Email Marketing- Creating mailing lists, email best practices, and using analytics.

In addition to your retail newsletter, a wholesale-only newsletter is a great way to maintain contact with your current and potential shops. As you collect buyer names ask if you may include them in your newsletter list. Once a season you can send out a newsletter that features specials you are offering including starter packages, new products, last-chance items, updates on your studio, and industry-specific news.

Check out these popular programs...
Constant Contact - http://www.constantcontact.com
Mail Chimp - http://www.mailchimp.com
Vertical Response - http://www.verticalresponse.com
Active Campaign - http://www.activecampaign.com
iContact - http://www.icontact.com

We all know the power of marketing and how it can help build your brand, drive customer engagement, and increase revenue. Email marketing is truly a digital asset when you leverage it. A good email strategy gives you traffic and sales diversification, and the ability to create your own audience with whom you can
communicate whenever you want and however you want to.
Drive Traffic
Emails can generate a lot of traffic for your small business. Whether you’ve written a blog post, have a new product, or are highlighting a specific service - you can send your email subscriber right to where you want them to go.
And...You’re in Control of the Message your Audience Sees
You’re in charge of the narrative. An email can be designed precisely how you want, right down to the last period. Show off what you need to, it’s your place to shine!
Segment your Audience
Segmenting your email lists into smaller, targeted groups lets you send more personalized messages that usually have higher engagement rates and better returns. It’s all about sending the right message to the right segment. Or in our world, the right email to the right buyer at the right time.
Analytics
Oh, the information you can get from email marketing! Most email marketing tools let you analyze every part of your email.

You can look at the various metrics on each campaign including:
Click-through rates - how many people clicked on your email
Opens - who opened the email

Unsubscribe rates - who unsubscribed
Bounce rates - all the emails that were not delivered
Spam rate - how many emails landed in the recipient's spam folder
Conversion rate - how many conversions you had from the email. What your open rate tells you: A high open rate (over 20%) tells you that your
content is resonating with your audience. If your open rate is highly variable,
this tells you that only some of your campaigns are effective.

What your click rate tells you: Your click rate tells you whether the calls to
action in a specific campaign is working. What types of content usually get the most opens?
The most clicks? Did a specific campaign cause more buyers to unsubscribe? Use this data to refine your content in future emails.
What makes certain content types more popular? Is the content itself more useful to your buyers than other types of emails you send? Does the email template you use for specific content look better on mobile devices? Are you using more effective subject lines on certain emails? These are all questions you should be asking as you work on marketing and building your email campaign.

To build a truly effective email marketing content strategy, follow the 5 T’s:

Tease, Target, Teach, Test, and Track.
TEASE in your email subject line and headlines.
Use your subject line to tease the email content inside, but make sure you can
deliver on the promise. There’s a fine line between teasing and clickbait. Clickbait-
style subject lines may get a higher open rate at first, but they put your customer
relationship at risk if you’re not able to deliver. TARGET with personalized messaging. It’s simple, the more personalized a communication is, the better it will perform. So, use what you know about your buyers and give them content that they are more likely to respond to. TEACH with inspiring tips that increase customer engagement. We all appreciate learning tips and tricks to make our lives easier and that’s where your brand comes in. Remember in your world, you are the expert. Share that knowledge. TEST different email layouts and creative content to drive more clicks. Why pick one subject line or hero image when you can test three? Why choose one layout when you think another one may work better?
TRACK email performance and optimize your content strategy. Knowing what information and knowledge your buyers want to receive from you is a great way to increase sales and reorders. Stay on top of your analytics!