Best Free Email Marketing Resources & Tutorials

Many professionals are eager to learn email marketing but hesitate because of the perceived up-front costs. You might only decide to pay for an email service provider (ESP), and you can even access some of these for free, too. A surprising amount of free resources are available to help beginners get the hang of this exciting field. 

Read on to learn more about the different types of free resources and tutorials available to help you learn email marketing. 

What is Email Marketing?

Email marketing is a great way to build a business and connect with customers. Email can also help you build a brand or increase awareness of an issue. An Email Marketer uses a list of email addresses collected voluntarily from customers or interested users. Then an email is generated with links to high-quality content on the company website. 

Using analytics tools from the email service provider (ESP), the Email Marketer can tell which users opened the email and when so that they can change the strategy to make it more successful. Email has been around for over fifty years and is still used by over four billion people worldwide. It remains the quickest and most effective way to build customer relationships and is an essential tool for many marketing professionals. 

Read more about what email marketing is and why you should learn it.

What Can You Do with Email Marketing?

Email marketing is an effective way to reach customers and build a business. Whether it be increasing sales, building a brand, or sharing meaningful content, email marketing can help you reach the right person at the right time. Email lets you build relationships with your customers and stay connected over time.

The first step in creating an email marketing campaign is to build an email list. You can start your list with people you have met in person or anyone who has asked for more information on your products or services. You can add people to your email list if they have given you their contact information. It is crucial to get permission before adding someone to the list. One way to collect emails is to ask for them when customers place orders. Another way is to offer a discount or some kind of bonus if the customer subscribes to your email list. A common way to do this is with a popup message on your website.

Once you have a list of customer emails, you can begin to send out links to content that will be interesting to them. This helps to build a connection with your customers. To send a bulk email to a list, you must sign up with an email service provider (ESP). ESPs allow you to schedule your emails and provide analytics that tell you when users open the emails and when they don’t. This lets you time your emails to have the most impact and tweak the message if it isn’t attracting attention. 

Free Email Marketing Resources

Tutorials

You can learn a lot about email marketing from free tutorials. Watching free online courses and videos can give you an overview before you pay for a complete email marketing course. To learn more about email marketing, try the Intro to Email Marketing seminar from Noble Desktop. This free course touches on all the basics and will help you decide if you want to learn more.

You can also find many tutorials on YouTube, such as Franklin Hatchett’s Free Email Marketing Course, Email Marketing for Beginners from H-Educate, and Email Marketing for Beginners from Davie Fogarty. It’s important to be mindful of when the content was created, since marketing techniques are always being updated as technologies change.

Mailchimp and Hubspot have a free level of ESP, making it possible to learn email marketing for nothing. Mailchimp offers a free class in using their service when you sign up for an account. You can earn certifications in Mailchimp Foundations, Email Marketing, and Automation. Hubspot also has a free course in email marketing, which will help you prepare for their exam in Email Marketing Certification. 

Podcasts

Podcasts are a great free resource for learning about email marketing. You can listen while commuting, cooking dinner, or walking the dog. Here’s a list of popular shows:

• The McMethod Email Marketing Podcast with John McIntyre, The Autoresponder Guy
• The Email Marketing Show with Rob and Kennedy
• Email Einstein Ingenious ecommerce by Flowium
• Inbox Besties with Kate Doster
• The Future of Email with Matthew Dunn
• Everything Email Podcast with Kerel Cooper

Blogs 

Blogs are another useful free resource for learning about email marketing. Here are some to check out:

• Mailchimp also has a blog to help you find the right tools and learn to use them to increase marketing success.

• Campaign Monitor specializes in writing and helping you improve your marketing campaigns through better writing.

• VerticalResponse keeps marketers informed on strategies and best practices related to email marketing.

• GetResponse is geared toward small businesses with advice on how to grow your business with email marketing.

• MailBakery focuses on creativity and patience in email content. 

• Marketo covers using modern technology in email marketing strategy.

• Email on Acid is all about design and content creation. They focus on content testing especially.

Publications

While books aren’t technically free, you can borrow many through your local library or join a free trial of Amazon Unlimited. Here are some popular titles to check out:

• How to Write Emails that Sell: Secrets from the Most Profitable Emails Ever Written, by Matt Bacak

• 300 Email Marketing Tips: Critical Advice and Strategy to Turn Subscribers into Buyers & Grow a Six-Figure Business with Email, by Meera Kothand

• Email Marketing that Doesn’t Suck: Have Fun Writing Emails Your Subscribers Will Want to Read (and That Will Actually Make You Money!), by Bobby Klinck

• Do Open: How a Simple Email Newsletter Can Transform Your Business (and it can), by David Hieatt

• The Cold Email Manifesto: How to Fill Your Sales Pipeline, Convert Like Crazy and Level up Your Business in 90 Days or Less, by Alex Berman

• Send: Why People Email so Badly and How to Do it Better, by David Shipley and Will Schwalbe

Learn Email Marketing with Hands-on Training at Noble Desktop

You can master email marketing with classes from Noble Desktop. To get an introduction to email marketing, sign up for Noble Desktop’s Email Marketing Bootcamp. This introductory class covers building a list, creating a campaign, writing effective emails, optimizing your campaign, and delivering the email. Classes are small, and instructors can give you individual attention. You can retake a course for free up to a year after you take it. Choose from in-person classes at Noble Desktop’s New York City location or attend live online from anywhere in the world.

Noble Desktop also offers a Digital Marketing Certificate for an in-depth course on digital marketing. Learn about content marketing, web optimization, SEO, Google Analytics, Google Ads, and social media marketing on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and TikTok. You can find a free email marketing seminar, Intro to Email Marketing, on Noble’s website and lots more resources on Noble Desktop’s Tech Blog. 

Key Insights

• Email marketing provides a great return on investment and is an efficient way to connect with current and potential customers.
• Sign up for an email service provider to handle large batches of messages. You can get started for free and increase to gain more features as you can afford it.
• If you want to learn email marketing, you can find many free resources like video tutorials, podcasts, blogs, and books. 
• You can receive comprehensive email marketing training through an in-person or live online course with Noble Desktop.