Email is still the most popular form of digital communication.
There are other, newer methods of communicating with your audience and customers, such as social media and live chat. However, email is still the most popular method, with over 4 billion users.
Email marketing has a high ROI, so it is a good tool for marketers.
Email marketing outperforms other marketing channels, including social media, SEO, and affiliate marketing.
Why is that? Even though there is a lot of excitement over new channels, why is technology that has been around for many years still one of the most effective marketing strategies?
Email is still the most popular platform, despite the rise of social media. After all, what’s the point of marketing to someone if they’re not there?
Additionally, email marketing allows you to maintain control of your connections- you don’t need to stress over algorithm changes negatively impacting your reach.
Email campaigns are more important now than ever before.
Many people do not know how to properly use email, as you have likely seen in your inbox yourself.
This post contains tips and strategies for executing successful email marketing campaigns.
What is Email Marketing?
Email marketing is a direct marketing channel that lets businesses share new products, sales, and updates with customers on their contact list. Email marketing has a high ROI, making it crucial to most businesses’ overall inbound strategy.
Nowadays, email marketing is focused on consent, segmentation, and personalization instead of the one-size-fits-all mass mailings approach.
Although it may take more time to set up at first, using marketing automation will save you time in the long run. Additionally, a well planned email marketing strategy can not only increase sales, but also help create a community around your brand.
Types of marketing emails
There are three types of marketing emails: promotional, informational, or ones that serve a specific purpose in the buyer journey.
Promotional emails
An email marketing campaign involves sending out a series of emails over a period of time in order to promote a particular offer, product, or brand. These campaigns can consist of anywhere from 3 to 10 emails, and are usually sent out over the course of several days or weeks.
The stronger and more clear your CTA is, the more likely your readers are to take action. The CTA, or call-to-action, in a promotional email should be clear and direct. By having a clear CTA, you are more likely to have readers take the desired action, whether it be visiting a specific page on your website or using a coupon to make a purchase.
The typical frequency with which a business sends marketing emails is determined by that business’s sales and marketing rhythm.
During periods like Black Friday sending multiple promotional emails in a 24-hour period is generally acceptable – provided you stay on topic about the sale. During slower periods in the marketing calendar, there may be a few weeks between your promotional campaigns. Make sure to send other emails during this time so your subscribers hear from you at least once per week.
Informational emails
A newsletter is a type of email that shares news related to your business. You can use newsletters to share events related to your company, new products or services, and even share latest industry news.
Email newsletters can help maintain regular communication with your subscribers and promote your brand. Newsletters can include information on new developments, product capabilities, or feature valuable case studies. Send newsletters at regular intervals, such as weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly, to keep subscribers engaged with your brand.
Email expert Ann Handley says that newsletters don’t have to be only about news, but can also be focused on the “letter” aspect. This means imagining that you are writing a one-on-one letter to your subscribers about something that interests them.
A newsletter is simply a way to share insights, thoughts, or tips with your audience that will be of value to them.
Email is the best way to let customers know about company announcements, new product releases, changes to the service, and so on.
Email is the most common way to send important messages. If there is a problem with your website, shipping delays, or an outage in your system/software, it is best to update your contacts by email. Email is secure, instant, and can be formal if necessary.
Re-engagement emails
Re-engagement emails are important in marketing because they help connect with customers or subscribers who haven’t been active recently.
Why Email Marketing Is Important
Email has been around for a long time, it was one of the first digital communication methods to appear in 1971. Even though it is 50 years old, email marketing is more popular than ever.
You may think that people don’t use email anymore, and that social media is where it’s at for marketing. While social media is important, email has several advantages.
Email marketing campaigns can be personalized more than social media ones, they are cheaper, and have a higher reach and conversion rate.
Email marketing gives you the ability to reach your audience directly through their inboxes.
Let’s take a look at the numbers:
- In 2020, there were over 4 billion global email users.
- 80% of Americans check their email at least once per day, with nearly a quarter of them checking their personal email several times a day.
- 62% of consumers ranked email in their top preferred communication channels with small businesses.
If you don’t have an email marketing strategy, you’re missing out on sales opportunities and the chance to build lasting customer relationships.
The Benefits of Email Marketing
Email plays an important role in the growth and management of your business, from order confirmations to newsletters.
Email marketing helps you achieve three key objectives:
1. Conversions (selling your products and services)
You can drive sales by sending an email marketing campaign to your subscribers when you launch a sale or promotion.
In addition, try using these email marketing techniques to further boost conversions:
- Personalized coupons or special offers for subscribers’ birthdays/anniversaries, in welcome emails, and as a way to re-engage your audience.
- Abandoned cart emails triggered whenever a visitor adds an item in their cart but doesn’t check out.
2. Brand awareness
One of the best things about email is that it is a direct form of communication. You are able to talk to someone without any intermediary. People have become more choosy about who they let into their inboxes, so it has become a space that is only for people’s favorite brands and sources.
Sending personalized marketing emails to subscribers will help keep your brand current in their minds. Social media posts may not be as impactful because you can’t be sure if anyone has actually seen your message.
Email marketing is perceived as being highly scalable due to its low costs in regards to both time and money.
3. Customer loyalty
The email drives customer loyalty at every stage of the buyer journey including lead-nurturing, conversion, onboarding, and retention. In addition, email marketing is a necessary tool to use alongside sales CRM systems to streamline communication.
Email is a great way to build relationships with people. Our guide to building relationships with email explains how email can be used to build a community.
Best Email Marketing Strategies
To be successful with email marketing, it is important to be strategic in the way campaign emails are designed. The following strategies can help make email marketing more effective.
1. Use the Right List Building Strategies
Your email marketing campaigns will be successful if your email list is of good quality. To create such a list, you must use strategies that will appeal to your target audience. For example, a case study that is promoted on LinkedIn could help a B2B company to build a list of subscribers who are interested, but it might not work so well for a B2C company.
2. Practice Good Email List Hygiene
Another important email marketing strategy is maintaining a clean email list. Inactive subscribers and email addresses that are no longer in use can damage your sender reputation, so it’s important to remove them from your list.
3. Keep Your List Warm
If you want to keep your subscribers engaged, send them emails regularly. However, if you only send emails occasionally, they may forget who you are and you’ll have lower conversion rates.
A re-engagement campaign can be run if some of your subscribers go cold.
4. Focus on One Objective
Don’t try to accomplish too many objectives with one campaign or email. It will only confuse your audience and lower your conversion rates.
5. Define and Track the Right KPIs
To create successful email marketing campaigns, you must track the right key performance indicators.
Top 7 Email Marketing Tools Every Marketer Should Know
To pull off a successful campaign, you need to leverage email marketing tools to optimize your processes. Here are the top seven you should know:
Email Service Providers (ESP)
One of the most critical email marketing tools you need is an ESP. Some top ESPs are:
- Constant Contact: This is best for e-commerce email marketing campaigns, thanks to features like automated product recommendations and shoppable emails. Plans start at $20/month.
- Sendinblue: Sendinblue is best for small businesses running simple email campaigns. It has a rich feature set with a CRM, live chat, and SMS, among others. Plans start at $25/month.
- Pardot: B2B email campaigns require a platform specifically designed for the B2B buyer journey. Pardot fits the bill perfectly. However, to build high-growth email campaigns with Pardot, be prepared to part with at least $1,250/month.
Deliverability Tools
Email deliverability is the ability of a email service provider to successfully send emails to recipients’ inboxes. Here are some of the top ones:
- MailGenius: MailGenius inspects your emails for possible spam triggers. You can use it to run deliverability tests to ensure your emails reach their intended recipients’ inboxes. MailGenius is a free tool.
- GlockApps: GlockApps shows your delivery results in real-time, including whether your email landed in the Inbox, Spam folder, Gmail’s Promotional or Social tabs, or if it was never delivered at all. Personal accounts are free, and prices go up from there.
Testing and Tracking
Which email marketing tools are best for testing and tracking the campaign performance in order to create optimized iterations?
- Litmus: You can use Litmus to test and track your emails in traditional web clients and popular mobile devices.
Email Personalization Tools
Use a personalized tool to create a more unique experience for your recipients.
- Hyperise: When it comes to personalizing email marketing campaigns, no tool does it better than Hyperise. It helps you add dynamic, personalized images to each of your emails, including profile images from social media platforms.
How to Write Email Marketing Copy That Drives Results
Email marketing copy is the key to achieving any email marketing goal.
That’s why you must write yours well. To do that:
Know Your Audience
In order to write effective email marketing copy, you must first understand your audience. By segmenting your list, you can create more targeted content that will resonate with readers.
Craft a Hard-to-Ignore Subject Line
The subject line is one of the most important elements of email copy as it helps readers decide whether to open your email. To craft a hard-to-ignore subject line:
- use keywords
- make it benefit-driven
- use active voice
- personalize as much as possible
Get the Preview Text Right
The text that appears immediately below or beside the subject line in an email is called the preview text. It is limited to a maximum of 140 characters and is designed to convince people to open the email. An optimized preview text is an extension of the subject line and reinforces the value proposition.
Make It Easy to Read
People are busy. Do this by:
- using short sentences and paragraphs
- avoiding jargon and complicated words
- using bullet points
Your readers are more likely to engage with your emails if they are easy to read.
Leverage Storytelling
Email copy that tells a story is more likely to grab attention and be effective than email copy that doesn’t.
Use Psychology to Your Advantage
Human beings are wired to react in specific ways. Examples of such triggers include:
- fear of missing out (FOMO)
- color psychology
- social proof
If you use these triggers correctly, they can help you write better email copy.
How To Segment Your Email Marketing List
Email segmentation is the process of grouping your email subscribers together based on common characteristics. This allows you to send more targeted and relevant emails to each group, which can lead to higher engagement rates and conversions.
Here are a few ways to segment a larger list:
- customer list (in comparison to leads who haven’t bought)
- newsletter subscribers
- daily email list (in comparison to weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, etc)
- demographics, such as age, location, or job title
- interests, such as marketing or sales topics
If you segment your email list, you can send more targeted communications. This is similar to targeting paid ads.
You can also compare messaging between different groups to test titles, content, or best practices.
You can see that segmentation is not difficult, but it does require effort, which is why most people do not bother to do it correctly.
You will instantly appear different from everyone else if you do this.
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