Email marketing is still one of the best and most effective tools to help businesses establish contact with prospective customers directly in the vast digital marketing space. Certainly, social media and search engines take more of the overall credit in today’s economy, but email marketing continues to work for businesses and generate results—often surpassing other digital marketing channels with higher ROI. In developing connections directly with local consumers, email marketing is a vital factor in creating long-lasting relationships, engagement, and an overall increase in brand loyalty for a small business, along with nurturing the sustainment of a multinational organization cultivating its global relationships. Email marketing is simple: we curate a target list of subscribers who have opted in to receive communication from your business, and we send them insightful, personalized messages. This might include promotional or sales content, newsletters, updates on product launches, and customer surveys. The best part of email marketing is its ability to reach subscribers into their inbox in a direct, personal, and measurable way. Unlike social, where a level of an algorithm controls if, when, and how a potential customer sees their content, email aims and lands in the customer’s inbox, giving you the ability to communicate on a one-to-one basis.
Building an email list: The foundation of email marketing
Email marketing starts with an email list. This list of emails are people who have consented to receive emails. They have provided consent usually on websites by using a sign-up form, on social media, or through a point-of-sale transaction. Permission-based marketing is ethical, and it is required to abide by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) or CAN-SPAM Act. There can be many ideas for building your list which can include incentives like discounts, free resources (eBooks, guides), newsletters or exclusive content. The goal is to provide value to the user in exchange for their email. These email addresses will be kept in an email service provider (ESP). ESP’s are where your list of emails will go, and it is the central hub where you can manage your email contacts and send campaigns. The more clean and segmented the list, the greater the open and engagement rates. This is mainly because your emails are likely to be relevant to your brain dead recipients.
Choosing an email service provider (ESP)
An Email Service Provider (ESP) is a tool or service that you can use to design, send, and track email campaigns. These services may offer templates, automation, analytics, and list management. An ESP allows your emails to look professional, hits inboxes securely—avoiding spam filters. Many ESPs also help marketers comply with privacy laws containing unsubscribe options and unsubscribe permissions, etc. Most ESPs include drag-and-drop editors, which means even a novice can drag an image and drop it in the email layout to create a functional yet attractive email.
Crafting the perfect email: content, design, and personalization
Creating compelling and actionable email content is an art and science. An effective email has several critical components:
Subject line: This should be the first thing someone sees. An interesting subject line enhances open rates.
Preheader text: The text below the subject line, often referred to as preview text. The preheader text should either reflect the subject line or explain it.
Body copy: The body copy should be relevant, concise, and directly speak to the reader’s needs or interests.
Call to action (CTA): A button or link that invites the reader to take action. For example, “Buy now”, “Read more”, or “Sign Up”.
Email segmentation: Delivering the right message to the right audience
Segmentation is the practice of grouping an email list into smaller subgroups based on criteria like demographics, past purchases, level of engagement, geographic locations, or interests. By segmenting your email list and sending more relevant emails, marketers can improve their open rates, click-through rates, and ultimately conversions. For instance, a clothing retailer may send out winter wear promotions to its customers in colder states while sending warm-weather attire promotions to customers in tropical climates. This is an example of segmentation at work, enabling marketers to communicate in a more targeted fashion and thus, increasing the likelihood of making a sale or gaining engagement. Modern email service providers (ESPs) support advanced segmentation using data analytics and user behavior, which allow marketers to create very custom campaigns.
Automation: The key to scalable email marketing
Email automation also allows marketers to send emails automatically based on triggers and/or schedule. This is a big step forward in efficiency and personalization.
Some examples of common automated email types are:
Welcome emails: These emails are sent to the user immediately after they subscribe.
Abandoned cart emails: These emails get sent to users that added items to their cart but did not check-out.
Birthday / anniversary emails: These emails can be sent to provide a warm touch on special dates and create loyalty.
Follow-up emails: On the basis of past actions or purchases.
Automation provides a means of timely communication for marketers as well as the ability to manage and nurture leads consistently without constant effort. Automation is also effective at maintaining consistent messaging in your email volume, which will build additional trust with clients.
Testing and optimization: Enhancing campaign performance
To get better results from email marketing, there is a continual need to test and optimize. One technique frequently uses A/B testing (also called split testing). In this approach, two versions of the same email are sent to a small sample group, and marketers can see what works better. Subject lines, CTAs, images, or general makeup of the email may all be elements marketers may test. Marketers should examine open rates, click rates (CTR), bounce rates, and unsubscribe rates to see what does and does not work in their email campaigns. This will help enhance their campaigns going forward based on what they learned. Continuous testing and evaluation of performance will always lead to improvement, and the success of campaigns will build moving forward.
Measuring ROI and success
Email marketing is meant to get you results, which can mean increased sales, leads, website traffic, or customer engagement. When it comes to measuring success, you can monitor metrics, or key performance indicators (KPIs), such as:
Open Rate: The percentage of people who opened the email.
Click-Through Rate (CTR): The percentage of people who clicked a link in the email.
Conversion Rate: The percentage of people who completed an action (like buying something).
Bounce Rate: The percentage of emails that were not able to be delivered (hard bounce).
Unsubscribe Rate: The percentage of people who opted out from the email list.
These metrics provide marketers with information on what is working and not working in their email efforts, which can guide them in making decisions based on data points for future email campaigns.
