Email Marketing is one of the primary communication channels between customers and companies. It is an important element of marketing strategy which is preferred by 86% of business professionals and it is the third most influential source of information for B2B audiences. It is an important tool to engage, retain customers and help in boosting marketing ROI. It is supposed to deliver ROI of 400%.
There are different kinds of emails that companies mostly send to their customers:
Newsletters: Newsletters are emails which provide updates, news, and helpful information related to the products and services of your brand. It also informs them about the latest offers and promotions. It is more than just sales emails because it deepens your relationship with the subscribers and strengthens their loyalty towards the brand.
Product Update Emails: These emails are sent to inform customers about new product or services and to update them with the latest additions. For each update, you list, include a large, clear headline, a brief description, and an image that showcases the product or feature.
Retention Emails: These emails are sent to inactive customers to re-engage them with the brand. It is very important to keep your inactive customers in contact and maintain the relationship because an old customer is more likely to buy again from you. Retention emails might contain some lucrative offers, personalized email rather than drafted ones or customer feedback forms to know the reason why they discontinued your brand.
Seasonal Emails: These emails are sent to let the customers know about the latest seasonal offers which come with a deadline. They are reminder emails for the customers to grab the deal before they are gone. They are really very effective and provide quick action.
Confirmation Emails: These emails are mostly confirmation emails which are sent after a successful sign-up, subscription, successful transaction or order placement.
For a successful email campaign, it is important to have a look at a lot of aspects and we will discuss it below:
The objective of the email: It is very important to know the objective of the email for it to be effective. Make sure the right email is sent to the right audience. The data of demographics of the target audience plus a bunch of other metrics should give you an understanding of what they want and about their interests for an effective conversion.
Use a clear and catchy subject line: It is very important for the email to have an apt content and it should relate to the subject line. Many email campaigns try “click bait” subject lines which have no connection with the content of the mail and this can have a negative impact. A customer is more likely to unsubscribe or mark the mail as spam if the mail is not what they expected after reading the subject line. Even if the content is good but it still won’t do the job if the subject line is misleading or vague. A misleading subject line may generate more click to open rate but not conversions.
Hire Professional copywriter: It is very important for the content to be clever, engaging and persuasive. If the copy is not up to the mark then all your email campaign efforts will go in vain. So it is very important to get the work done through expert email writers so that it compels the customers to hit that call to action button.
Design of the mail: It is very important to create a mail which doesn’t need too much of reading and time to convey the main message. The message should be bold, attractive and should not take forever for the customer to get the catch. The mail is also a method for branding so make sure to fit in with the rest of your branding and marketing collateral. You should include pictures which are clickable and should direct the reader back to your website or the product page.
Responsive design: The design of the mail should be responsive so that it is easily accessible on mobile phones as well. Nowadays 67.2% of consumers check their emails on the phone because it is accessible everywhere so you don’t want to miss on that.
A/B Testing: It is very important to do testing on emails by making different copies of the mail with the same objective to know which email which subject line is performing better and getting better responses. It’s best for improving not only your click-through rates but also your conversion rates.
Personalize the mail: The customer should feel that the mail was specially crafted for them rather than just a forwarded automated mail. Addressing the customer with their name adds a personal touch to the communication and garners a better click to open rate. Many email marketing tool helps you to do this and you can also track the open rates as well.
Do not spam: Make sure not to spam your customers with your emails. Nobody likes to get bombarded with emails. Your email has to be light, without any unnecessary images, code or content.
Unsubscribe me: Last but not the list you should include the unsubscribe me option as per The CAN-SPAM Act, a law that sets the rules for commercial email. The customer should be provided with an option to unsubscribe themselves if they no longer wish to receive emails from you.
Why is email marketing beneficial?
Email marketing has its own benefits which play an important role in online marketing:
-Cost Effective: Email Marketing is cost effective. It is less expensive than all other marketing channels out there.
-Precise audience: The emails are sent to the audience who want to receive such mail or have subscribed to your emails so chances of targeting the right audience and conversion are really high.
-Easy to create: Email campaigns are easy to create and it doesn’t include a huge team to handle. There are many email marketing tools that make designing and crafting beautiful and engaging emails even easier.
-Easy to track: The other important benefit of email marketing is that you can measure your marketing efforts. Most email marketing tools allow you to track open rates, CTR, and conversions. This makes it easier to apply necessary changes immediately and the campaign can be improved.
-Immediate Results: You can see the results as soon as the mail is sent because the mail is embedded with a call-to-action button which makes it easy for the customer to take an action immediately. A sale email with a deadline creates urgency among customers and they try to take the action as soon as possible. Other marketing channels need almost a week’s time to show results.
-Easy to share: It lets you share your content and offers globally with the surety of a good CTR. Also, it is easy for the customer to forward the brilliant offers with their friends at the click of a button.
-Brand awareness: Email Marketing also helps in brand awareness and creates a relationship along with trust in your brand.
-Increase Website Traffic: Email Marketing really helps in increasing the traffic on your website by redirecting all the customers to the website. Along with your current customers, it attracts potential customer too.
-ROI: Email Marketing is the key to fantastic ROI. Three-quarters of companies agree that email offers “excellent” to “good” ROI. (Source: https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics). With an ROI of around 4,300%, email practically pays for itself.
