An Introduction to Email Marketing

No matter if you’re just starting out on your business journey or if you’re a veteran at it, there’s always the need for more and more innovative marketing strategies and email marketing is one of them. This type of marketing has been around for a while now but there’s a lot that has changed since it first began.

In this article, we’ll dive right into what email marketing is all about and how you can use it to enhance your market reach and how it can help boost your business.

What is email marketing?

First things first, let’s break down what email marketing is all about and how you can make the best use out of it. In the simplest of terms, you can categorize email marketing as a channel through which you can market your company, brand or business to your target audience. 

But unlike traditional advertisements which are usually generalized and aimed at a larger audience, email marketing specifically caters to very individual client/ customer. 

Not only that but through the use of email marketing, you can also get in touch with new customers or connect with your potential clients. this type of strategy in marketing helps brands advertise their products and services and serves as a way to make your customers aware of every new product or service launch and the perks that they might be able to gain through them.

Since this is a very direct form of marketing, it is more likely to generate a higher success rate when it comes to building customer relationships and building brand awareness.

Types of Email marketing

There are many types of emails that you can create and send to your customers but one thing that is common throughout every type of email is the CTA (Call to Action). After you have determined what kind of campaign you’re going to run for your business, make sure to always include a CTA at the end of every email so that your customers are more motivated to engage with your email and take action. 

Here are some of the most common types of emails that are used by businesses for their email marketing campaigns:

• Welcome emails
• Promotional emails
• Invite emails
• Lead nurturing emails
• Confirmation emails
• Newsletter emails
• Dedicated emails
• Seasonal marketing emails
• Survey email

How to effectively use email marketing for your business

Here are 7steps you can follow in order to use email marketing to your advantage:

Create a strategy

Like anything in life, you absolutely do not want to dive into email marketing without a target or plan. Even though the concept seems pretty simple, it only works if you have a tried and tested strategy that will help you achieve all your targets and goals.

When you create your email marketing strategy, keep these three questions in mind:

• Who is your target audience?
• What is the message you want to relay?
• What is the goal of sending these messages to your customers?

Choose a reliable email marketing service provider

In a world of technology, there’s almost nothing that you cannot find online and that includes email marketing service providers. Now you don’t even have to spend precious time planning and worrying about your email strategy. You can take the help of reliable email marketing platforms who are professionals that can help you reach your goals.

Instead of racking your brain thinking about which email to send whom, you can leave it to the experts who can help streamline your campaign and do all the ground work for you. There are a host of online marketing experts on sites like Freelancer and Upwork that can be hired for various online marketing services including email marketing. There you will find experts at different price points who have education from top tech schools and various professional experience.

But before you choose a platform, make sure that they can understand what your brand is about and what message you want to communicate to your audience.

You can always choose to do this yourself but there are also added benefits to choosing professionals because they can help make your emails look more professional and have your campaign follow a straightforward route to your end goal.

Create an email marketing list

Now that you have a plan and professionals to help you carry out this plan, what you need is the email addresses of your customers. An email marketing strategy is only as good as your email list of contacts. 

Make efforts to reach out to your customers and ask for their email addresses so that you can contact them about offers, promotions and information. 

Here are some ways you can achieve this:

• If you have a physical store, keep a signup sheet near the billing counter so that you can ask customers to leave their contact information for you.
• open a social media account and ask your followers to sign up/ subscribe to your email
• If you have an online website adds plug-in like a pop up where your customers can sign up with their email.

Personalize your emails

With so many businesses dedicating their blood sweat and tears to gain customers, it is only normal that many of your customers, whether loyal or not, might choose to skim through your email or skip it entirely. To break though this hurdle, make efforts to personalize the emails you send them. 

For example, you can tailor your emails to your customers’ needs by using the information they have provided such as location, purchase history or their interests to send them emails with content that are similar.

Curate an attractive welcome email

The welcome message that you send your first time subscribers is your version of a first impression. This is your moment to wow them and entice them into coming back for more by making your welcome email as attractive as you can. Strike when the iron is hot!

Test before you commit

Email marketing is relatively less expensive in comparison to other marketing strategies so it doesn’t cost you much to try out different versions of emails before you commit to one template. Try a bunch of different ones and see which ones get the most engagement and stick to those.

Track your results

Email marketing does not end with you pressing the send button. You still have to track your progress and analyze the results of your campaign. A campaign is only successful if you are constantly keeping an eye on your activities like click through rates, open rates, and even your unsubscribe rates.

See what works and what doesn’t and improve upon your newly acquired knowledge to streamline your emails for better customer experience.

Tips to increase the success rate of your email marketing campaigns

• Hold back on spamming the inbox. Even if you have a textbook foolproof strategy, it’s never a good idea to spam your customers with emails that are irrelevant emails. This makes them lose their trust in your brand and might end up unsubscribing to your email.
• Refrain from buying email lists. There are a lot of strict protocols and policies when it comes to accessing email address so aim for organic growth instead.
• Be well versed in national and international email regulations lest you end up in legal trouble.