Email Marketing

* This article is a summary of Founders Factory Africa (FFA) content & delivered by Steve Waidelich. [ Summarized by Ighlaas Carlie ]

* A big thanks to FFA for allowing us access to their content!

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Email Marketing

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When founders hear email marketing, they think you have to have a 10k to 1mill list in order for it to be viable. This is not true. The aim of this playbook is to help you get your first customer base via these organic channels, so you can know what channel to focus on and focus on scaling it.

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Building your email list

Okay, I know you are a startup with 0 email lists and no idea about the tools to utilize. And you are wondering how you can build a list in order to start email marketing. 

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Don't try to buy an email list. It doesn't work, it just leads to aggravated potential users and very bad ROI overall. 

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There are 2 ways of building your email list - Using Lead Magnet or Email scraping/Cold Emailing.

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LEAD MAGNET

A lead magnet is the most verified way of building your email list. It involves creating a guide/checklist/value for your target market, and utilizing gated content to get their email in order for them to access the content.

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Steps to take

• ‍Create the gated content. The market is large enough and/or growing fast enough to warrant addressing. ‍

• Distribute content. Utilize content distribution strategies.‍

• Get in email addresses. Via distribution you should target getting your first 50–1000 email addresses depending on your customer base or the type of service you provide.‍

• Put them in an automation/segmentation. If you have different target profiles eg. Lead magnets for 3 different target markets. Utilize questions asked when users are filling the sign-up form to place them in a specific segment.‍

• Sign up for an email marketing software.

• ‍Send out lead nurturing content. Send out content that shows the problem your customers are going through and how to solve them using your product. If you have different use cases that your product solves, you can spread out the different use cases in different emails.‍
• Send out your first Email. The first email should be a 'Thank You' email, what to expect, and a nudge to add email as a contact.‍
• Send out your second Email. Be sure to give out something for free, a solution to a problem the users are facing, or information that would be useful to them.

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Remember to. build relationships with subscribers and not spam. 

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Action

• Use 3-5 days to create the lead magnet, 

• Use 1 week to distribute the gated content.

• Use 1 week for email content/nurturing content.

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Cold email outreach

A cold email is an unsolicited e-mail that is sent to a receiver without prior contact.

Cold email outreach is mostly popular with B2B startups who belong to niche markets that cannot be easily reached with other marketing channels.

(I am not talking about sales emails, which tend to be sent in bulk. This article is about cold emailing a specific person.)

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How to get cold emails

• Email Scrapping tools like Hunter.io, Skrapp.io

• Manual scrapping by Freelancers from platforms such as Upwork or Fiverr.

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Sending out a cold email

Once you get the email list from email scrapping, you need to make sure you are adding value in each email.  First of all, send an introductory email, make sure you are not spamming and you are delivering your value clearly. Go straight to the point and offer a CTA. Also, ask for permission for them to receive marketing content. This generally should take you 1–2 weeks.

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 This approach is mainly good for B2B or B2B2C.

• Brief Introduction of self/company

• Identify the need

• Go Straight to the point of product offering/benefit

• Offer a CTA

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