What is email marketing?
You've probably received a newsletter or two over the years from brands you want to stay up to date with news, offers, etc. Note, however, that email marketing today comes in many more forms, and the classic newsletter with info about offers and news is just one of them.
Building credibility and thus warming potential customers through emails has become part of best practice in the marketing world today. This is done by companies sending out emails to their mailing list with free guides, funny videos, or content with specialized knowledge, just to name a few possible examples.
Email marketing has evolved
In the past, a company would sit down and write a newsletter in their newsletter program and send it out to everyone on their mailing list. Today, email marketing has evolved and more technical software tools are used to help companies manage this type of marketing.
It has been found that it is far more effective to segment mailing list in order to target the emails sent out to be relevant to the recipients - this is called direct mail. This is especially smart because the more relevant the communication is to the recipient, the fewer people will be annoyed by receiving the email, thus reducing the unsubscribe rate.
With the right email marketing platform, this exercise can be largely automated. This means that today you can create automated mail flows that allow your email platform to automatically send targeted emails to your recipients. Which email each recipient should receive depends on what specific action the recipient has taken on your website.
A good marketing automation can communicate with a large number of people leads via personalized content to each potential customer's situation, needs and willingness to buy. This is possible because the system is able to track and analyze what your potential customers find interesting as well as how far they are in the buying process through data about their visits to your website.
What is the benefit of email marketing?
When looking at email marketing vs social media, it's worth mentioning that your mailing list is yours! Have you ever heard the horrible stories of companies' media profiles being shut down? Because they unknowingly broke a rule on a medium that they had spent an extremely long time building fans on. You can't go that wrong with email marketing. Here you have your own mailing list and neither Facebook, Instagram or other media can delete the recipients on your mailing list.
As previously written, you have the opportunity to communicate more directly to your target audience via direct mail. This is to strengthen your relationship with your customers without you having to do much. Because once your emails have been automated, your system takes care of most of the work and you can concentrate on other things in your business. If you have a customer who is unsure whether to buy or not, you can, for example, use email to build a trust that warms up the customer so much that you can ultimately call them and complete the purchase. This saves you both time and money compared to cold canvas sales, as they don't have to call the customer multiple times to build the same interest, which is instead automatically sent via your email flow.
What types of marketing emails are there?
There are several ways to conduct your email marketing. Most companies use different types of marketing emails to keep their customers updated with useful and relevant information about their company. They all have their advantages, so instead of listing all types of marketing emails, here are some examples of the most commonly used types of marketing emails:
Newsletters - Helps keep your customers updated with news about your company. It also gives the customer an insight into what's happening in your company, such as what projects you're working on or the hiring and promotion of new employees. It's the best way to keep your customers updated so that they can follow your company's development.
However, it's also important to keep in mind that your newsletter shouldn't be a nuisance to your customers. As a general rule, stick to the following:
- Short and concise text: Make sure your newsletter only contains relevant information and text so that the newsletter doesn't get long.
- Design: Make sure the images and layouts in your newsletter are consistent with your brand.
- Beware of spam: If you send out your newsletter too frequently, it can become a nuisance to your customers who will not read your newsletter and, in the worst case, unsubscribe.
Dedicated emails - If you have an offer that you want to send information about to your customers, you can send a one-off email to them to let them know if it's an offer that is attractive to them. This can be anything from offers for free webinars to advice on a specific marketing area. The advantage is that you can also create a call-to-action button in the email that allows you to get an overview of which of your customers have responded to the offer advertised in the email.
Transactional emails - If your customer has agreed to a specific type of email, they will receive a separate email with information about the offer they have accepted. For example, if your customer has agreed to participate in a webinar, they will receive a separate email describing how to connect to the webinar online.
Generate leads with automated emails
Whether you have a great sales team or not, there will be potential customers you miss out on because calling isn't always enough. Many customers need to build credibility with who you are and what your company can offer. This is where automated emails can be a much more profitable marketing effort, with the aim of providing your customers with valuable knowledge to turn them from cold leads to warm leads.
Automated emails allow you to warm up your potential customers with specific and targeted content - sent to them automatically, while giving your sales department valuable insights into the point in the buying process where a call is most likely to result in a purchase.
The conclusion is that automated emails are a really good idea to include in your marketing strategy.
How do I get started with marketing automation?
The very first and probably the most time-consuming thing for you is to write good workflows with quality content for each segment you want to divide your mailing list into.
Next, you need to choose a provider for your so-called email campaigns.
And last but not least, your written newsletters should be set up in the system you have chosen and linked to the segments and actions you want the system to work from.
The vast majority of companies choose to hire a marketing agency or a consultant to help with this exercise, but that doesn't mean it's impossible to do it yourself. If you have a marketing manager on staff, they will most likely know how to do it, or at least be able to get to it.
Frequently asked questions about Email marketing
Email marketing is a way to maintain communication with your customers and update them with useful and relevant information about your company that helps to create insights and build good relationships with your customers. You have the opportunity to strengthen the relationship with your customers, which over time can result in them buying your services or products. In addition, email marketing gives you the opportunity to communicate directly to the customer without you having to do much. Email marketing is one of the best tools to generate warm leads and build loyalty to your customers by creating personalized emails targeted to specific customers based on their buying needs etc. There are many examples of email marketing, but the most commonly used examples of email marketing are newsletters, dedicated emails with offers on products and services, and re-engagement emails to maintain contact with the customer. Email marketing is an effective way to generate interest in your services and products for your potential leads. This interest can ultimately lead your leads to buy your services or products.
