Email Marketing: Beginner’s Ultimate Guide
Email marketing is one of the most beneficial types of online marketing for companies. Companies of all Kinds use email marketing to reach their target audience and increase sales.
In Europe, North America, and APAC, email marketing is the most widely used technology for customer engagement – 77.6% (compared to 62% produced by content management and 61% presented by social media). [1]
E-mail is the channel that generates the best return on investment. According to a survey by Mckinsey & Company, email conversion rates are three times higher than those of social networks, with a 17% higher conversion value. [2]
Email marketing occurs when a company sends messages or promotional materials to groups of people via email. These emails usually contain useful information, company news, announcements, special offers, or requests for sales appointments.
What Is Email Marketing?
E-mail marketing is a form of direct marketing similar to postal marketing, but it is cost-effective, faster, and more environmentally friendly because it is completely dematerialized!
Email marketing is the process of sending email messages to potential consumers to stimulate sales, build customer loyalty, or communicate information.
Today, email marketing is considered an effective communication channel. E-mail marketing can therefore be used to build trust with customers over time to turn them into regular customers. Remember that effective e-mail marketing turns prospects into customers and occasional buyers into loyal and enthusiastic fans.
It’s also an effective way to keep your customers informed of new products, sales, or special offers.
What Are the Advantages of E-mail Marketing?
Email marketing can be very effective in creating brand awareness or getting customer feedback and even commitment from customers. email marketing is cost-effective and scalable. it has other benefits, provided it is done properly.
Let’s explore the advantages of email marketing.
- E-mail transmits your message better.
90% of emails are sent to the recipient’s inbox, while only 2% of your Facebook fans see your messages in their News Feed because Facebook limits the number of times your messages appear in the News Feed to encourage brands to choose their paid advertising options. [3]
- With Email marketing, you can send personalized messages to your customers.
One of the greatest benefits of email marketing is that it allows you to personalize your messages and offers to reach the right audience at the right time. With e-mail marketing, unlike TV ads and billboards, there is no problem with untargeted marketing. You can group customers based on their location, demographics, stage in the sales funnel, and send them emails targeting their specific needs. Not only can you use segmentation to ensure that readers receive the most relevant and effective content, but you can also address readers by name and speak to them directly.
Moreover, in e-mail marketing, people expect to see your e-mail promotions. All the members of your mailing list have voluntarily provided you with their email addresses because they wanted more information about your brand.
- Email marketing helps you build brand awareness
E-marketing gives you the means to reach potential customers build loyalty with your existing customers and encourage them to visit your site frequently.
The majority of business professionals consider email to be the best way to connect, even placing it above face-to-face meetings and phone conversations.
- It can increase traffic to your website.
Email marketing messages can help you increase traffic to your website. Email subscribers are more likely to be qualified prospects and increase the conversion rate.
You can create a link to relevant website content in your email message or develop a compelling CTA that asks readers to return to your website to take a specific action.
E-mail remains a significantly more effective way to acquire customers than social media – nearly 40 times more than Facebook and Twitter combined. [4]
- Ease of implementation and being cost-effective
Email marketing is relatively inexpensive compared to traditional print marketing tactics. In addition, email marketing has a higher return on investment (ROI).
- E-mails have a greater reach
Email marketing allows you to reach a large number of Internet users even if they are not on social media. 92% of online adults use email, with 61% using it on an average day.[5]
In addition, 75% of online adult users say that email marketing is actually their preferred marketing method![6]
Despite the growth and importance of mobile messaging and chat applications, email has remained a central part of daily digital life. By 2024, the number of e-mail users worldwide is expected to grow from 3.8 billion in 2018 to 4.48 billion.[7]
- Email marketing is easy to track and measure.
With email marketing, you can track everything with software, allowing you to determine who opens your emails, who clicks on your site through your emails, and much more.
By adjusting topics, messages, and offer types, you can continue to track the success of your campaigns to see which strategies bring you the best results.
This allows you to determine if your email campaigns are effective and see what return on investment (ROI) these campaigns offer your business.
With email marketing, the return on investment is usually very high because you only send emails to people who have given you their permission by giving you their email address. Email marketing has an average ROI of $38 for each $1 spent.[8]
So you don’t need to put money into advertising to get your e-mails to reach the right audience, as is the case with most other forms of advertising.
This makes e-mail marketing one of the least expensive marketing tactics possible.
- E-mail marketing is versatile, with no character limit
With email marketing not only can you as in social media send text and images, but you can also include videos, attachments, and links to relevant content. In addition, email marketing has no character limits like social media platforms and PPC ads that limit the number of characters you are allowed to use in your message.
- It can be associated with other forms of marketing
Email marketing can often be used in conjunction with other forms of marketing such as social media advertising and even television and radio advertising.
What Is An Email Marketing Strategy?
An email marketing strategy is a plan that covers all aspects of your email marketing campaign.
You need to have marketing goals in advance to give your business direction when implementing an email campaign. Beyond that, you can evaluate the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns.
Implementing an email marketing strategy allows you to define your email advertising process in advance.
For example, you can plan when it will send promotions based on time or non-promotional emails.
Or, plan when to send more personalized messages that help maintain and strengthen relationships with prospects and customers, respectively.
When implementing your email marketing strategy, consider taking the next steps:
- Set e-mail marketing goals
- Choose the necessary email marketing tools
- Determine the target audience
- Identify appropriate tactics for listing
- Divide your mailing list into segments
- Identify the types of emails to be sent
- Create a calendar for sending e-mails
- Format the content of the email
- Optimize your emails
- Perform separate tests
- Monitor performance reports by e-mail
What Are the Types of Email Marketing?
There are three major types of email marketing: newsletters, transactional emails, and behavioral emails. E-mail newsletters are used for important communications and promotions. Transactional emails are used to confirm transactions. Behavioral emails are targeted messages based on a user’s behavior.
Email newsletters
Newsletters are the most important email that you should include in your email marketing strategy. The newsletter is a great way to stay in regular contact with your email subscribers.
In addition, newsletters help you stay visible in your target market while communicating regularly with your prospects and customers. This frequent communication will play a key role in helping your business increase brand recognition and build stronger relationships with your customers.
Transactional e-mails
- Some examples of transactional emails are:
- email receipts
- invoices
- billing statements
- order confirmations
You can even send emails when your customers perform certain actions on your site, such as downloading an e-book or abandoning their shopping cart after visiting your site. This is an automated email message that is sent to subscribers to guide them to the next step in the conversion process.
Behavioral emails
Here are some types of behavioral emails:
- Welcome/Onboarding
- Browse abandonment
- Recommendations
- Product review requests
- Replenishment/re-orders
- Password renewal/reminders
- Free Trial expiry
- Cross-selling
- Purchase anniversary renewals
- Re-engagement
How Does Email Marketing Work?
Email marketing is based on the principles of consent, segmentation, and personalization.
Permission
In email marketing, the principle is to ask permission from your potential customers by giving them the opportunity to accept before sending emails, but you can even send a cold email (an email that is sent without the recipient’s permission or prior contact).
Still, unsolicited email marketing can damage the reputation of senders, as recipients may not be willing to receive promotional emails to which they have not subscribed.
To make your email marketing activity more effective, your recipients should expect to hear from you.
You can do this by using opt-in or permission marketing. If you want to ensure that your email campaigns are well received and anticipated by your subscribers, consider double opt-in.
Segmentation
segmentation allows you to send each email to your entire list, rather than sending each email to the entire list, to send certain emails only to the subscribers you think are most interested in that content, resulting in a higher conversion rate.
Segmentation makes it easier for you to understand the topics and messages to write that will encourage users to open and participate in your email campaigns.
For example, you may discover that your user has purchased a product or downloaded a specific lead magnet.
This significantly increases the click-through rate and the opening rate of your emails and decreases the unsubscribe rate.
You can then classify your users into different groups based on their preferences, interests, location, newcomers, loyal users, and send them emails targeted to the lead magnet they have chosen.
According to e-marketers, 81% of online shoppers who receive targeted emails based on previous shopping behaviors are at least somewhat likely to make a purchase as a result.
Personalization:
Personalization is the key to success in email marketing. It is true that your message will be received by thousands of people who will receive it, but it is much more effective to write a personalized message and address it to one person.
An email marketing software, allows you to send personalized emails with the names of subscribers and for people’s birthdays.
Here are some effective measures that will help you get the most out of your email marketing:
- to avoid your email being sent to the subscriber’s junk mail folder, you must obtain permission to send emails and choose an email marketing provider.
in addition, you can show your subscribers how to add your e-mails to their address book.
- Always give people the opportunity to opt-out.
Don’t forget to offer an easy way for subscribers to opt out of your emails.
- Remove inactive subscribers to keep your list up to date.
Always send email campaigns to distinguish your inactive subscribers. If you notice that some subscribers haven’t opened your e-mails or haven’t viewed your content for a while, you can contact them to see if they still want to be on your mailing list.
Sometimes you may ask your subscribers if they would like to update their information and preferences. If they do not respond, you may consider removing them to keep your list up to date.
- Emails calendar and timing
The timing of e-mails is important, but it is more important for the content sent on social media because by increasing the number of messages at a given time, there is a risk that your content will not be visible.
But in the case of e-mail marketing, your message is in your recipient’s inbox and they can’t miss it.
However, if you specify a time frame to participate in your campaigns in order to take advantage of a special offer, you can do A/B tests to determine the ideal time that seems most appropriate for the delay and explore those for future campaigns.
- Choose titles that will make your recipients curious
To get the attention of your recipients, you need to make them curious enough with very clear messages and a friendly, conversational tone to open and read your messages. Above all, avoid writing enigmatic headlines so that the subscriber has no idea what you are talking about.
- Personalize your emails
By using your recipient’s name, you can personalize the email experience. Especially consider sending targeted and specialized emails to people who have already purchased your products or downloaded free products.
- send emails with relevant content
your email content must be of such a nature that your specific subscribers are satisfied with your content and even look forward to your emails. If not, he probably won’t open your emails again, and he may even unsubscribe.
To achieve this, consider linking to valuable resources, such as a free e-book, an epic blog post, or a webinar.
- Optimize your emails for mobile
Because cell phone screens are smaller, long subjects can be cut on mobile devices. To facilitate reading on cell phones use a larger font. Also, ensure that images are displayed in mobile mode. However, try to limit the number of images in your email messages.
Too many images can take a long time to load and can be detrimental to the optimization of your email marketing. If an email is displayed incorrectly, regardless of the quality of its content, it is likely to be deleted in less than three seconds in more than 70% of cases. [10]
- Make sure your email is responsive and includes easily loadable media.
It’s essential to have an email that’s responsive and works on both desktop and mobile applications.
Taking advantage of email marketing services helps you to do this because most of these services, such as ConvertKit or MailChimp are adapted to mobile.
- Pay attention to the readability of your emails.
Try to write emails that are easy to digest and read. Take advantage of images to better influence your recipient and help them read your text. Also, pay attention to the size of the fonts for better readability.
- Always test different tactics
To determine what will give the best results for your emails and campaigns, don’t hesitate to test different tactics. For example, in order to send the right offer to your mailing list, test several offers, and evaluate the response of your subscribers. See which offer motivates them to press the buy button.
What Is A Lead Magnet?
A lead magnet is also known as an “opt-in bribe” is an attractive offer that provides consumers with something of value in exchange for their contact information.
Marketers use lead magnets to create sales leads. Using lead magnets, you can convert potential customers into paying customers for a product or service.
Lead magnets can be digital documents such as PDFs, MP3 audio files, or videos that you can create yourself at little or no cost.
Here are some examples of popular lead magnets:
- E-books
- Tips or resources
- White papers or case studies
- A webinar
- Free Trials or Samples
- A free quote or consultation
- Quizzes or self-assessment
- A coupon
How Does Email Marketing Work With Other Forms of Marketing?
Email marketing works extremely well with other forms of marketing such as social media marketing.
There are several ways to do this, some examples are :
- You can simply write messages asking your social media followers to join your mailing list by providing a link to a form they can subscribe to.
- You can promote your business profile on social media through e-mails with buttons asking your subscribers to follow you.
- You can even set up a lead generation campaign on Facebook to collect emails that you can then use in an email marketing campaign.
- You can set up a contest on your social media accounts that asks people to provide their email addresses to participate.
How to Optimize Your Email Marketing Activity?
Email optimization is the process of improving your email campaigns so that they reach more of your recipients and get the most out of your investment.
There are various measures that can help you determine which email marketing campaigns are the most effective.
Here are some of these metrics:
- Opening rate: This is the percentage of people who have opened your e-mails.
- Click-through rate: This is the percentage of your subscribers who clicked on at least one of the links contained in your email. The click rate helps you determine the types of content your subscribers are interested in.
- Conversion rate: The conversion rate is used to measure the revenue generated by e-mail marketing. It is a measure that indicates the number of purchases made or downloads of an e-book… in relation to the total number of e-mails sent.
By checking these measures, you can understand which of your email campaigns are the most successful. You can then replicate this success by using similar tactics in future campaigns.
The only way to know for sure what works and what doesn’t is to test different types of e-mails with your subscriber list.
Email Marketing Mistakes to Avoid
You now know what email marketing is, but you should be aware that there are also bad email marketing tactics that you should not take advantage of. Here are some things to avoid in your email marketing activities:
- Don’t send spam
Sending spam to your subscribers is an ineffective email marketing strategy because it will not lead to increased sales or favorable brand recognition and can destroy your company’s reputation.
In addition, most mail servers may separate your messages in the spam box if they believe your messages are “spamming”. In this case, the chances of your subscribers seeing your emails will be below.
There is also a law called the CAN-SPAM Act that establishes requirements for commercial messages to reduce the transmission of spam.
- Buying a pre-existing e-mail list is a bad idea for many reasons.
First, you should build your email list with people who have a real interest in your business.
in addition, these lists can provide you with unqualified people who will be less likely to have a real interest in your brand and more likely to unsubscribe from your e-mails or even report them as spam.
Email Marketing Automation
You need to constantly monitor your email marketing campaigns to ensure that they are producing a return on investment. If you want to handle it on your own it can take a lot of time. That’s why you may want to consider using email marketing automation for all your e-mail marketing needs.
That’s why it’s important to have tools that help you track these important metrics. There are many email marketing software and automation tools available that make it easy to send and track your email campaigns.
You can also use the email templates in these tools to make your emails more effective and consistent or add a certain design to them.
What Are Email Marketing Services?
Email marketing services have multiple objectives, such as stimulating sales, increasing conversions, qualified leads, improving your email campaigns by offering services that can include elements of SEO marketing, social media, PPC, and more.
- Email marketing services allow you to automate the sending of emails and track parameters such as click and open rates. The most basic form of e-mail marketing automation is the autoresponder. This is an automatic response to recipients who have performed a specific action, such as filling out a form or purchasing a product. But that’s not all they do.
Marketing automation tools are capable of monitoring every digital interaction a prospect has with your business, making it more sophisticated than traditional email marketing platforms. These tools also allow you to automate many elements of an email campaign, including
- sending thank you emails after a purchase
- Know which electronic contacts are open
- Sending special offers, including discounts
- Sending reminders for abandoned carts
Keep in mind that free email marketing tools would have limited functionality compared to paid tools.
Depending on your business needs, you will be able to determine if you want to invest in all paid tools.
There are many email platforms to choose from depending on the type of functionality you expect. Here are some of the most commonly used email service providers:
Sendinblue is one of the best tools for transactional emails. It helps you optimize your email campaigns, including advanced email automation, segmentation, personalization, landing pages, and forms that aim to increase conversions.
Sendinblue offers a free plan that includes marketing automation, telephone support (for the first 60 days), and up to 300 emails per day. Advanced automation includes web-based tracking and leads scoring.
Unlike other vendors, they charge based on the number of emails you send rather than the number of contacts you have. Paid packages start at $25 per month for 10,000 emails.
ConvertKit is a powerful email marketing software that’s created primarily for online creators such as bloggers, freelancers, consultants, and other businesses that are building relationships with their audience.
You can use ConvertKit to create sign-up forms, build your email list, send personalized emails to your subscribers, and set up an automation that works while you’re asleep.
ConvertKit is free for up to 1000 subscribers. Prices start at $29 per month for up to 1000 subscribers and increase gradually from there.
Get Response is a top-rated email marketing service that allows you to create and track email campaigns, creating landing pages that convert.
There’s also a free trial plan that you can try for free for 30 days and build an email list of up to 250 subscribers. Get Response’s cheapest email marketing plan is 15.00 per month.
has a free plan with which you can send up to 10,000 emails per month to 2,000 subscribers. Paid plans start from $10 per month and can go up to $30 for 2,500 subscribers. The larger your list, the more you pay.
If you are an affiliate marketer, remember that MailChimp has a strict policy prohibiting affiliate marketing in its terms of use. The rules are a bit vague, but severe sanctions apply including account cancellation.
Drip:
Drip is a marketing automation tool that allows users to create complex automation flows and conditional statements in emails. Drip is good for the business with high levels of traffic and many different segments (types of people.
There’s a free account level that you can start with, and also a three-week free trial on every other plan. Paid plans of Drip start with Basic at $49/month for up to 2,500 subscribers and Pro at $99/month for up to 5,000 subscribers.
AWeber is a very popular email marketing service that offers a wide range of tools such as autoresponders, segments, an email generator, and more.
AWeber prices are designed so that you can start your email campaign for free. After the 30-day free trial, the cost is 19.00 per month for up to 500 subscribers, from there on prices depend on the size of your subscriber list.
ConstantContact is one of the largest email marketing services in the world. It allows you to manage your subscribers and create professional email templates using drag-and-drop templates and editing tools.
You can try ConstantContact for free for 60 days. After that, plans start at $20 per month.
Conclusion
E-mail Marketing is an effective form of marketing and it’s gaining in popularity. I hope this post will help you get an overview of what email marketing is and the main practices in this field.
If you are new to e-mail marketing, it takes a certain amount of trial and error to increase your revenue and get a better return on investment from your e-mail marketing efforts.
Don’t forget to test different tactics and measure your success along the way.
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