Email marketing is one of the most popular and successful marketing techniques available when you want to expand your brand or sell your products. This article will cover a variety of topics, including the forms of email marketing, how to execute the ideal campaign, and much more. Let’s start with email.
What is Email?
Electronic mail is known as email. It is a technique for sending messages between computers over the internet. Business, education, technical communication, and document interactions are where it is most commonly utilized. It makes it possible to communicate with everyone on the planet without troubling them. Ray Tomlinson received a test email with text in 1971 and forwarded it to himself.
It is data that is electronically transmitted through a network between two or more parties. A sender and/or receiver(s) are involved.
A brief history of Email
Ray Tomlinson, a computer engineer, sent the first email in 1971. The message he transmitted was simply a series of numbers and letters, but it signaled the start of a new era of communication. Tomlinson was also the first person to use the “@” symbol in email addresses.
The first commercial email was sent in 1978 by Gary Thuerk, a marketing manager at Digital Equipment Corp., as a way of informing customers about a new product. Only 400 people were on his email list, yet the letters he sent generated sales of roughly $13 million.
The internet was widely accessible on a commercial level by the 1990s. As communication between people started to shift drastically, marketers realized that email could be a useful tool for advertising. Regulation modifications were also necessitated by the emergence of marketing emails; the U.K.’s Data Protection Act, for instance, was changed to mandate a “opt-out” option for all marketing emails.
What is Email Marketing?
Email marketing is an effective marketing channel that uses email to advertise the goods or services your company offers. Email marketing is a type of direct marketing as well as digital marketing. By incorporating it into your marketing automation initiatives, it can assist in informing your clients about your most recent products or offers. Through various forms of marketing emails, it can also be extremely important in your overall marketing strategy for lead generation, brand awareness, relationship building, and consumer engagement in between transactions.
Email is not a recent invention. In actuality, when it initially appeared in 1971, it was among the earliest forms of digital communication. However, despite being 50 years old, email marketing is still widely employed today.
Is email still used by individuals today, you might be asking. Isn’t marketing today all about social media? Email provides a number of benefits, despite the fact that social media is a crucial channel for every digital marketing strategy.
First, compared to social media, email marketing campaigns can be more highly customized. Next, prices are significantly lower than for other channels, especially when you consider email marketing’s reach and conversion rate. This contributes to the reason why email marketing is so beneficial for small firms.
Finally, the fact that email marketing allows you direct, one-on-one access to your audience’s inboxes is what makes it so effective and profitable.
Still not convinced? Let’s look at the statistics:
- Global email users will top 4 billion in 2020.
- Nearly a quarter of Americans check their personal email many times every day, and 80% of Americans check their email at least once daily.
- Email was chosen as the top communication method with small firms by 62% of consumers.
According to the statistics, failing to implement an email marketing plan means losing out on sales chances as well as the possibility to develop long-term client connections.
Types of Marketing Email
You can use the popular email marketing campaign types we’ve listed below to expand your business.
Welcome Email
Prospects are often not ready to do business when first approached. According to studies, 60% of leads are qualified but not yet ready to buy, whereas only 30% of leads are immediately sales-ready. Therefore, nurturing is essential to moving your leads closer to the buying stage.
Welcome emails with a human touch and an introduction of your company without a heavy sales push have higher open and click-through rates. Never launch a new product or service before establishing a rapport. Simply focus on making a positive first impression that demonstrates your knowledge of and competence in your sector in order to open doors for further communication.
Email Newsletters
In addition to feeding your existing customers with company news and events, product releases, and feedback requests, newsletters are fantastic for marketing to prospects. Such constant communication will assist you in keeping satisfied clients and gaining insightful information about them.
Keep your goal in mind as you work on your newsletter layout and content production, and make sure you are taking steps to achieve it by giving calls-to-action top priority in their design and placement.
Dedicated Emails
Dedicated emails, often referred to as standalone emails, solely mention one offer. You may, for instance, invite your target audience to an industry event you are hosting or let them know about a new white paper you have just published.
You can introduce the key call-to-action by introducing it in dedicated emails. They are comparable to landing pages in this regard. The majority of the time, dedicated sends are used to contact your complete email database. This strategy is not always effective in increasing conversions and lowering unsubscribe rates.
Lead Nurturing Emails
Understanding the subtleties of your leads’ timing and wants is the foundation of lead nurturing. For this reason, creating buyer personas is crucial to efficiently reaching your target demographic. Otherwise, your emails will be deleted or not opened.
Lead nurturing offers a closely linked series of emails with a clear goal and packed with helpful information. In this situation, lead nurturing provides more benefits than a single email blast.
Sponsorship Emails
Typically, a sponsorship involves you paying to have your material included in another vendor’s newsletter or targeted mailing.
One part of a sponsored media plan that includes pay-per-click (PPC), display advertising, mobile advertising, affiliate advertising, etc. is sponsorship email campaigns.
Being incredibly detailed when characterizing your target demographic is advantageous in the world of paid media.
Transactional Emails
Transactional emails are those that are sent in response to an activity that one of your contacts has taken and that help them finish that action. For instance, when you register for a webinar in your industry, you will fill out a form and get a transactional (thank-you) email that contains your login details. People will receive an email requesting them to click a link in order to confirm their registration if you are using a double opt-in system.
The messages you get from e-commerce websites that confirm your order, provide you with shipment information, and provide you with other information regarding your most recent purchase are known as transactional.
Re-engagement Emails
It might be time to send a re-engagement email to your subscribed customer list if metrics reveal that some of them have been inactive, in order to re-establish contact and goodwill.
Asking for input is a great method to remind people of your company. If they react, it’s a win-win situation because it means they are once again actively thinking about your company and you have new feedback to use for process improvements and marketing strategies.
The good news is that your email engagement rates will increase overall, and your email reputation will improve with internet service providers even if people decide to unsubscribe (ISPs).
Video Emails
Video emails and brand story marketing are somewhat complementary. They are better able to creatively convey your company’s expertise and history. You can email:
- video of a factory tour
- A video highlighting a product or initiative
- A business overview
Since 95% of a video message is kept compared to 10% while reading text, including your films in email marketing is a wise move. Simply put, they have great engagement!
Review Request Emails
Millennials are the largest generation in the American workforce, and 73% of them participate in corporate purchasing choices, according to Pew Research & Merit. According to the industrial buying cycle, these customers don’t decide to make a purchase until they are 70% through the process before speaking to a supplier.
These customers frequently use review websites like Glassdoor, G2Crowd, and Google Reviews to investigate businesses based on what previous clients have to say. You can increase your trustworthiness and improve your search engine rankings by asking for evaluations of your company on these websites.
Asking your best and happiest customers for feedback is a smart place to start. If it fits within your budget, it also doesn’t hurt to offer a bonus, such as the chance to win a gift card.
How does Email Marketing Work?
An email marketing campaign is simple to start up and monitor, which makes it affordable for small firms. For instance, you could provide a newsletter sign-up option on your website. You can send newsletters to an expanding audience as more individuals sign up. Customers can get the newsletter through your social media profiles as well.
An easy and efficient approach to share information about your business, forthcoming events, and exclusive deals is through a regular newsletter. Scheduling automated promotional emails for consumers who haven’t recently made a purchase is also made simple by email software.
You can target specific client groups or even individual customers using email marketing. One way to achieve this is to provide unique birthday specials to specific clients on goods or services.
For instance, a restaurant may text patrons on their birthdays with a coupon for 50% off an entree. This form of personalization aids a company in establishing and maintaining a relationship with a consumer, which may boost sales and promote client loyalty.
A regular newsletter is an easy and efficient way to provide information about your business, upcoming events, and exclusive offers. Automated promotional emails for consumers who haven’t recently made a purchase can also be easily scheduled using email software.
You can target particular client groups or even specific people with email marketing. One method to achieve this is to provide unique birthday discounts on products or services to certain clients.
For instance, a restaurant may send clients an email on their birthdays offering a 50% discount on an entree. With the help of this form of customization, a company may establish and maintain a relationship with a consumer, which can enhance sales and customer loyalty.
How to do Email marketing
Your initial email targets don’t need to be extremely ambitious. You might only want people to grin, read a blog article, go to a product page, or make a buy.
To use email marketing, the following steps must be taken:
Choose a Service Provider for Your Email Campaign
Email marketing services are widely available. AWeber, Emma, and Constant Contact are a few well-known examples. It’s fine if you choose to use different software. Keep reading for advice and suggestions.
Select Email Recipients and Import Contacts
Before you can send an email, you need a list of people to send it to. Start with the easiest list: your customers. If you’re collecting customer data, you probably already have their email addresses.
You can also include an email signup form on your website or blog to make it easy for anyone interested in your brand to get updates from you.
Make a campaign and give it a name
You should give your campaign a name so you can remember it later. Name your campaign “November Newsletter 2021” or something similar if you send out a monthly newsletter. Use the product or deal you’re promoting in the title if it’s a special promotional email. You must think over your email subject as well. AVOID SKIPPING THIS STEP. Create a compelling subject for your email to encourage opens! The focus should be on:
- Be specific in your email subject line.
- Encourage the recipient to open your email.
- Establish a sense of urgency.
- Be entertaining, hip, interesting, clever, alluring, etc.
The best way to grab readers’ attention is with a question. Just be careful not to include the word “free,” as it tends to set off spam filters, or all caps (looks spammy). To see what kind of reaction you get from various subject lines, you may also do A/B testing.
Setup A Tracking
Make sure tracking is chosen since you want to get as much data as you can from your email campaign. You’re interested in learning how many individuals open and click the links in your email. When you’re ready to send the next message, this will assist you to figure out what works and what doesn’t.
Create an Email Template
Platforms for email marketing already have predesigned templates set up for you. All you have to do is pick the one you like, then edit it by adding your brand’s logo and adjusting the colours to match those on your website.
Save the template after making the desired changes so you can use it again for future emails. Consistency in your emails will ensure that recipients automatically link them to your business when they get them.
Start writing and editing copy
Every word counts, therefore you had better make sure they were nice. Although writing copy might be difficult, it is a crucial component of your email marketing campaign.
- Ensure that the writing reflects your brand.
- Don’t forget to provide your contact details! A box with hyperlinks to your website, blog, business email, and social media channels should be included.
- Prioritize the customer over yourself. Keep your boasting of your wonderful activities to a minimum. Instead, concentrate on what the client needs.
- Limit your wordiness. Only the essential details should be included in your email. Although it may be tempting to add more, if your email is overly long, recipients will not read it.
- Include pictures. Make sure to add photos and colour to your email to make it more appealing. You don’t want it to appear to be a formal business document.
- Consider yourself to be a resource. Maintaining a relationship with your clients is your priority, so do your best to support them, even if that involves sharing their content.
- Don’t be afraid to engage a freelancer to assist you if you’re not a skilled writer, at least for your initial email.
Preview your Email
Send the email to yourself first and proofread it numerous times before sending it to your subscriber list. Send it to a coworker for evaluation after that to be double sure it is flawless.
If you’re utilizing an outdated template that might have an outdated address or phone number, double-check that all the links are functional and that everything is current.
Schedule an Email
If you’re emailing companies, you can get greater results if you send it on the weekday morning.
If you’re marketing to customers, you might get a stronger response in the late afternoon or evening when they are checking their email after leaving work.
Whatever the data suggests, experiment with various times to determine which generates the most opens and clicks for your business.
What is A/B Testing in Email Marketing
There will be instances when your email list responds more favourably to something than to a variant you could have sworn they would prefer, whether it be a design, subject line, call-to-action, etc. Running A/B testing frequently is crucial to ensure that your selections are supported by data and truly improve the effectiveness of your efforts.
If you have never conducted an A/B test, you might not be sure what it entails, what the advantages are, or even what you should test. The good news is that A/B testing is a remarkably easy type of experimentation.
Definition of A/B Testing
A/B testing, also known as split testing, is as simple as sending two different variants A and B to your email list and observing which variant performs better.
The variation between variants could be as minor as a differently phrased subject line, which most recipients will not notice. It could also be something more serious, such as a completely redesigned email design and layout.
However, good A/B testing will only test one element at a time. That way, you may be more confident that any change in performance between the two types is due to that one factor. Rather than attempting to ascertain which of the elements caused the change (and relying on gut feelings again).
When it comes to measuring performance, there are numerous email metrics to consider:
- Open Rates: the number of people who open and read your email
- Click Rates: the number of people who click on a link within your email
- Conversion Rates: the number of people opening your email who go on to make a purchase
Benefits of A/B Testing
You can gradually start to improve your important email marketing KPIs by conducting routine A/B tests. Those are:
- Higher Open Rates: You’ll have a better understanding of what resonates with your subscribers and what doesn’t by evaluating the elements that affect your open rates, such as your preview text and subject lines. You can then tweak your upcoming campaigns to get more open as a result.
- Higher Click Rates: You’ll gradually but surely gain a better grasp of the kinds of material and links that your subscribers prefer to click on by testing various aspects of your email, just like you did with your open rates. Then, you may design your subsequent emails based on what you already know increases clickthrough.
- Better Conversion Rates: You may attract more potential clients to your website by increasing your open and click-through rates. More purchases will eventually follow from this, and your conversion rate will also increase (especially if you A/B test various elements on your store).
How important is the authentication process in email marketing?
Deliverability and security are both factors in email authentication. You can safeguard your brand and ensure that your emails successfully reach the inbox by setting up DKIM and SPF records, as well as by authenticating your emails.
You can enhance email deliverability, guard against email fraud, and guarantee ongoing delivery. The key is email authentication.
What is Email Authentication
Email authentication is a technical method of certifying that an email has not been faked. In other words, it offers a means of confirming that an email originates from the person it purports to be from. Email authentication is most frequently used to stop spam and phishing, two damaging or fraudulent uses of email.
In real life, we refer to the technological standards that enable this verification as “email authentication”. SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are the three most widely used email authentication protocols. Because SMTP, the fundamental protocol used to send an email, does not include any authentication measures, these standards were created to supplement it.
How does email authentication work
Email authentication can be done in a variety of ways, each of which has benefits and drawbacks. Although each approach has a different technical implementation, in general, the process goes something like this:
- A company that sends email creates a policy that specifies the criteria used to verify email coming from its domain name.
- To implement and publish these rules, the email sender configures its mail servers and other technical infrastructure.
- By comparing specifics of an incoming email message to the guidelines established by the domain owner, a mail server that receives email authenticates the messages it receives.
- Based on the results of this authentication, the receiving mail server decides whether to deliver, flag, or even reject the message.
These phases demonstrate that for this process to function, both the sender and the receiver must take part. Technical standards for email authentication are crucial because they establish a uniform method for setting the policies governing email authentication that any business can use. Remember that email sender authentication gives recipients of a message a certain amount of assurance that the email actually came from the source they were told it did. Understanding email authentication is essential for organizations because it helps receivers gain trust and confidence.
Basic Standards for Email Authentication Process
There are several protocols that enable various parts of email authentication, including SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. They deal with related problems.
SPF: allows senders to specify which IP addresses are permitted to send email for a specific domain.
DKIM: gives an encryption key as well as a digital signature that ensures an email message was not forged or altered.
DMARC: combines the SPF and DKIM authentication protocols into a single framework, allowing domain owners to specify how an email from their domain should be handled if an authorization test fails.
Most recent email systems accept these email authentication protocols, which are an addition to the conventional email-sending protocol (SMTP). The widely used Domain Name System (DNS) is used to implement all three of these standards. Email domain authentication is a crucial part of security and deliverability for sophisticated email senders because DNS serves as the equivalent of the phone book for the Web, effectively confirming the legitimacy of domains through a rigorous process of analysis and verification.
Benefits of Email Marketing
Thousands of companies of all sizes employ email marketing worldwide. Those who are not familiar with this type of marketing may not immediately comprehend why it is so popular among businesses in a range of industries. Here are some reasons why email marketing is viewed by many as the most successful marketing channel.
Creating compelling content
Email marketing has many advantages, one of which is the ability to finely customize your content to the demands of your audience. To improve interaction, your emails may contain changes such as various graphics or subject lines. You may even make lists with different segments based on interaction levels or geography.
In contrast, you may also develop customized content based on audience segmentation to send the appropriate emails to the appropriate clients. For instance, you might want to send one email marketing campaign to clients who buy from you frequently and another to new customers.
Gathering opinions and survey data
If you want customers to interact, engage, and buy from your business in the future, keeping an eye on their experience is crucial. You can achieve this by using email marketing. For instance, you can use email campaigns to distribute customer satisfaction surveys and get feedback from your customers.
In actuality, this is among the best methods for determining your Net Promoter Score (NPS). You can use this score to determine the proportion of customers who support the brand and those who don’t. You can develop methods to enhance your customer experience using the information provided.
Improving Sales and Conversion
Your email marketing campaigns can simply include messages that persuade customers to buy from you as they have opted-in to receive your messages and updates.
Additionally, automating a portion of your sales process with email marketing can help you make more sales.
Connecting with your audience
It’s crucial for marketers to always work to enhance audience communication. They are more inclined to stick with your brand if they feel comfortable approaching you.
You can simply communicate with brand ambassadors and reach a larger portion of your audience using email marketing. Additionally, these emails keep your audience interested throughout the entire year, whether it’s a busy or slow period.
Bringing visitors to your website
How do you get outstanding content to your audience once you’ve created it? You probably send them an email.
You may increase your SEO and drive visitors to your website with email marketing campaigns. Additionally, you’ll retain visitors interested in your website and business.
Each email you create with a link to your content should have a call to action (CTA) so that readers can click through to your website.
Timely campaign delivery
Traditional marketing efforts have a time and place, but planning and organizing them can take months. Even then, it’s doubtful that your campaign materials will be seen by the proper audience at the appropriate time.
However, since email marketing campaigns don’t require as much planning, you can start one entirely on short notice. Furthermore, you can guarantee that your audience receives the email at the appropriate moment.
By segmenting your audience, for instance, you can be sure to distribute the material at the appropriate moment.
Creating campaigns that are inexpensive
Email marketing efforts are typically more cost-effective than more conventional campaigns like direct mail or print. You won’t be required to pay for any photo shoots, location costs, printers, postage, or placement, for instance. Only a copywriter and graphic designer are required. Even one member of your team could do this.
Email campaigns can be created quickly as well. You can create an email in a day if necessary, which is much more economically efficient than the time it takes to create a direct mail or print campaign.
Since marketers are constantly constrained by time and financial resources, email marketing efforts can be more effective while also producing leads and income.
Getting ownership of your media and contact lists
You don’t own your contact list or even the content you put on platforms like social media. Typically, the social media network owns both your follower list and your content.
Building an email list is crucial for marketers because of this. You own this contact list, so you can communicate with everyone on it independent of your email provider. Additionally, you will own the content that you create and distribute.
One of the best ways to reach your audience is through email marketing. Additionally, it can increase leads and sales.
Best Email Marketing Platforms
Your marketing campaign’s success may be significantly impacted by your choice of email marketing provider. Your success with email marketing will be greatly influenced by the software you use, as they are in charge of ensuring that your emails are sent. If you don’t take care, you’ll spend more and more for fewer marketing capabilities and poor email deliverability rates.
A reputable email service provider will take steps to prevent your email campaigns from ending up in the spam folder because of this. Here is a list of a few reputed Email Marketing platforms that makes you comfortable while sending your email to bulk contacts:
Constant Contact
One of the biggest and fastest-growing email marketing services in the world is Constant Contact. Additionally, it is the most user-friendly email marketing service for beginners.
Your email lists, contacts, email templates, the marketing calendar, and more are all simple to manage.
You have access to limitless emails, simple tracking and reporting, integrated social media sharing tools, a free image library, list segmentation, Facebook ads integration, and a strong eCommerce integration for Shopify stores with each account.
Their Email Plus accounts also include potent features like subject line A/B testing, email automation, drip marketing, surveys & polls, coupons, and online donations that allow you to send targeted emails and increase your open rate.
Through live chat, phone calls, email, community support, and a huge collection of useful information, Constant Contact provides unrivalled customer service.
HubSpot
One of the most well-known CRM and email marketing software programs is HubSpot.
Their email marketing solution is free to start using and includes several potent automation capabilities that are intended to help you expand your company.
With the help of their simple drag-and-drop email builder and an assortment of themes, you can make a totally unique newsletter that reflects the spirit and colors of your company.
You may customize your emails for each subscriber depending on factors like device kind, country, list membership, or any other specific information you may have about the particular subscriber thanks to the direct interaction with the HubSpot CRM.
Send time optimization, high email deliverability, A/B testing, in-depth performance analytics, marketing automation, drip programs, and other strong features are all included in HubSpot, which is an enterprise-level email marketing platform.
AWeber
One of the oldest and most well-known email marketing service providers worldwide is AWeber. They provide a variety of tools for managing email marketing for small and medium-sized enterprises. With AWeber, getting started is simple. The majority of platforms, including WordPress, are easily connected.
You have access to list management, autoresponders, a/b testing, and email tracking with in-depth insights, in addition to ready-to-use html email templates. Other strong email marketing tools offered by AWeber include AMP emails, automatic RSS-to-email conversion for bloggers, and tag-based subscriber segmentation. Live webinars, phone help, email support, live chat, and a sizable how-to and instructional library are all available as support alternatives.
MailChimp
Because they provide an email marketing solution that is eternally free, Mailchimp is among the most well-known companies in the world.
Despite the fact that we no longer suggest it because there are better options on the market, Mailchimp is so widely used that it is impossible for us to include it in a list of the top email marketing programs.
Autoresponders, segmenting contacts into groups, an intuitive drag-and-drop email builder, and basic tracking for analytics are all included with Mailchimp. Additionally, you may set up segmenting based on geolocation and delivery schedules based on user timezones.
The platforms WordPress, Magento, Shopify, and many others can all be readily integrated with MailChimp.
Sendinblue
Everything you require to start and manage an email campaign is provided by Sendinblue. Watch your outreach take off by adding your material to their machine.
This is a well-developed platform with more functionality than you might anticipate. You may add live chat to your website and collect new email addresses from visitors who are looking at your store or learning more about your business.
Build that list as easily as you can with forms that are appealing and convert website visitors into subscribers. The simple Sendinblue user interface enables integrating a form as easy as a few mouse clicks.
Email is still one of the most successful marketing strategies, in the end. If used properly, you may target potential customers with pertinent information at the ideal moment and win lifelong brand advocates.