Table of Content: How To Start with Email Marketing Campaigns
Are you looking to get a boost from your email marketing campaigns?
If you aren’t hitting your targets yet, take stock of the types of marketing strategies you’ve been using. Step back and check out these email marketing tips, to you make your campaigns more effective.
What Is Email Marketing, and How Does It Work?
The email address was the first thing we all had as soon as we got access to the phone or computers. But what about email marketing?
Email marketing is when a business or an individual sends promotional, advertorial, or fund-raising messages and/or materials via email. To get leads or build a relationship with an audience.
This type of email is sent to a group of people who have opted in to receive updates and other content about a business or a person they’ve subscribed to.
Email marketing works by capturing the interest of a person in your product or business. A call-to-action will help that person make a decision to support, purchase, or simply receive more information about what is being marketed. This starts them on the journey through the digital sales funnel.
Why Is Email Marketing Effective?
Some marketers have proclaimed that email marketing is on its way to the trash soon because of the boom in social media. Yet in spite of all the advances in mobile technology and social media, email marketing remains a crucial tool in digital marketing.
Take a look at these numbers:
- The number of smartphone users is expected to pass the 5-billion mark. Meanwhile, social media is estimated to have 2.77-billion users in 2019.
- Another survey shows that “60% are influenced by the emails they open and read. And 50% of the people said that they bought something via email marketing or advertising once a month.”
- According to Hubspot, 93% of B2B marketers are still using email to distribute content.
- Statista says that email users are expected to reach 5.6-billion by the end of 2020.
- Of this number, each person will own an average of 1.75 email accounts, according to 99firms.
- Moreover, there are 293-billion email messages sent daily.
These massive numbers tell you why email marketing is still an effective strategy.
Related Article: 10 Email Marketing Benefits for Businesses
So How Exactly Does It Work?
Step #1: Make an Email List
It all starts by building a targeted email list. After all, you won’t be able to send out your message without a list of people interested in what you have to offer.
One way to do this is to drive users to a landing page that entices them to opt into your email subscription. This can be done through promos, social media campaigns, gifting, or using pop-ups on your website.
Step #2: Find Out What Kind of Email You Would Like to Send
Next, you need to learn what type of email marketing you should use for your email list.
Be it to welcome new subscribers, engage users, or organizing them into segments, knowing what content to send them will increase conversion rates. And help you reach your key performance indicators (KPI).
Step #3: Crunch the Data
With the data you’ve gathered in building your email list, you’ll most likely end up with information that can create a persona for certain types of users.
This way, you can create custom content, based on gender, preferences, age, location, etc. which will help you come up with email marketing campaigns that your target audience will more likely relate with.
Step #4: Use Customer Relationship Management (Crm)
Manually sending emails to the people on your list may take a long time – especially if you’re handling a huge business with an equally huge following.
CRM presents a way for marketers to easily create emails, automate campaigns, and send it to thousands seamlessly.
Email Marketing vs. Social Marketing
Email marketing is also a powerful, cost-effective way for businesses to reach customers. Compared to the other 4 types of marketing strategies, namely social media, SMS, content, SEO. There are email marketing softwares or CRM tools that businesses can use without having to pay a premium. Also, email access is free, whether on a desktop, laptop, or smartphone. It’s definitely far more affordable in contrast to SMS charges you may incur through SMS marketing.
Comparing email marketing with campaigns run through SMS and social media, it’s easy to see how much information you can fit in one message. Not to mention how dynamic each email can be.
Let’s Talk About the Email Marketing Strategy
Just because you have an email list doesn’t mean people will come begging to get a hold of your products or services. It takes an effective email marketing strategy executed beautifully to get leads and sales out of email marketing.
Here are some of the best marketing strategies of all time that you can use in your campaign, right now:
1. Authentic Personalization
Gone are the days of using the subscriber’s name and other details in email marketing. A study by Temple University reveals that 95% of 600,000 customers that partaken reacted negatively when an email ad greeted them by name. Moreover, customers who aren’t familiar with the firm/business opted out of the email list.
The same study found out that product personalization, based on recipients’ past purchases, worked better in getting positive reactions from customers.
The lesson here is that marketers should never assume that just because customers agreed/accepted the “Terms and Conditions” means you can simply use their personal information on email marketing campaigns. First, build a relationship by sending relevant content based on their preferences and other behavioral data.
2. Mobile-Friendly Design Is Important
Did you know that 47 percent of all emails opened were done on a smartphone?
It would be a big blow to lose almost half of your potential profit. Just because your customers can’t read your email on their phones. That’s why one of the best marketing strategy steps you can take is to make sure that your email layout is mobile-friendly.
3. Freebies Are the Best
One of the fastest ways to build your email list and open rates is by giving away freebies. Free stuff or incentives can increase open rates by as much as 50 percent, according to Hubspot. Freebies can be in the form of a discount for a product, free shipping, or valuable information for your niche audience.
Final Words
Email marketing is still one of the best ways to get your product, service, or brand out there. But you need to make sure that you have the right email marketing campaigns and services to do the best practices. That way, you’ll be able to grow your following and potential profit quickly without exhausting resources.
Author Bio: Kimberly Grimms is a futurist who spends most of her time monitoring social behavior in search of new consumer trends. She uses the information to create viral and useful content. Follow her on Twitter @kimberlygrimms.
