Email marketing is one of the pillars of a successful online marketing plan. But, like any plan, it should be well thought out, with clear goals, a strategy and specific tactics. Here’s how you get started.

Define Your Audience

This sounds simple, you already know who your target customers are, but the idea here is really to define your audience segments. You may have a list of 1000 people that breaks down to 100 repeat customers, 200 infrequent buyers, 250 warm leads or prospects and 450 “viewers”; people who want to stay in touch but aren’t likely to buy. Each of these groups is an audience segment and should be identifiable as such within your list.

Determine Your Purpose

With well-defined list segments, you can now determine your purpose for communicating with specific segments. Ask yourself “What can I provide, in terms of information or product/service offerings, to this audience?” “What do I want to happen when they read the email?” Develop your content with your purpose front of mind.

Develop Your Content

There is so much noise out there you want to make sure you are providing something of value to your audience. The good news is, there is so much information out there already, you don’t always need to recreate the wheel. If you read a good article, share a summary and add your own comments and interpretation. Answer frequently asked questions. Repurpose your own content; dust off old articles or whitepapers and update them.

Set Your Schedule

Determining a frequency and schedule for your emails is vital to making it happen. Outline the upcoming 6 months and include topics for inclusion. Make sure you have someone designated for each issue to avoid having it slip through the cracks. It doesn’t always have to be your marketing department either. Consider having customer support or someone from the “trenches” share their expertise; as long as it’s relevant to the audience.

Once you’ve got these elements in place you’ve got the basics of an email marketing strategy.