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Email marketing is a great way to market to existing and cold contacts, and as the most popular internet activity amongst users, it really is a no brainer for any marketing team worth their salt. But a good email marketing campaign isn't just about the email; it involves several other elements in order for it be really successful. In this article, I'll show you how to create a simple, but effective email campaign that works.

1. Compose Your Email

Yes, that seems pretty obvious. You need to work with your in-house designer here (or design the template yourself) to come up with the graphics. Ideally, your key sales message should be the first thing the recipient will see, because you have only a matter of seconds to hold their attention. You should also make sure that the most important information is displayed as text, since many email clients do not automatically download images until the recipient authorizes it.

Remember to keep the email to the point. You don't need to cook up a literary masterpiece, but you do need to convey your message as clearly and effectively as possible. Your potential customers value their time and don't want to wade through lines of loquacious prose.

2. Landing Pages

All email campaigns, in my mind, should work to push people on to your website, where you can continue to qualify the potential customer and guide them through a defined sales process. Creating landing pages specifically for your email campaign is a must for two reasons.

1. You can create highly focused sales messages that are relevant to your customers.
2. You can easily monitor your email campaign’s effectiveness and track post-click behaviour.

Ensure your landing pages have a clear call-to-action and allow your visitors to submit their details/contact you/find out more information.

3. Retargeting

It's not acceptable to allow customers to go through to your landing page and not do anything. There's a good chance that if they click through the email, they are interested in the offer you've provided. Retargeting your customers with pay per click advertising on the display network is a good way to catch those unconverted visitors once they've left your website. The process works by including tracking code from your online advertising platform (e.g. Google Adwords) on your landing pages which then places a cookie on your visitors system.

By creating an image ad on Google Adwords, you can set the ad to show on publisher sites, which are visited by customers who have previously been on your site. The result is that you can "retarget" visitors across the web with your advertising and potentially reign them back in to your site once more, where you can attempt to sell to them again.

4. The Drop Off Email

For those email recipients who didn't even bother click through your email, you should contact them again with an email which further states why your offer is so valuable and worth taking up. Tactics to whet the more stubborn customer's appetite may include offering a freebie or some sort of value-added service on top of the original offer. Regardless, this is your last chance to convince your potential customers.

5. Delivery

At this point, your sales team has converted the leads generated through the first three steps of the process, so now it's time to show your appreciation to the customer. This can take the form of a confirmation email or a personal response, or even the delivery of the purchase itself if it's digital. But remember, this is also the time to upsell and cross sell. Can you tempt your customer to purchase the next size or model up? Do you offer services or products that the customer might also need? The customer has been satisfied by your approach so far, so this is a genuinely valid time to sell add-ons post-sale.

6. Follow Up

All sales should be followed up. Depending on the type of sales process you employ, you may wish to send out a further email to check on how your customer is finding their purchase. Alternatively, you might feel that your customers prefer to talk on the phone or in person, in which case you will need to hand over this final stage to your sales team.

In theory, the process doesn't stop here, because a longer-term email marketing campaign will look to target existing and new customers on an on-going basis. But by following these six steps initially, you should at least have the beginnings of a successful campaign that you can continue to evolve over time.