The Ultimate Guide to Email Marketing

 

How does email marketing work?

Email marketing involves sending targeted emails to customers and subscribers in order to boost conversions and revenue. This is achieved by providing valuable information that helps them achieve their goals.

When to Use Email Marketing

There are many ways to use email marketing — some of the most common include using the tactic to:

• Build relationships: Build connections through personalized engagement.
• Boost brand awareness: Keep your company and your services top-of-mind for the moment when your prospects are ready to engage.
• Promote your content: Use email to share relevant blog content or useful assets with your prospects.
• Generate leads: Entice subscribers to provide their personal information in exchange for an asset that they’d find valuable.
• Market your products: Promote your products and services.
• Nurture leads: Delight your customers with content that can help them succeed in their goals.

Email Marketing Benefits

• There are over 4 billion email users worldwide, so if you’re looking for a way to reach your customers, email is the perfect place to find them.
• As of 2020, email generates $36 for every dollar spent.
• 79% of marketers list email marketing in their top 3 most effective marketing channels.
• Email visitors are the most likely to convert on forms.
• Perhaps the best reason to use email marketing is that you own the channel. Outside of compliance regulations, there is no external entity that can impact how, when, or why you reach out to your subscribers.

Why Email Marketing Works

email usage is predicted to exceed 4 billion people by 2023. This is compared to the predicted 1.2 billion people that will be using Instagram by the same year. Email is expected to remain one of the most popular communication channels, despite the recent rise in social media usage.

Email is a direct and cost-effective way to connect with your leads and nurture them. Here are two reasons why email marketing is worth investing in.

You control who you target

If you want to send marketing communications to only relevant leads, email marketing is the most direct form of marketing because the people who sign up for your emails are already interested in your brand.

In addition, you have more control over your list of subscribers if you do not rely only on social media. For example, if you use a social media platform like Instagram or Twitter and are found guilty of trend abuse, your account can be suspended and you would then lose access to all your leads.

While email marketing may not be as flashy as social media, you will always have access to your list of subscribers. Yes, some may unsubscribe from time to time and your emails could be marked as spam, but if you stick to the basics, email deliverability and unsubscribe rates shouldn’t be an issue.

It gets more conversions

Email marketing generally has a much higher ROI than most other forms of marketing. According to a Google Economic Impact Report, businesses make an average of $2 in revenue for every $1 spent on Google Ads. However, email marketing has an ROI of more than $40 for every dollar spent, which is significantly higher.

This is, in part, due to the fact that you are sending emails to people who have already subscribed to your emails. These people are more likely to convert because there is already an interest in your brand and what it has to offer.

Getting Started with Email Marketing

Create an Email Marketing Strategy

There are a few key steps you can take to build an effective email strategy and send emails that people actually want to read.

The following five steps can be used as an outline for your email strategy. Some of these steps will be discussed in more detail later.

1. Define your audience.

An email is effective if it is relevant. To make it relevant, you should start with your buyer persona and understand what they want. You can then tailor your email campaign to your audience’s needs.

2. Establish your goals.

Before you come up with your campaign goals, get some background information.

Having industry specific benchmarks for your email marketing goals is important.

3. Build your email list.

You need people to email you, right? Having an email list is a great way to stay in touch with people who are interested in what you have to say.

In order to create a list of subscribers, you will need to provide multiple opportunities for people to sign up to receive your emails.

Even if you only have a small number of people on your email list when you start, don’t be discouraged. It may take some time to build up your list, but in the meantime, treat every subscriber and lead as if they are valuable, and you will see your list grow gradually over time.

4. Choose an email campaign type.

There are many different types of email campaigns you can send, and it can be difficult to decide which ones to use. For example, you might send a weekly newsletter, new product announcements, or blog posts.

These questions plague every marketer. The answer is subjective.

There are several different types of email campaigns that you can choose from. Select the one that best suits your target audience.

It’s a good idea to create separate email lists for different groups of people, that way each group only receives the type of emails that are relevant to them.

5. Make a schedule.

Let your audience know how often you plan to contact them.

If you do this, your subscribers will know what to expect in the future. If you don’t do this, you will have a lot of people unsubscribe, and you may even end up on a spam list.

Once you create a posting schedule, be consistent with it to build trust with your audience and keep yourself top of mind.

6. Measure your results.

As marketers, we are always measuring something. Focusing on key metrics will help you make small changes to your emails that will lead to big results.

How to Send Marketing Emails

You will not be able to start emailing yet, unless you want your email to go to the spam folder, or even worse, to be put on a blocked list.

Before you start emailing your list, keep the following things in mind:

1. Choose an email marketing service.

An ESP can provide a great deal of support if you want to improve your email marketing.

HubSpot’s Email Marketing tool helps you create professional looking marketing emails without the need for designers or IT.

The features available will help you create successful email marketing campaigns and support your email marketing goals.

You can analyze the success of your email marketing and share the data that matters most to your business with your team using HubSpot’s Email Marketing service. The best part is that it’s free to use.

2. Use email marketing tips.

Email marketing etiquette requires more consideration than informal emailing. Things like the time you send your email, and what devices your email could be opened on, are important factors.

A marketing email should be crafted in a way that will generate more leads than other emails.

Let’s touch on the components of a successful marketing email:

Your email’s copy should be consistent with your voice and focused on only one topic.

Choose images that will look good on all types of devices, are attention-grabbing, and fit in with the rest of your content.

Your CTA should take your subscriber to a relevant offer so it stands out from the rest of your email.

The best day to send emails, based on a study of 20 million responses, is Tuesday at 11AM ET.

Since 55% of emails are opened on mobile devices, your email should be optimized for mobile as well as all other devices.

Personalization: When writing emails, pretend that you are sending them to a close friend. This will make your emails more personal and friendly. Be sure to address your reader in a familiar tone throughout the message.

Your email subject line is one of the most important elements of your message because it’s what gets readers to open your email in the first place. so make sure you’re using clear, actionable, enticing language that is personalized and aligned with the body of the email.

3. Implement email segmentation.

Segmentation is making smaller groups out of your large email list based on your subscribers’ individual qualities, interests, and preferences.

It is important to remember that our subscribers are human beings and not just generic email recipients. This means that we should take care to treat them with respect and send them tailored messages rather than generic email blasts.

Additionally, if you have a segmented list, you can send more personalized content which should, in theory, lead to higher engagement rates. Segmentation is the process of dividing your contacts into different groups based on certain characteristics. This allows you to send more relevant content to each group, rather than send the same email to everyone on your list. Why is segmentation important? Segmentation is important because it allows you to send more relevant content to each group, rather than send the same email to everyone on your list. This can lead to higher engagement rates.

Why should you segment your email list?

For each person who signs up to receive your emails, they are at a different level of readiness to convert into a customer.

If you want to keep your subscribers, don’t just send them a discount coupon for your product without first building trust and developing a relationship.

See your email subscribers as individuals that you want to establish a connection with, rather than a group of leads that you are trying to force into a one-size-fits-all category.

If you divide your contact list into smaller groups, you will earn more trust from potential customers, which will make it easier to convince them to make a purchase.

4. Personalize your email marketing.

A report from Litmus in 2021 revealed that 80% of customers are more likely to make a purchase from a brand that provides personalized experiences.

This means that if you personalize your emails, you are more likely to get customers to open them, and if you ask customers for data to personalize their experience, they are likely to give it to you.

You’ve collected a lot of individualized data. Your email marketing software allows you to insert personalized tokens. There’s no reason to send generic emails that don’t make your leads feel special.

Here are a few ways to personalize your emails:

• Add a first name field in your subject line and/or greeting.
• Include region-specific information when appropriate.
• Send content that is relevant to your lead’s lifecycle stage.
• Only send emails that pertain to the last engagement a lead has had with your brand.
• Write about relevant and/or personal events, like region-specific holidays or birthdays.
• End your emails with a personal signature from a human (not your company).
• Use a relevant call-to-action to an offer that the reader will find useful.

Use Email Marketing Platforms for Email Automation and More

After everything is considered, you have to comprehend that running an email marketing campaign for tens of thousands of supporters isn’t a simple undertaking. It requires some investment and exertion to deal with the entire cycle. In this way, it’s a savvy thought to utilize an email marketing stage to assist you with dealing with the cycle better. The vast majority of these stages give an email computerization include that empowers you to send mass emails naturally.

Here are some of the best email marketing tools that you can use:

EngageBay

EngageBay is a top 10 marketing automation solution that is trusted by more than 28,000 customers. It offers email marketing features that are easy to use, including a web form builder that uses drag-and-drop functionality. In addition, it also has a drag-and-drop landing page builder that makes it easy to grow your subscriber list.

Dragging and dropping is a feature that allows you to move an object on a screen by using a pointing device, usually a mouse. You can drag and drop email subscribers to create a list, and then add personalized fields to segment your audience. With the help of workflow features, you can create email sequences that can be managed by triggers or time delays.

EmailOctopus may be free, but it doesn’t have as many features as some of the paid plans. For only $30 per month, you can send 25,000 emails to 50,000 people.

EmailOctopus

EmailOctopus was founded in 2014 and offers intuitive email marketing services. It has helped more than 68,000 organizations and has a major advantage of simplicity. For example, if you want to customize a template, it offers a drag-and-drop editor to streamline the process. You can set your email campaigns on autopilot.

The app also has a landing page builder that can be used to create sign-up forms to attract more leads, or to simply import existing subscribers.

The free plan is great for up to 2,500 subscribers, but if you have more than that you’ll need to sign up for the Pro plan, which starts at $24 per month.