbes on how to do that:

• Create targeted email lists. Suppose you want to grow your email list, segment the one you already have. Segment it by age, location, interest, and income levels because all of these affect the final choice of the product. 
• Convert Vital content to Gated content. You already give away good information for free on your blog or with e-books, right? Then, now it is time to restrict the content and allow users to read the full version only if they provide their names and email. This won’t take too much time or effort from them (therefore, it won’t discourage them). However, it will greatly benefit you. 
• Give them an extra push. Offer something in return for their subscription to your email list. 

7 steps to do an effective email marketing for your course

Effective email marketing includes lots of steps that you must take, and we outlined the major must ones.

Step 1 - Build an Email list

First things first, before you start marketing your course, you need to have an audience to market it to. Therefore, the very first step is all about building an email list. We have already mentioned a few tips on doing this above. Now let’s take a look at the must-take steps:

• Choose an email marketing provider/platform. You can also choose an all-in-one platform such as Uteach that allows you to build a full-featured e-learning platform and perform all the actions, including course sales and marketing, from one place. 
• Set up an email marketing account from which all the emails will be sent so as not to use personal ones for work. 
• Import the contact lists you already have. 
• Create landing pages to generate leads
• Provide gated and free content in return for users to fill out the form with their Name and Email (maybe other additional information if needed) 
• Choose a ready-to-use template to customize the email that you are about to send or build a new one using drag & drop editors. 
• Write down the content and set up a signature. 
• Include the call-to-action button.  
   

Step 2 - Know your audience 

If you want your strategy and campaign to work out, then you need to know who you are working with. Knowing your audience is the first step toward building a successful promotional strategy. Marketing is all about offering the right product at the right time. Therefore, study your niche for market research and segment your target audience. 

How to identify your audience?

• Conduct interviews with focus groups 
• Validate ideas & research forums 
• Collect customer data, including their hobbies and interests
• Conduct occasional surveys 
• Analyze your customer base 
• Analyze competitors 
• Create buyer personas  

Step 3 - Define the goal of the campaign

If you do not have a goal in mind, forget about the successful campaign. Also, keep in mind that your goals should be SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-specific). For example, if you are a start-up, then the goal to generate a million sales in a week is not, especially if we take into account today’s competition.   
 

A good example of a smart goal for an email campaign  can be:

“In a matter of a week, convert more than 30% of the leads in the campaign to customers”. 

Step 4 - Choose the relevant email list 

Assume you have already built an email list, segmented it, and know your audience perfectly well, then no, it is time for the campaign itself. If you want your campaign to give the best results expected, then one of the essential steps is to choose the relevant email list. 

Step 5 - Design 

While creating an email newsletter, ensure it fits your brand’s overall style. A good email must be:

• Branded so that when your subscribers see it, they associate it with your brand (e.g., add labels, logos, etc.)
• Have enough white space between the graphics and texts so that it is readable 
• Have the right color palette that communicates the message of your brand   
   

Also, make sure the template is responsive to various screen sizes. 

Step 6 - Follow-ups

Never forget about the follow-ups. It is important to have a call-to-action; at the same time, it is vital to send follow-up emails. Follow-ups will help you to remind customers about your offer or potentially increase the chances of turning “no” or “maybe” into a “yes.”   
 

One example of a follow-up email can be the “Urgency” one. E.g., if you sent a discount coupon before that, but the customer still did not use it, then create a sense of urgency by sending a follow-up email informing them that the time is limited. This will create a fear of missing out and positively affect the level of sales. 

Step 7 - Constant work on the growth 

Finally, the last step. Your last step is all about growth. Even if you did everything mentioned above at some point, you would need to evaluate and update your overall strategy alongside the email list. Here are some methods to grow your email list:  
 

• Use lead magnets such as e-books, audiobooks, and other forms of gated content 
• Create multiple forms, surveys, and pop-ups 
• Run lead ads that will redirect the user to a specific landing page designed to inform and convert   
   

Also, in order to grow, you have to analyze and evaluate the performance of the campaigns and overall strategy throughout the time. Therefore, keep an eye on metrics and reports, evaluate the results and take into consideration every little detail while building a new strategy. Consider using other strategies in your campaign as well, including SMS marketing, as using different tools simultaneously will enhance your reach and engagement. Also, something helpful would be to perform A/B testing.

How to measure email campaign effectiveness?

The E-learning industry continues to expand, and the competition grows. Even if these steps and strategies work today, you will have to come up with entirely new ones in approximately a year. The best way to develop an effective email marketing strategy is to measure the campaign’s effectiveness. How to do that? Let’s take a look at the main methods. 

Method 1 - Check out the bounce rates

The bounce rate is the rate that showcases the percentage of the users who visited your landing page but left immediately without taking any further action. Bounce rates will show you how effective your strategy is and whether or not your email campaign and landing page together are able to convert prospects to clients.  Each follow-up email can have adifferent bounce rate, so consider all your emails' bounce rates. 

Method 2 - Check the website traffic rates

If you take a look at the website’s analytics, it will show what percentage of the traffic comes from what, including how much comes from email marketing. If the results are higher than the previous round, then you are doing good. Meanwhile, if they are lower, then you need further analysis of the weak points of the email campaign. 

Method 3 - Evaluate conversion rates

The main goal of an email campaign is to convert leads to customers, so one of the most vital measurements to check out is the campaign’s conversion rate. Many email marketing software platforms have Analytics & reports where they display those rates. So, make sure to check out the conversion rate in order to comprehend what aspects of the next campaign must be improved. 

Will you use email marketing?

We definitely recommend you use email marketing as part of your overall digital marketing strategy. Email marketing remains one of the most efficient ways to market products/services and online courses.

Exceptionally well, it will work for you as an online course creator, because students are used to constantly keeping in touch with professors and coaches through emails. It is one of the most professional communication tools. 

However, if you want to manage everything from one place, then you also need to choose the right platform. We highly recommend Uteach - as it is a full-featured website builder that also offers enough features for course marketing. With Uteach, you can create a website in less than two minutes, customize everything, create new pages, publish courses and other materials, and even open a blog.  
 

Uteach also offers you a user-friendly dashboard through which you have control over every aspect of your website, including live sessions, payments, marketing, and appearance. Uteach offers Marketing features and integrations such as SEO, Google Analytics, MailChimp, etc.

So, if you want to save your time and have complete control over every aspect of your website and marketing from one place, then Uteach is the best option for you! 

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