How To Start Email Marketing - Guide

Author: Sondos Yasser.

Email marketing is one of the most effective digital marketing strategies for building, maintaining, and nurturing relationships with your audience and leads. It allows you to send different types of email campaigns to your list to promote your service or product.

Do you need this strategy? Absolutely!

Not all businesses use email marketing, but most businesses definitely need it! Imagine expanding your channels and building a large list that could significantly boost your revenue. According to the State of Email Report from Litmus, 41% of marketers say email marketing is their most effective channel.

You may have a great product, but if no one knows about it, how are you going to sell it? Email marketing allows you to customize your message for different audiences, drive more traffic to your website, keep your customer database engaged, and increase brand recognition.

In this blog, I’ll walk you through the essential steps to start email marketing for your business or personal brand. Every point I mention will cover the basic information you need to know. Further research may be required, as this guide is designed to serve as a mind map, a starting point for planning and thinking about your email marketing strategy.

Starting Email Marketing

To get started with email marketing, you’ll need to understand the basics and best practices, have your own domain name, use an Email Service Provider (ESP), and start building a list of subscribers.

Let’s go through each of these steps.

Email Marketing Basics:

What Do You Need to Plan?

When starting with email marketing, you’ll need to plan several key elements:

• Who your target audience are?
• How you’re going to acquire customer emails (we’ll go deeper into this soon)?
• What segmentation strategies you’ll use?
• The types of emails you’ll send?
• The automation flows you’ll create?

Automation flows are sequences of emails that are sent automatically based on specific triggers—like a welcome flow, where a subscriber receives a series of emails over a set period after signing up.

Simple Email Marketing Operation

BUILD YOUR LIST → SEND EMAILS → ANALYZE → OPTIMIZE → REPEAT

CAN-SPAM Act (U.S. Law)

The CAN-SPAM Act is a U.S. law that sets rules for commercial emails. It requires you to:

• Use honest subject lines and sender details.
• Clearly identify the message as an advertisement.
• Include your physical address.
• Provide an easy way to unsubscribe.
• Honor opt-out requests promptly.
• Ensure any third-party services you use also comply.

Violating the CAN-SPAM Act can result in substantial fines per email.

Also, research DMARC, SPF, and BIMI to authenticate your domain and improve deliverability.

Email Marketing Metrics

Sending emails alone isn’t enough—you need to analyze your performance and optimize as you go. Early results might not be great, and that’s okay. Stay consistent, provide value, and build trust over time.

Here are the key metrics to track:

Deliverability Rate

Measures whether your email actually reached the recipient’s inbox. This is your first gate to pass—higher deliverability means a better chance of hitting the inbox.

Affected by:

• Sender reputation.
• Domain setup.
• Authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC).

According to EmailToolTester:

• Below 80% = Poor

• Over 89% = Good

• Over 95% = Excellent

Open Rate

The percentage of recipients who opened your email.
Focus on:

• Compelling subject lines

• Strong preview text

• Sender reputation

Click-Through Rate (CTR)

The percentage of recipients who clicked on one or more links in your email.

Formula:
(Total Clicks or Unique Clicks ÷ Delivered Emails) × 100

Conversion Rate

Measures how many recipients completed a desired action, like making a purchase or filling out a form.

Bounce Rate

The percentage of emails that didn’t make it to the inbox. A high bounce rate hurts your sender reputation and increases the risk of being flagged as spam.

Unsubscribe Rate

The percentage of people who opt out of your emails.
Important: Never email someone who has unsubscribed—it’s both unethical and risky.

List Growth Rate

Shows how fast your email list is growing, based on new subscribers added over time.

Domain Name

If you don’t have a domain name (e.g. sondosyasser.com) and a professional email address (e.g., sondos@sondosyasser.com), you’ll likely face issues that can negatively impact your email marketing campaigns:

• You won’t appear professional: Customers may not recognize or trust emails coming from free addresses like Gmail or Yahoo.
• Spam filters may block you: Most email providers (like Gmail, Outlook, etc.) are more likely to flag emails from free domains as spam, which means your emails could end up in the recipient’s junk folder.

If you don’t already have your own domain and professional email address, you’ll need to purchase them. You can get a domain name at an affordable price from services like Namecheap, and set up a professional email through Google Workspace or similar providers.

Email Marketing Service Provider (ESP)

Sending professional marketing emails requires using an Email Service Provider (ESP) — it cannot be done effectively through Gmail or other personal email platforms. ESPs give businesses the tools to send bulk emails, manage subscriber lists, automate campaigns, and track performance.

Here are a few examples:

• Klaviyo – Best for eCommerce brands.
  
  
• Kit (ConvertKit) – Best for creators, bloggers, and personal brands.

Each ESP has its own strengths and limitations. Based on your budget, subscriber list size, and type of business, choose the one that best fits your goals and needs.

Building and Growing Your List

When starting your email marketing strategy, you may not yet have a subscriber list, but building one is essential. This list will contain people who are interested in your products or services and are more likely to purchase from you when they’re ready.

Here are some effective ways to grow your list:

Create a Lead Magnet: Offer something of high value for free, such as an eBook or template that helps people solve a problem, in exchange for their email address.

Image from [Hubspot]

• Add Sign-Up Forms to Your Website:
  Make it easy for visitors to subscribe by placing sign-up forms on key pages of your site.
  
  
• Use Pop-Up Forms: Trigger a pop-up form 3–5 seconds after a visitor lands on your website to capture their email.
• Promote on Social Media: Add your sign-up link to your bios, promote your lead magnet, and direct people to download it.
• Add a Sign-Up Option to Checkout or Contact Forms: Collect emails naturally during transactions or when visitors contact you.
• Run a Giveaway or Contest: Host a simple contest where entry requires an email address.
  
  

Best Practices

• Clean Your List Regularly: Some subscribers may not be the right fit for your business, or their email addresses may be incorrect. Your list may also include people who have never engaged with your brand. These unengaged contacts can harm your sender reputation, which can ultimately lower your deliverability rate.
• Include CTAs: Always make it clear what action you want your audience to take. Include one clear Call-to-Action (CTA) in your emails to guide readers on what to do next.

• Send Follow-Up Emails: For those who didn’t open your initial email, send a follow-up message. This can help increase engagement and ensure your message gets seen.
• Test Your Emails: Experiment with different sending times to discover what works best for your audience. Regular testing can help optimize your campaign performance.

Final Thoughts

Email marketing remains one of the most effective strategies for building and nurturing relationships with your audience. By understanding the basics, planning your campaigns thoughtfully, and consistently analyzing your metrics, you can create impactful email marketing strategies that drive results.

Remember, the key is to provide value, stay consistent, and always be open to learning and adapting. As you continue on your email marketing journey, keep your audience's needs at the forefront, and success will follow.