WHAT IS EMAIL MARKETING AND HOW DOES IT WORK?
That is why now more than ever it is important to build an effective email marketing strategy.
This post will tell you everything you need to know about email marketing and how to create an effective email marketing campaign from scratch.
What is email marketing?
Email marketing is a type of digital marketing that involves sending emails to leads and customers. Newsletters, promotional campaigns, and event notifications are all good examples of email-based marketing messages.
Modern email marketing has moved away from generic bulk emails in favor of consent, segmentation, and personalization. Affiliate Marketing For Beginners Successful Strategies in 2022
Therefore, it is important to understand that you are a guest in the presenter’s mailbox. Although you believe that your email is unique. For the recipient, it’s one in a million – and not in a positive way.
Most people receive thousands of emails daily.
That’s why it’s so important to be courteous when emailing leads and clients, and to find a way to be unique and stand out.
Examples of Marketing Letters
There are three main types of marketing emails:
- Transactional emails
- Promotional emails
- Engagement Letters
We will now discuss these emails in more detail and look at a few examples so you can quickly identify them.
Transactional emails
Companies send transactional emails to customers in order to provide a service or product. These emails are mostly reactive and are sent in response to customer actions.
These emails are sent when visitors interact with the company’s website or application, such as adding a product to an online shopping cart or requesting a password reset. Here is an example of a transactional email from American Giant.
This email was sent automatically because the customer abandoned the cart. The effectiveness of such letters?
69% more orders resulting in a significant increase in business profitability.
Transactional emails usually inform users about the status of their account or order.
- Receipts and order confirmation
- Delivery Confirmations
- Double subscription messages
- Password reset emails
- Cart Abandonment Reminders
While transactional emails may seem simple, they are a great opportunity to build brand awareness and gain reader trust. You might think that confirmation emails don’t matter much.
However, these are some of the most open and requested emails from clients.
Promotional letters
Then we have promotional emails or sales emails – the type of email that probably comes to mind first when you hear the words “email marketing”.
The most effective sales letters convince readers to pay for a service or buy a product.
However, that’s not all they do. Done right, these emails can also increase customer engagement and retention. For example, they can give your audience a valuable discount that will help you turn insecure leads into loyal customers.
Here are some more examples of promotional emails:
- Time Sensitive Stocks
- Requests for review / reviews
- Product update emails
- Holiday sales emails
- Letters about affiliate marketing or co-marketing
- Engagement Letters
Proposal emails strengthen relationships with customers and prospects by using storytelling, customer education, and reinforcing brand values.
These emails keep subscribers interested even if they don’t want to buy anything.
Then, when they are ready to buy, or when you have something special, they will be eager to make a purchase, even if they are buying for the first time. Engagement emails usually start with “welcome emails” – the first email subscribers receive when they subscribe to your mailing list.
The welcome email series is important because it gives people the first impression of your business. For example, the welcome email from Product Hunt above is friendly and simple, from subject line to tone of voice in the body of the email. 10 Affiliate Marketing Platforms Commonly Used by Online Earnings
It is also one of the most open and requested emails from potential customers who subscribe to your mailing list.
There are many other types of engagement letters such as:
- Weekly/monthly newsletters
- Tips & Guides
- Customer stories
- Repeat letters
- Write caring letters
How Does Email Marketing Work?
Email marketing is one of the most effective strategies, due in part to its automation. That’s why 86% of marketers consider email “important” or “very important.”
At its simplest, an effective email marketing campaign has two main components:
- Distribution list
- Email Service Provider
#1: mailing list
You can’t send email marketing campaigns if you don’t have someone to send them to.
Remember that email marketing won’t work if you don’t have the right target audience interested in getting marketing messages from your business.
While there are many ways to create an email list, the easiest one is to create a lead magnet.
You can think of lead magnets as a bait to attract potential customers to your mailing list. They are very effective because your readers get something instantly if they get on your mailing list.
Here are a couple of examples of great lead magnets.
- Electronic books
- Control
- Examples of GPR applications
- Templates
- Flip through files
In short, the higher the value of your lead magnet, the more subscriptions you will get.
You can see another great example of a great lead magnet from 5 Free Meal Plans. It’s the perfect solution for busy moms who struggle to find time to plan dinner every night.
Of course, bloggers want their blog posts to go viral.
So this is a great lead magnet for them – no more figuring out how to make blog posts go viral when you have this cheat sheet!
No. 2. Email Service Provider
An email service provider (ESP) provides you with the infrastructure to send broadcasts and bulk business emails.
If you send bulk emails without ESP, they will be marked as spam and your subscribers will not receive them. This means that you won’t be able to email your prospects as often as you should in order to achieve the highest possible conversion rate.
Luckily, ESP takes care of all the formalities and costly technical issues. All you have to do is register and use their services.
Here are the top five email service providers we recommend.
Note: The “best” option depends on your marketing goals, list size, and the features you need. So, if you are looking for email marketing software, these reviews should help you choose the one that suits you best.
SendinBlue
SendinBlue is a complete email marketing platform for businesses that also offers SMS marketing. It helps customers send over 30 million automated emails and text messages daily.
SendinBlue also offers a form tool that collects new leads, which can then be segmented into specific lists and included in email growth campaigns.
Want to improve your email marketing but don’t know how? No problem. SendinBlue workflows give you access to a variety of ready-made automation campaigns tailored to your individual goals.
MailChimp
MailChimp has millions of customers in over 175 countries, and they use the data they collect to give you meaningful insights on how to improve the performance of your email campaign.
You can use MailChimp to send simple newsletters. It could also be an entire marketing automation platform using behavioral messages and abandoned cart emails.
In other words, the software is powerful enough for a large corporation, but good enough if you’re just starting out. MailChimp has four plans ranging.
It can be a bit pricey compared to other tools, so if you’re on a budget, you should look for more affordable MailChimp Alternatives.
Constant Contact
Constant Contact is one of the largest and best email marketing platforms in the world. With templates and drag-and-drop editing tools, you can easily manage your subscribers and create professional email designs.
Constant Contact is mainly focused on the e-commerce market. However, some non-profits, bloggers, and service businesses also use it.
(Not sure if you should go with Permanent Contact or MailChimp? Check out our comparison guide and choose the right solution now!)
ConvertKit
What makes ConvertKit unique is that it is aimed at professional bloggers, speakers and authors. So if you’re an online creator, you can’t go wrong with ConvertKit.
Convert Kit is best suited if you’re just starting out but know you’ll need some advanced features like sophisticated auto-responders in the future.
AWeber
AWeber is the king of simplicity – which is why it’s best for small businesses and entrepreneurs.
If you need a reliable and simple software for sending newsletters and auto-responder emails, AWeber is your best choice. They have marketing automation tools. But it’s pretty simple compared to most ESPs.
Customers have praised their deliverability – AWeber’s deliverability team monitors their servers around the clock to ensure your emails consistently reach your recipients’ inboxes.
You can also check out our detailed comparison of all popular email service providers. Here I will elaborate on the details.
It is a must read for every serious business person starting out in email marketing.
How to automate email marketing
While the automation process differs from one ESP to another, there are a few universal steps to automating your email marketing strategy.
However, automation, like any other tool, depends on how you use it.
When used correctly, it can help you deliver emails to the right people at the right time. This is much better than sending the same message to everyone on your list.
Automate your email campaigns by defining your segment
Segmentation groups your subscribers based on the data you have about them, allowing you to create more personalized campaigns.
According to Accenture, 91 percent of consumers say they are more likely to shop from brands that provide relevant deals and recommendations.
In short, if you don’t provide relevant information, you are losing money. Fortunately, with email segmentation, you have unlimited options to personalize your email marketing campaigns.
For example, you can segment subscribers by their position in the sales funnel. The emails you send to those at the top of the funnel should be different from those at the bottom.
You can send more general emails to a group of new subscribers, offering the wide range of products you offer.
If they have been registered for some time and interacted with your emails (for example, they clicked on a link), you can use this data to know exactly what they are interested in and send targeted emails about this product.
An abandoned cart is a good indicator that someone is at the bottom of the funnel. In the second quarter of 2021, the mobile phone cart abandonment rate was 80.6 percent.
The buyers were going to buy, but something prevented them.
This opens up the option to send them a follow-up email reminding them that their cart is still available, or a message stating the products they were about to buy.
Other types of email segmentation ideas you can add to your campaign include:
Demographic – this can be information such as gender, age, income level and position of the company.
Survey or quiz results—The survey will provide you with valuable demographic data and insight into individual preferences and beliefs.
Email – The main metrics here are the open rates and click through rates that you track on your email marketing service.
Geographic Area – geographic segmentation by region is a valuable tool, especially for businesses where location heavily influences purchasing decisions.
Past Purchases – This is where you email recommendations for similar products in addition to your customers’ previous purchases.
Amount Spent —Use customer spending history to assess which customers are more likely to buy higher priced items and which ones are more interested in lower priced items.
Website Behavior – For example, you can send personalized emails based on the specific pages your subscribers have visited. Time since last purchase— You can divide your customers into two significant groups: repeat customers and one-time customers.