They say that a follow-up series is a great idea to engage your prospects and customers. You agree and want to create a series that helps generate additional conversion and builds more trust in your brand. Where is a small business owner to begin? Here are 5 steps and a few leading ideas to begin generating a follow-up series that continues the conversation.

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Email is an essential business tool in this interconnected world. It stands as one of the most useful communication tools to reach clients and prospects when they want to be reached. There is a place for other methods of outreach but email remain a top avenue of business communications. Email is an effective tool for delivering your message to clients.

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Every single day, more than 100 billion emails will go out and be opened in various mailboxes across the world, technology market research firm the Radicati Group, Inc. found in 2013. While yes, many of these messages will be junk that gets stuck in the spam filter and then sent straight to the trash bin, many other emails that a person gets actually do matter. If you’re a small business owner, you want your emails to count in this category.

Email has been used as an online communication tool since 1993. While many other 1990s computer features like floppy discs and dial-up connections are simply vernacular from a bygone era, email is still as effective and widely used as ever. Therefore, if your company hasn’t tried automated email marketing yet, you could be missing out on a huge and viable means of bringing in new customers and keeping them coming back again and again.

In order to be as successful as possible with your email marketing campaign, don’t over complicate or over think the process. Just like you’ve taken the time to get a professional website (whether you made it yourself or not) and create various social media profiles, it’s time to add an email newsletter area to these sites. This box shouldn’t be hidden off on one corner or at the bottom of your website. You want as many people as possible to know that you have an email newsletter, so put the box where people can see it. Just ask for their name and email address in the box and that’s it, they’re signed up.

Remember that you’re not the only company that a customer does business with. They’re likely signed up to receive the latest about a variety of products and services. Just like always, you have to stand out from the competition and give the customer an incentive to click. The first way to do that is with an enticing subject line. Don’t just title these “small business newsletter #1,” since that’s a snooze fest waiting to happen. Instead, let the email content be your guide. If you have a new product to sell or you’re offering discounts for new email subscribers, put this in the subject line.

When it comes to the body of the email, although it’s a newsletter, don’t write a novel. Provide links to other parts of your company website with news so interested customers can click and learn more. Don’t overdo it on bold text, weird fonts, exclamation points, or huge pictures, as these could turn customers away. Most importantly, you have to stagger out when you email customers. Although the process is automated, reaching out daily is obviously too much. Perhaps you send out the newsletter weekly, twice a month, or monthly. Don’t wait too long between emails, as this could drive away customers as well.