Email marketing: what to know

What the job involves, what changes the price, and what to ask a pro.

What email marketing is

An email marketer builds campaigns and automated sequences for your business, designing templates, writing messages, segmenting your list and tracking opens and clicks. Businesses hire email help to keep customers informed, bring people back and make the most of the contacts they already have.

Signs you need it

  • You have a list of customers or leads and have not emailed them in months
  • You send one email to everyone, and the messages do not fit what each person has bought or asked about
  • You want a welcome sequence that introduces new customers to your business automatically
  • Your emails look different each time you send them, and customers do not know it is you
  • You want to track which emails lead to bookings, calls or purchases

What the pro does

  • Review your list, its source, your current emails and the actions you want people to take
  • Confirm that every contact on the list opted in, and remove those who did not
  • Segment the list by the interests and actions that matter for your business
  • Design a template that matches your brand and works on phones and desktops
  • Write the messages, subject lines and automated sequences, and test them before they go out
  • Track opens, clicks and replies, and report the results with the changes you recommend

What changes the price

Every job is different, so we do not publish prices. These are the things that move the quote up or down.

  • The number of contacts on the list and how many segments are needed
  • The number of campaigns and automated sequences to build
  • Whether the marketer writes the copy, or only sets up the messages you write
  • The number of templates needed, and how different they must look
  • Whether the email platform must be set up, connected to your website or integrated with a sales system
  • How often campaigns are sent and how much reporting is needed

What a written quote should spell out

  • The number of campaigns and automated sequences included
  • The number of templates and the devices and email programs they are tested on
  • Who writes the copy and how many rounds of approval are included
  • The platform setup and the integrations included
  • The reporting schedule and the measures each report covers

Questions to ask before you hire

  • How do you confirm that people on my list agreed to receive email?
  • Which email platform will you use, and will the list and the templates be mine?
  • How will you test the messages before they go out?
  • How do you handle unsubscribes and bounced addresses?
  • Can you show me a welcome sequence you built for a business like mine?
  • What measures will you report, and how will we know an email worked?

Red flags

  • Offers to buy an email list or to add addresses from outside sources
  • Will not show how people opt in or how they unsubscribe
  • Promises a set open rate or a set number of sales
  • Asks for your email account password instead of using the platform's access tools

What you can do yourself

You can set up a free email tool, write a short welcome message and send a monthly update to people who opted in. Hire an email marketer when the list is large, when you need automated sequences that run without you or when the messages must be segmented and measured.

Licenses and permits

No license is usually required for email marketing. Ask instead for examples of campaigns, references and a written description of how the list is built and how opt in is recorded; email marketing is subject to consent and unsubscribe rules that apply to the business sending the email, so check with the specialist how they meet them.

Email marketing questions

Who owns the email list?

You should. Keep the list in an account you control, and export it on request. Put the ownership and the export rights in the agreement.

Can I email people I met at an event?

Only if they agreed to receive email from you, and the rules that apply to your business allow it. Ask the specialist how they handle consent for event contacts.

How do I know the emails are working?

Track the opens, clicks, replies and the actions you want, such as bookings or sales. Opens alone do not show the value of an email, so ask for the actions to be measured too.

Pro reviewers

Pros who offer email marketing remotely can improve this guide, like Wikipedia. We check every edit before it goes live. Every approved edit is credited in the edit history and on the pro's profile.

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