How Difficult is it to Learn Email Marketing?

Are you curious about learning email marketing but worried it might be too hard? Of course, the difficulty that comes with learning a new skill is somewhat subjective. The challenges of learning email marketing depend on factors likethinking about email differently, writing appealing messages, learning to use ESP tools, and taking in a large amount of new information. 

No matter your current schedule or comfort level with email marketing, plenty of tools are available to help make learning more manageable than you might think.

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. 

What Are the Most Challenging Parts of Learning Email Marketing?

Email is the oldest form of electronic communication, predating the internet by twenty years, so nearly everyone is familiar with email. One challenge to learning email marketing is learning to think of email differently. Another challenge is writing a message that appeals to an audience rather than one individual, as most people are used to email. You also need to learn to use tools for scheduling, automating email blasts, and collecting and interpreting data. Email Marketers also devise a strategy for reaching out to interested users and turning them into customers.

Another challenge to learning email marketing is the amount of information to take in. Reading through articles or watching tutorials to learn how to accomplish necessary tasks like building email lists and using email service provider tools can take a long time. One way to make the process a bit easier is to choose a learning format you are most comfortable with. If you learn best by watching, focus on tutorials. If you prefer reading, find some blogs from email marketers. There are also podcasts for folks who learn best by listening.

How Does Learning Email Marketing Compare to Other Fields?

Learning email marketing can be compared to content marketing and social media marketing. Successful email marketing requires solid communication skills, data analytics skills, and an understanding of scheduling and automation in much the same way as content marketing and social media marketing. The difficulty level of all three fields is about the same, and they take about the same amount of time to learn.

Email Marketers build an email list, create an email strategy, and send out messages with links to content. Then they use data analytics tools through email service providers to collect and interpret data to adjust their strategy. Content Marketers need to plan a strategy, create content, and post it on a website according to a publishing schedule. They also use data analytics tools to determine if the campaign is successful and make changes if necessary. Social Media Marketers do many similar things, although they also interact with followers one on one and need to respond more quickly than Email Marketers.

Make Learning Email Marketing Easier

Two ways to make it easier to learn email marketing are to practice the techniques you are learning and to be patient with the time it takes to see results.

Practice

The best way to learn something is by doing, and email marketing is no different. One way to speed up the learning process is to learn about a technique and then practice it. Whether you want to learn the best way to build an email list or how to set up a schedule to send out messages, using what you have learned is the best way to cement it in your mind. If you have a product to sell or are trying to build brand awareness, get started on planning an email marketing campaign.

Patience

It is also important to be patient. Give yourself time to learn email marketing. You will make mistakes whenever you are learning something new. Don’t be too hard on yourself when this happens. It can also take several months to see results with digital marketing, and email campaigns are no exception. Keep trying, and you will eventually sort it out. Signing up for a class can make the process easier.

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.