Introduction How To Run A Successful Email Marketing Campaign

When I asked you to name an email Marketing instrument, what would you say? How To Run A Successful Email Marketing Campaign

MailChimp? Aweber? ActiveCampaign?

Like most online industries today, email advertising has been Dominated by the identical large players for the last ten years. Which means they get promoted very heavily and achieve a lot of mindshare.

Now and then, however, an Underdog disrupts the marketplace, causing long-time users to question their loyalties.

MailerLite has done precisely that.

So today, in this short article, I will be ripping MailerLite from limb To limb to see whether it stands its own ground against the big boys…

…and, more importantly, whether youshould consider making the change.

MailerLite Advantages

– Uses tag-based system (called Groups)

– Powerful Segmentation using rules

– Custom Fields for advanced email personalization

– Advanced Campaign types (auto-resend, A/B, etc.. )

– Simple to Utilize email builder/template editor

– Practical Email components for example countdowns and product boxes

– Intuitive Type, popup and landing page builder

– Supports Automations using visual workflows

– Offers Both readable and comprehensive reporting

– A Fraction of the cost compared to most other solutions

Click here to begin your free account of Mailerlite.

MailerLite Disadvantages

– Strict Approval process

– Few email Templates available

– Very few Form templates available

– Can’t Create mails without leaving the visual workflow builder

– No Support for site tracking How To Run A Successful Email Marketing Campaign

Sign-up Process

Like most email advertising providers these days, You’ll Need to Go through a review process before being able to properly use the software.

When you first sign up, you’ll be asked to finish your profile.

This includes information such as your organization name, site, Industry, address, business size, record size and even the kind of content you intend to send.

Then, You Have to confirm your Site (or domain ).

This remains part of the acceptance process, and MailerLite will Simply inquire which email is related to that domain so they could email you a verification link.

Once you’ve completed those Measures, you ought to wait it out.

The MailerLite staff will review your application, check your Site, and determine whether you’re a good fit for their services.

(In other words, they’re making sure you are not a spammer/scammer)

As shown above, you’ll nevertheless be Able to utilize the software to create campaigns and perform with the attributes, but you will not be able to send anything before approved.

I was”partially” approved within a few hours, which gave me a Temporary limit of 500 subscribers.

Here Is What the email said:

Annoying, sure.

But while these steps aren’t ideal for getting started, it Does help stop unscrupulous users from hurting everybody’s deliverability.

Campaigning

If you’re anything like me, you’ll rely upon automations to handle The majority of your email marketing.

(We’ll get to automations soon, do not worry.)

But whether it’s a new blog article, podcast, or timely Announcement, there is always a reason to send a more immediate email.

That is where’Campaigns’ come in.

Clicking the brand new’Create Campaign’ will give you several options.

– Regular campaign: A Conventional broadcast email.

– A/B split effort: Multiple email Versions, including subject line, from title and, yes, even content. (Woop!)

– Auto resend: Resend to subscribers who Don’t open your broadcast email, together with the option of changing the subject line and email articles.

– RSS effort: Create a recurring campaign That sends fresh content to subscribers using your site’s RSS feed.

Aside from a few additional choices, most of these will follow Exactly the exact same step-by-step process of a standard effort.

So let’s walk you through it.

As Soon as You click on to create your effort, you’ll be requested to Select a favorite editor, whether that’s the dragn’ drop, rich text or HTML.

You can switch to the Templates tab and choose from among the pre-designed email templates — that will move you to the dragn’ drop editor .

At the time of writing, there are 21 email templates to choose From which is a little on the low side, however, the designs are super modern.

And, of course, if you would just Prefer to reuse a previous email, you can click the’Recent Emails’ tab.

For this instance, I will choose the first template from the library.

The editor is easy to use, Making customizing these templates a 5-minute job.

You can also use the blocks in the sidebar to add different Types of content to your email, such as videos, merchandise columns, and social connections.

After making your adjustments, just click’Done Editing’ and you’ll Be carried to the recipients’ options where you are able to select your groups or sections.

The advanced tab also allows one To develop segment-like rules , in the event your targeting is not quite right.

Finally, before sending, then you’ll get to the’Program’ screen.

This is where you control when your broadcast email should go Out, if that is immediately, at a set time/date, or in accordance with your subscribers time zones.

Impressive, right? How To Run A Successful Email Marketing Campaign

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Managing Your Subscribers

Possessing granular control over your readers is arguably among The most essential aspects of any email marketing program now.

Why?

Because highly personalized campaigns Are Essential if You are looking to increase opens, clicks, and, above all, your own conversions.

And while most providers Permit You to”tag” subscribers in order To target them effectively, MailerLite utilizes a slightly different strategy.

When you start up your subscriber dash, you’ll notice two Options; Segments and Groups.

Segments are essentially rules.

Your readers belong to a segment only when they fulfill the Specified principles, and will be automatically added or eliminated so.

Here’s what setting up a rule looks like:

Notice the way you can even blend Rules, as well as an alternate rule if the first doesn’t exist.

Pretty smart, eh?

The next tab is for groups, and despite the difference in name, These act much like your usual”tagging” system.

(MailerLite even debated Changing the name to’Tags’, but ultimately decided against it.)

Unlike Segments, Groups are updated manually or via an Automation rule — which we’ll get to in a moment — and they have no value besides what you actually call them.

As you Begin to use this platform, you’ll Start to understand At which Segments and Groups are typically used, but MailerLite delivers a hand in case you’re uncertain:

Basically, groups are much more of a Deliberate action on a per-subscriber basis, whereas Segments allow you to bulge multiple subscribers together according to a common denominator.

Somewhat confusing, I’ll admit… but I feel it’s a fair trade-off For the additional flexibility. Besides, they’re optional.

Last, the’Fields’ tab is used to personalize your email copy.

You will notice that MailerLite has Already populated this region with their particular areas, such as title, company, and nation.

If You Would like to create your own custom fields, you can do this by Clicking on the’Add new field’ button.

So how do they actually work?

You can either upload a CSV record of your subscribers together with Your custom field information in distinct columns… or may simply add these fields to a forms which will only apply to future subscribers.

Here’s a screenshot of a test area I made and added into a form:

I won’t go too much into the form Stuff here because I have a whole section on that below, but this is the approach I would recommend if you wished to use this attribute.

Again, once you’ve gathered your custom field information from new Readers, you are able to pull them in to your email content and subject line.

Just click on the’Personalization’ drop down and select your Customized field.

I am barely scratching the surface Of what is possible with custom fields, but it is important to know this is a feature you can use.

Overall, it’s reasonable to state MailerLite has their subscriber Direction and personalization features on point. How To Run A Successful Email Marketing Campaign

Landing pages.

If you are not impressed with what you have seen so far, then maybe The webpage builder will tickle your fancy.

After selecting’Landing Pages’ in the forms page, you’ll be Able to pick from 8 pre-designed templates.

Again, while the template choice Isn’t winning any awards, but it will offer a fantastic foundation to work from if, like the majority people, you do not have that pure eye for design.

I went ahead and chosen the’Lead Generation’ template, though They all finally do the identical task; accumulate an email address.

This time, the editor will Provide you 17 building blocks to Further build or change your landing page.

Now, I’ve used my fair share of Visual page builders, and it is better than some dedicated solutions *Infection * WPBakery.

Together with the fundamental building blocks, you can use elements like Hero sections, popup buttons, reviews and countdown timers.

It will not be replacing landing Page builders such as Thrive Architect or even LeadPagesanytime shortly, but credit where credit due, this thing over-delivers on all 3 kind types.

Form Builder Tool

Unlike some email advertising tools, MailerLite really Provides a Decent pair of form building tools.

Also, but you can also create popups and landing pages Through this same interface, so there’s a lot to cover .

Let’s begin with your Bog-standard embedded form.

These forms are created inside MailerLite in order to get An embed code, which you can then place on your site to show it on specific pages.

Despite starting off super fundamental, the form designer allows you To customize everything from the form style, subjects, background, name, input fields and, of course, the button.

Form text can also be edited directly, which gives you a Opportunity To visualize your copy in real time.

It would have been nice to have Some templates, but as you know, there’s more to some form than simply its physical appearance.

Clicking the’Settings’ tab will allow you to configure how the Form works, including adding extra fields and setting a custom success page.

(There’s a GDPR compliance alternative. Sweet.)

And talking of the success page…

…MailerLite also enables you to customize the default message, Which can replace the embedded kind also prevents users from redirecting.

Last but surely not least, you Can assess the way your form screens on mobile by switching the toggle to reactive mode.

You won’t Have the Ability to make any design changes , but it makes Sense to test, nevertheless.

So that is an overview of the Embedded form but as I said before, you may also create popup forms in MailerLite.

While the majority of the setup Procedure is identical, you will find Still a few differences I’d love to point out.

Unlike embedded kinds, you can choose between a set of Templates:

While this isn’t the most In depth selection, they do offer a good foundation to work from and the editor is at least as easy to use for this form type.

Clicking the’E-commerce’ template takes me into a preview Before moving into the editor.

Here, you’ll notice there are a few new choices under form types This time around:

Contemplating paid tools like Thrive Leads exist for ribbons and slide-in forms, it is pretty impressive to observe this amount of control over popup types.

And, as before, you can perform the styling options to get it Matched up with your branding.

Finally, you can Select the close Behaviour of your type under the’Settings’ tab.

The default option is that the X icon, but you can swap out this for A”No thanks” text choice, or have .

This is where most email Marketing platforms will leave you, but MailerLite has yet another trick up its sleeve.

Click here to sign up your free account of Mailerlite.

Reporting & Analytics

Like most tools, you’ll find a summary of your campaign Data in the dashboard.

Here you’ll see everything from effort open and click info, Subscriber development, automation analytics, and form signups.

Clicking into any campaign will Give you specific reporting for this campaign.

This is where you’ll discover a few statistics such as Unsubscribes, spam complaints, bounces, studying environment, email client and more.

This should be plenty of Information for the average user…

…but in Case You really want To dig into the numbers, it is possible to click into different areas of the report for a more comprehensive breakdown.

You can find some real gems under These reports.

For example, the’View Email’ tab also displays a click map, so It’s possible to see your subscribers interacted to one another.

Reports for automations are also Available under the’Automations’ tab, even although I found these to be less insightful than effort reports.

Here’s a quick example:

Total, MailerLite does a Stellar job with their reporting interface, and most will find the available data more than enough to fulfill their demands.

Email Automation

What is email marketing without a dash of automation?

For many reading this, MailerLite’s automation capabilities Could easily make or break this review.

The good news? If you have used a visual workflow builder, then You’ll immediately feel at home here…

Much like the rest of MailerLite, The automations interface is simple, clean and easy to navigate — something that certainly can not be said for each and every email advertising program.

After establishing your trigger, you can begin adding steps to your workflow.

These measures can be anything from sending an email, including a Postpone, a conditional split, or an act, such as moving a contributor or updating their records.

Here’s a straightforward workflow I set together, where readers Are unsubscribed if they don’t open my email within seven days.

There are innumerable Possibilities when it comes to workflow automations like this, and MailerLite ought to have no trouble with the vast majority of use cases.

Granted, it is not quite as Feature-rich as something like ActiveCampaign because it lacks a number of the conditional elements. (Split, Visit, Goal, etc.)

For Instance, there’s currently no automation for transferring Readers directly into another automation.

That being said, most of these actions can Nevertheless Be achieved by moving Subscribers into different groups that activate new automation workflows. It is just not as effective…. yet.

Another question of efficacy here is when generating new mails From the automation workflow builder.

After having an email cube to The workflow, you will be asked to put in your subject line that then appears on the block itself.

From there, clicking the’Design email’ button will fire up the Writer:

Now, you’ll be briefly Redirected to the typical campaign creation wizard, which I covered previously in the critique.

This time, however, once you’ve created your email, clicking the ‘Done editing’ button will guide you straight back to the automations workflow instead of the usual sending alternatives.

Finally, your email will probably be Loaded into your automation.

A Wonderful touch here is using a thumbnail preview of your Email inside your automation block, which means it’s possible to get an concept of what it contains at a glance.

While this procedure may seem like A grind on newspaper, it’s really much faster than what I am used to with other email advertising tools — ActiveCampaign being a great example.

On the other hand, if you’ve come over from something such as ConvertKit where The editor is loaded within the automations builder, you’ll likely find this a downgrade in performance.

It is quick enough for me, Personally, however I guess it’s all relative.

Before I wrap up this segment, there’s one type of automation You won’t find in MailerLite, and that I think that it’s very important to highlight.

Site tracking.

The ability to activate an automation (or measure ) based on how Subscribers interact with the webpages on your website.

This kind of behavioral targeting only isn’t accessible MailerLite at this time, so if it’s something you use or plan to use, you may want to skip this one. How To Run A Successful Email Marketing Campaign

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Pricing

The cost of MailerLite is among those tools largest Selling points, and let us face it, we all love a good bargain.

For starters, they offer an unlimited free plan that includes All features (including premium) for as many as 1,000 subscribers.

While There’s some subtle Branding on your emails using this plan, it’s still an amazing option for anyone starting out.

And what about the top plans?

It turns out, at approximately half the Price of this rivalry on average, MailerLite is undoubtedly among the least expensive options available on the market. Plus, if you are willing to pay yearly, you are also able to get a much better discount.

In Reality, I haven’t been able to locate anything that does exactly the Exact Same job, cheaper.

Conclusion

MailerLite is among those few email marketing tools to interrupt The (very crowded) sector in recent decades, and that’s no simple feat.

While it is not as quickly as ConvertKit, or as feature-rich As ActiveCampaign, or as template-heavy as MailChimp, it works exceptionally well at just about anything you can throw at it.

I find MailerLite strikes the perfect balance Between flexibility, speed and simplicity, and at a price point you will seriously struggle to conquer.

Thinking of giving it a spin? Let us know how it works for you From the comments. How To Run A Successful Email Marketing Campaign

Click here to sign up your free account of Mailerlite.