Email Marketing Tutorial for Beginners (2026)

If you've been thinking about starting email marketing but have no idea where to begin, this video is for you. I'm Matt and in this email marketing tutorial for beginners, I'm going to walk you through everything you need to know. What email marketing actually is, why it matters for your business, how to get people on your list, what to send them, and how to set it all up. By the end, you'll have a clear understanding of how email marketing works and exactly what you need to get started. So, what is email marketing exactly? At its core, email marketing is a direct communication channel between you and people who have given you permission to contact them. You build a list of subscribers. These are people who have raised their hand and said, "Yes, I want to hear from you." Then, you send them valuable content, updates, and offers. That's it. That's email marketing. Now, I want to clear something up because there's a common misconception here. Email marketing is not spam. You're not blasting strangers who never asked to hear from you. These are people who opted in. They want to be on your list. And it's also not what some people picture, logging into Gmail and manually CC'ing 100 people. That's not how this works. There are dedicated tools that handle all of this for you. They store your contacts, send your emails, and track your results. We'll talk a bit more about those later. For now, just understand this. Email marketing is about building a list of people who want to hear from you and then sending them things that are actually worth reading. Okay, so why should you actually care about email marketing? Why not just focus on social media or ads? Well, there are three big reasons. Number one, you own your email list. This is the most important thing I'll say in this entire video. When you build a following on social media, you don't actually own that audience. The platform does and the algorithm decides who sees your content. You could have 10,000 followers on Instagram, but when you post something, maybe 5% of them see it. The platform controls that. And here's the scary part. If that platform changes its algorithm or gets banned or just decides to shut down your account one day, you could lose access to that entire audience. Gone. Your email list is different. You own it. So, when you send an email, it goes directly to their inbox. There's no algorithm in the middle deciding whether they're allowed to see it or not. Also, that list is yours forever. You can take it with you. Back it up. Move it to a new platform. It's one of the few digital assets you actually control. Number two, the ROI is incredible. Email marketing is consistently one of the highest return marketing channels out there. And the reason is simple. Think about it. The hard work of getting someone's attention and convincing them to give you their email, that's already done. That cost is already paid. Emails just follow up. And follow up is basically free. Compare that to running ads where you're paying every single time you want to reach someone. With email, you pay once to get them on your list, and then you can just reach them over and over and over at almost no additional cost. Number three, it builds trust. This one's especially important if you're a small business. Think about dating. You wouldn't propose marriage on the first date. That comes across way too strong. You need to spend time getting to know each other first. Build some trust. Selling works the exact same way. People hesitate to buy from businesses they've never heard of. So, if someone lands on your website for the first time, chances are they're not going to buy right away. They don't know you yet. You're basically a stranger asking for their credit card. Email gives you a way to show up in their inbox consistently, to provide value, to let them get to know you over time. By the time you actually make an offer, they've been hearing from you for weeks or months. They feel like they know you, and that makes a ton of difference. So, to recap, you own your list, the ROI is hard to beat, and it builds trust with your audience over time. That's why email marketing matters. All right, so how do you actually get people on your email list? This is where a lot of beginners get stuck. So, let me break it down. The first thing you need to understand is the value exchange principle. People are not going to hand over their email address for nothing. Those days are over. Everyone's inbox is already full and nobody wants more random emails. So, you need to offer something valuable in return. Something that makes them think, "Yeah, that's worth giving my email for." This is called a lead magnet. Some people call it a freebie, but it's the same thing. A lead magnet is simply something valuable you give away for free in exchange for an email address. Now, what makes a good lead magnet? A few things. First, it should solve a real problem your audience has. Something they're actually struggling with. Second, it should be related to what you sell. This way, the people signing up are the right people, the ones who might eventually become customers. Third, it should be valuable enough that they'd almost be willing to pay for it. If your freebie feels cheap or thrown together, it's not going to work. And fourth, give it a clear, obvious name. Don't try to be clever. If it's a checklist for planning a wedding, call it the wedding planning checklist, not some cute branded name that nobody understands. Let me give you some examples based on different types of businesses. If you're in e-commerce, your lead magnet could be a discount code. 10% off your first order. Or, it could be a style guide or a sizing guide. If you're a service business like a consultant, freelancer, or agency, you might offer a free checklist, a short PDF guide, or a mini training video. If you're a local business like a restaurant, you could offer a free appetizer or a drink for signing up. If you're a creator or coach, exclusive content works great. A resource list, templates, or something your audience just can't get anywhere else. Now, once you have your lead magnet, you need to actually put sign-up forms where people will see them. On your website, that could be your homepage, a pop-up, or a form embedded in your blog posts. On social media, put a link in your bio, mention it in your stories. And if you have a physical location, use QR codes at checkout or on receipts. One more thing before we move on. You do not need a huge list to get started. A small engaged list of people who actually want to hear from you will outperform a massive list of people who don't care every single time. So, start small, grow from there. Okay, so you've got people on your list. Now, what do you actually send them? This is where a lot of beginners mess up, so pay attention. The biggest mistake I see is sending too many sales emails. Every email is buy this, check out our sale, limited time offer. Oof. Here's what happens when you do that. People learn to ignore you. They see your name in their inbox and think, "Oh, they're just trying to sell me something again." And they don't open it. Or worse, they unsubscribe. The key is to lead with value first. Earn the right to sell. Think of it this way. If you only ever reached out to a friend when you needed something, eventually they'd get annoyed and stop picking up the phone. Same thing with email. So, let's talk about the two types of emails you'll send. Value emails. These are the emails that give your subscribers something useful without asking for anything in return. This could be tips and advice related to your expertise, behind-the-scenes looks at your business, answers to questions you get asked all the time, resources you found helpful, stories and lessons you've learned. The goal is to make your subscribers think, "I'm glad I opened this." That builds trust. Now, how often should you send emails? If you're just starting out, keep it simple. Once a week is great. [music] Even twice a month works. The key is consistency. It's better to send two emails a month every month than to send 10 emails one week and then just disappear for months. [music] And here's a rule that applies to every single email you send, whether it's value or sales. One clear message, one clear call to action. Don't try to cram three different things into one email. Don't give people four different links to click. >> [music] >> One email, one purpose, one thing you want them to do. Make it easy for them. So, how do you write emails that people actually open and read? It starts with a subject line. Your subject line is the gatekeeper. It doesn't matter how good your email is if nobody opens it. And the subject line is what determines whether they open or scroll right past. A few tips here. Keep it short. 6 to 10 words is a good range. People are scanning their inbox quickly, so you don't have much space to work with. Create curiosity or highlight value. Give them a reason to want to know more or make it clear what they're going to get if they open. And avoid spam triggers. All caps, excessive punctuation, the word free in all caps with three exclamation points. That stuff either lands you in spam or just make people roll their eyes. Now, for the email itself, write like you talk. Use contractions. Be conversational. This isn't a formal business letter. It's a message to someone who signed up to hear from you. So, keep paragraphs short. Big blocks of text are hard to read, especially on phones. Make it easy to scan. Get to the point. Respect their time. Don't bury the important stuff five paragraphs in. And always end with a clear next step. What do you want them to do after reading? Click a link, reply, buy something? Tell them. Here's a simple framework you can use. First, hook them in the first line. Give them a reason to keep reading. Second, deliver the value of the message. This is the meat of the email. Third, clear call to action. One thing you want them to do. And optionally, a PS line at the end. The PS line is actually the second most read part of any email right after the subject line. People's eyes jump right to it, so use it. Now, let's talk about one of the most powerful parts of email marketing. Automation. What do I mean by automation? Automation is when emails get sent automatically based on triggers, things people do. Instead of you manually sending every email, you set it up once and it runs on its own. Someone signs up to your list, they automatically get a welcome email. Someone abandons their cart, they get a reminder. You're not sitting there hitting send every time. The system does it for you. This is huge because it means your email marketing works even when you're not working. You set it up once and it runs forever. Now, if you're just getting started, there's one automation you absolutely need, the welcome email. This is the email someone gets right after they join your list and it's the most important email you'll ever send. Why? Because welcome emails have the highest open rates of any email type, often 50 to 60%. People just signed up, they're paying attention. They want to hear from you right now. This is your first impression, so make it count. What should you include in the welcome email? Well, first, thank them for signing up. Simple, but important. Second, if you [music] promised them something, a lead magnet, a discount code, whatever, deliver it immediately. Don't make them wait. Third, tell them what to expect. What kind of emails will you send? How often? Set expectations about what's coming so there are no surprises. And finally, give them one clear next step. Maybe it's checking out your best-selling product, reading your most popular blog post, or following you on social media. Just one thing. Now, there are other automations you can set up, too. Abandoned cart emails for e-commerce, post-purchase follow-ups, or reengagement emails for people who haven't opened in a while. But, don't worry about those yet. If you just set up a welcome email, you're already ahead of most beginners. All right, let's bring this all together. To do everything I just talked about, you need one key tool, an email service provider, sometimes called an ESP. This is the platform that makes email marketing actually work. It stores all of your contacts in one place. It gives you templates and drag-and-drop editors so you can create professional-looking emails without knowing any code. It sends your emails at scale, not through your personal Gmail, but through proper infrastructure that can handle hundreds or thousands of emails. It also tracks your results, who opened, who clicked, who unsubscribed, and it handles the legal stuff like making sure every email has an unsubscribe link. You can't do real email marketing without one. For this video, I'll be using Brevo. >> [music] >> It's beginner-friendly, it has all the features I just mentioned, and you can get started for free. Plus, if you use the link on screen or in the description below to sign up, you'll get 50% off if you decide to upgrade. Let me show you what all this looks like in practice. First, let me show you how to get that 50% discount. When you click the sign up link in the description below, you'll land on this page here. Click the claim my discount button. Then, follow the prompts to sign up for your account. Once you finish entering your information and verifying both your email and phone number, you'll land on this pricing page here. If you want to start for free, scroll down to the green block and click the select free button, but you won't get access to all the features we discussed earlier in this video like email automation for example. To get access to those, you'll need the standard plan. Next, you'll need to customize your plan. Select the number of contacts you have, and then select any additional packages you want below. If you want to save an additional 10% per year, change from monthly pricing to annual billing. Then, when you're done, click proceed to checkout. Now, this is important. If you want to claim that 50% discount we mentioned earlier, you'll need to click add a coupon code. Then, type in Medix50 Medix50 and click apply. And you can see that $9 per month has been removed from our $18 per month standard plan. Go ahead and make sure your billing information is correct, and then follow the prompts to complete your payment. When your payment processes, you'll get a confirmation and you can click continue. All right, so this is Brevo. This is what you see when you log in. I just want to give you a quick orientation so you know where things are. Over here, you've got your CRM. This is where your email list lives. Everyone who signs up goes here. Here's marketing. This is where you create and send emails. And here's automations. This is where you set up those automatic emails we talked about, like a welcome email. Think of this as your email command center. Everything you need is in one place. Let me show you how each of these works. Let's start by creating an email. I'll click into marketing and then click email to create a new email campaign. We'll give it a quick name and click create campaign. Here you can add your recipients from your contact list. And here's where you write your subject line. Remember, short, curiosity driven, and no spam triggers. You can even use AI to help you out. You can also use preview text to help convince people to open your email. Now, to actually create your email, click start designing. And here you can start from scratch or grab a template from a huge library. When you find one you like, click use template. And now I'm in the editor. This is all drag and drop. You don't need to know any code. I can just click on any text and simply change it. I can swap out images. I can move blocks around. It's really intuitive. And with a button in the upper right, I can preview exactly what this will look like in somebody's inbox. That's it. We've got a professional email ready to send. Notice how there's one clear message here and one call to action. That's what we talked about earlier. All that's left to do is schedule it. Now, let's create a sign-up form. This is how people actually get on your list. I'll head over here to marketing and then click forms. Then click create sign-up form. Pick a type, give it a name, and click create form. Again, it's drag and drop. You can add fields. At minimum, you need an email and you might want a name, too. You can click form design to customize how it looks and match your brand. You can change any of the existing text and when you're done, click next. And this is the important part. You tell it which list these sign-ups should go to. So, when someone fills this out, they're automatically added to your contacts. Once it's ready, you can share the form link directly or grab the code below to embed it in your website. And there's our form. Don't forget you can use this to mention your lead magnet. Like in my case, sign up and get a 50% discount. This is that value exchange we talked about earlier. Last thing. Let's set up that welcome email automation. I'll go to automations and create one. When you click create automation, you can grab a pre-built automation type. In this case, I'll grab welcome message. First, we'll set up our trigger. Our automation will run when somebody is added to a specific list. Next, our template has a time delay, but we want this to send right away. So, we'll change it from 2 days to 1 minute. Then we'll set up our action, which is sending an email. We can click in here to edit the message with the drag and drop builder. Add a custom subject line and preview text. And then confirm when everything's set up. And that's the automation. When someone signs up, they immediately get their welcome email. Click activate automation in the top right. And now it's ready to go. Set it up once and it runs forever. Every new subscriber gets welcomed automatically. And that's the foundation of email marketing. If you want a complete walk-through of setting all of this up in Brevo, I've got a full tutorial that goes even deeper. I've got it linked on screen and in the description. Also, don't forget to claim your 50% discount on Brevo by using our link below. Thanks so much for watching.