Email marketing is the most profitable direct marketing channel, generating an average return on investment of $42 for every $1 spent (DMA, 2019).
For this reason alone, email should be a key pillar of your digital marketing strategy. Not doing any email marketing is like leaving money on the table.
But if you’re a bit confused about where to start, that’s totally normal. Email is a vast discipline. It’s easy for beginners to get lost in a sea of tools, techniques, and terminology.
What Is Email Marketing?
Email marketing is sending commercial emails to a list of contacts who have given their express permission to receive email communications from you.
You can use email marketing to inform your contacts, drive sales, and build a community around your brand, like with a newsletter.
Modern email marketing has moved away from one-size-fits-all mass mailings and instead focuses on consent, segmentation, and personalization. This may sound time-consuming, but marketing automation does the heavy lifting for you.
Examples Of Different Types of Marketing Emails
Emails can be promotional, informational, or serve a specific purpose in the buyer journey.
Promotional emails
Email marketing campaigns are used to promote special offers, new product releases, gated content like ebooks and webinars, and your brand at large. A campaign could consist of 3 – 10 emails sent over several days or weeks.
Promotional emails have a clear call-to-action — or CTA, for short. The CTA represents the specific action you want the reader to take, whether it’s visiting your website or making a purchase.
Your business’s sales and marketing rhythm should determine the frequency of this type of marketing email. During crucial periods like Black Friday, you may be sending multiple promotional emails in the same 24-hour period. During slower periods in the marketing calendar, there may be a few weeks between your promotional campaigns.
Informational emails
Newsletters: A newsletter, as the name suggests, shares news related to your business. Think: new milestones reached, new product capabilities, or to feature valuable content like case studies about your product. Sent at regular intervals — weekly, bi-weekly, monthly — newsletters help maintain consistent touch points with your email subscribers.
But did you know newsletters don’t just have to be about ‘news’? As email expert Ann Handley says, focus on the letter aspect. Imagine you’re writing a one-on-one letter to your subscribers about something that interests them.
Simply put, a newsletter is an opportunity to share insights, thoughts, tips – whatever brings the most value to your audience.
Announcements: Email is the perfect way to inform customers of company announcements, new releases, changes to the service, etc.
More often than not, email is the go-to channel for important messages. If there’s a glitch on your website, shipping delays, or an outage in your system/software, updating your contacts via email is the best way to maintain communication. It’s secure, instant, and can match the formal tone of even the most important announcements.
Is Email Marketing Still Important In 2020?
Email isn’t a new technology. In fact, it was one of the very first means of digital communication to arrive back in 1971. But get this: Email marketing — at 50 years old — is used today more than ever before.
You may be thinking, “Do people really still use email? Isn’t social media where it’s at for marketing today?” While it’s true that social media is an important channel for any digital marketing strategy, email has several advantages.
First, email marketing campaigns can be personalized to a greater extent than those on social media. Next, costs are considerably lower than for other channels, especially considering the reach and conversion rate associated with email marketing.
Finally, what makes email marketing so powerful and lucrative is that it gives you direct, individual access to your audience’s inboxes.
Still don’t believe us. 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.
Given the figures, not having an email marketing strategy means missing out on sales opportunities and the chance to build lasting customer relationships.
The Benefits of Email Marketing
From order confirmations to newsletters, emails are an essential part of the growth and management of your business.
Email marketing helps you achieve 3 key objectives:
1. Conversions (selling your products and services)
Launching a sale or promotion? You can send your subscribers an email marketing campaign to drive sales. In addition, try using these email marketing techniques to further boost conversions:
- Personalized discounts 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
What’s great about email is that it lets you reach someone directly. It’s one-to-one communication at its best. And people don’t just let anyone into their inbox these days. It’s a curated space reserved for favorite brands and publications.
Showing up in someone’s email inbox will help your brand stay current in the minds of your subscribers. A personalized marketing email is more impactful than a social media post where you can’t be sure if someone has actually seen your message.
One of the major benefits of email marketing is its scalability. This means that emails can be sent to a large number of recipients for a relatively low cost (compared to other marketing channels).
3. Customer Loyalty
Email drives customer loyalty at every stage of the buyer journey: lead-nurturing, conversion, onboarding, retention. As well, email marketing is a necessary tool to use alongside sales CRM systems to streamline communication.
It’s truly a powerful way to build a community, as discussed in our guide to building relationships with email.
Why Email Marketing Is Important?
Accessibility
Email is accessible to all age groups. It opens the door to a wide range of audiences — even the least digitally-savvy among us.
We might live in the digital age but not everyone is super comfortable usisng the internet. However, most people do know how to check their email. This makes it the most mainstream form of digital marketing.
Affordability
Email marketing is extremely cost-effective. Most email marketing tools offer pricing packages to suit all budgets. To make the most of your marketing efforts, you really need an email marketing service.
Many email tools offer free plans. These are ideal for first time email marketers who want to get a hang of the software before purchasing. With nothing to lose, there’s no excuse not to give it a go.
You Own Your Email List
Think about it: If your social media disappeared, you’d lose all your followers with it. You’d be left with nothing. But this is also what makes an email list special— it’s yours.
So, if all else goes belly up, you’ll still have a direct line of contact with the people who are most interested in your brand. This is why having your own email list is so beneficial. And the intimacy of email as a one-to-one channel will bring you even closer to that audience.
How Does Email Marketing Work? Introducing ESPs
Businesses use what’s known as an email service provider (ESP) to send marketing emails.
An email service provider is software that sends and manages email marketing campaigns.
It’s also referred to as an email marketing platform, email marketing tool, email marketing service, or email marketing software.
Now you might be wondering, can’t I just send marketing emails with my regular inbox provider? Do I really need to pay for this additional email service?
Technically, it’s possible. (We even explain how in our guide to sending mass email with Gmail). Beware, though. You’re likely to run into problems with limited email bandwidth, design, and more importantly, email deliverability. Here’s why:
Internet Service Providers (ISPs) like Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, etc. are designed for personal use — not for email blasts. So, when a mass email is sent from an ISP, it’s easily flagged by spam filters and your account can be disabled for suspicious activity.
ESPs, on the other hand, have the necessary infrastructure in place to ensure good email deliverability rates —i.e., the ability to land emails in your subscribers’ inboxes. If you want to set yourself up for email marketing success from day one, get yourself a dedicated email marketing service.
How to Start Email Marketing: What Do I Need?
Keeping it simple, there’s two main things you need to run email marketing campaigns.
- Email marketing software
As we’ve just explained, a dedicated email marketing provider is the way to go. Sending marketing emails through an ISP will only put your brand and email sender reputation at risk.
- An email list
This list should contain the email addresses of interested subscribers who have opted-in to receive email communications from you.
Yes, that’s right — opt-in. Because here’s the thing about email contacts:
Everyone on your email list needs to have given their express permission to be there.
What does that mean?
It means they agreed to receive emails from you when they entered their email address into an email signup form on your blog, website, landing pages, social media, or anywhere else. In email terms, this consent is referred to as an ‘opt-in.’ (‘Opting out’ would be an unsubscribe).
Permission-based marketing is essential to conform with data protection laws and safeguard the integrity of your brand. After all, nobody likes a spammer.
Still with us? Great, because here’s where it gets exciting — learning how to launch an email marketing strategy, starting with your first email campaign.
How to Launch Your First Email Marketing Campaign in 8 steps?
1. Choose the right email marketing software
The first step is finding an ESP to send and manage your email campaigns and email subscribers.
Popular email tools include Sendinblue, Mailchimp, Constant Contact, Convertkit, Mailjet, Mailerlite, and HubSpot — to name a few.
With hundreds of ESPs on the market, it’s hard to know which one is right for your business. And it’s easy to get sucked in by shiny bells and whistles you probably don’t need (not yet anyway).
Evaluate your needs. Distinguish between must-have features and nice-to-have features. Make a list.
Here are some questions to help narrow down your options:
- What’s your budget? If it’s very limited, then cheap email marketing services should be your starting point.
- What kind of emails do you plan to send, and how often? This’ll give you an idea of your required email volume (i.e., number of email sends).
- If you’ve already got a list of opt-in contacts, how many are there?
- What’s your skill level when it comes to designing emails? If you’re a complete beginner, you’ll want a drag and drop email editor. Email templates will also come in handy. On the other hand, if you prefer to code emails from scratch, you’ll be on the lookout for an HTML editor.
- Do you plan to set up automated email workflows? See what the ESP offers in terms of email marketing automation. Some solutions only offer basic autoresponders.
- If your business communicates with different buyer personas, what contact list segmentation capabilities are offered?
- Will your business be sending transactional emails? (Note that these are not considered email marketing).
It’s also a good idea to consider your future needs. Found an ESP you like? Do some simulations: Ok, if my list grows to x, how much will this ESP cost? If I want to add x to my strategy, does this ESP have the feature-set to support me? What sort of integrations or apps will I be able to add on?
Optimism for the future is a good thing, but don’t get carried away. Of course, stay focused on the essentials for now.
Pricing by email volume vs. pricing by subscribers
As you’re exploring different options, you’ll notice most providers base their pricing on the number of subscribers.
Lots of email marketing solutions will try to lure you in with cheap entry plans for a small number of subscribers (often 250 or 500). The catch? The prices tend to jump significantly once your list grows beyond these limits, as is the case with Mailchimp.
And hopefully your list will grow because that’s kind of the point. But it sure would be a shame to end up overpaying for email in the long run.
2. Build your email list
You can’t send email campaigns without anyone to send them to, so it’s time to start building a list of engaged, opt-in subscribers.
Most ESPs let you create subscription forms to embed on your website.
When creating a subscription form, be super clear about your signup promise — what kind of email content will subscribers receive and how often?
If you promise a bi-weekly email newsletter with content marketing tips, stick to that. If you start sending unrelated promotional content, expect people to unsubscribe, or worse, mark your emails as spam.
Remember: People trust you enough to give their email address in the first place, don’t abuse that trust.
Add opt-in forms to your website and other places
Place your email subscription form in highly visible places where people will definitely see it.
Typical subscription form hotspots include blog posts, the homepage, and contact page. Creating a pop-up form on your website can be a good idea, too. Just make sure not to disrupt the user experience too much. Pop-ups that prevent visitors from using your site can be big deterrents!
Share forms on social media by including a link in your bio or posts.
Run an ecommerce/online store? Include a signup option as part of the checkout process.
Supercharge your list with content upgrades and lead magnets
Nothing makes a list grow faster than premium content.
Guarded content like ebooks, reports, checklists, or infographics are great ways to grow your contact list. Visitors get valuable content in exchange for joining your newsletter list. It’s a win-win!
Special offers and discounts are a great way to get people onto your list, too. For example, clothing brand Mango offers 10% off your first order when you subscribe to their newsletter.
Discover more tactics in our guide to email list-building.
3. Set up a welcome email for new subscribers
When someone signs up to your email list, you’ve gotten their attention. Now it’s time to engage them even further with a welcome email.
A welcome email is an automated message sent to new customers and subscribers. The idea is to introduce your brand and any content that’ll establish your relationship with the subscriber — a welcome discount, links to latest articles, useful information, etc.
Conclusion
Analysing key email marketing metrics will teach you how to improve your strategy for future campaigns. As a beginner email marketer, there will always be areas for improvement.
Most ESPs have an analytics dashboard with at least the following metrics:
- Open rate: The ratio of the number of people who opened your email divided by the total number of recipients.
- Click-through rate: The ratio of the number of people who clicked on a link in your email divided by the total number of recipients.
- Unsubscribe rate: The number of people who unsubscribed divided by the total number of recipients. If this number is high, you need to review your email frequency and segmentation — we’ll look at this in more detail shortly.
- Bounce rate: The number of emails that failed to deliver divided by the total number of emails sent.
Hopefully this article has given you a better idea of the world of email marketing.
