What is email marketing?

Email marketing involves using email to communicate and build relationships with customers. Most businesses use it to promote their products and build connections with potential and current customers. Common goals of email marketing are to engage your customers, educate prospects about your brand and convert your audience from leads to customers.

Related:How to Grow Your Business

Advantages of email marketing

Email marketing is a great way to keep your customers updated on your company and create valuable content tailored to your audience’s specific needs. Other common advantages of email marketing include:

Cost-effectiveness

There many affordable email marketing platforms available for your business. The price usually depends on how many emails you’re sending and the number of recipients you’re sending to. Email marketing is much more cost-effective than traditional print ads or direct mail campaigns, as you’re not budgeting for printing, advertising space, photo shoots or mailing fees. Besides marketing software, your main fees are hiring a copywriter and graphic designer if you don’t intend to write the emails yourself or use stock images.

Ability to form strong relationships with customers

Email marketing is a simple way to stay in touch with customers. Regularly emailing them and providing relevant information shows customers you value them and care about their needs. Consistently sharing educational content with your audience establishes yourself as an industry leader, builds trust and forges stronger relationships. This often leads to an increase in sales and customer retention.

Increased website traffic

If you regularly create content for your website, email campaigns are a great way to share it with customers. By segmenting your audience and learning more about what information they find valuable, you can share content geared directly toward them. For instance, a nonprofit marketing agency could send prospective customers an email with tips about how to earn more donors with a link to a blog post elaborating on the topic. This sends more people to your website to find additional resources that better benefit them and their organization.

Strategies for sending effective marketing emails

Sending relevant and valuable content takes time and research. Possible strategies include:

Attract customers with a sign-up form

Before sending emails, you must first find interested recipients. Determine the value of your emails and what benefit they’ll bring your audience. Create calls to action that entice your customers to sign up. Place sign-up forms on your website, blog and other resource pages. On these sign-ups, explain why visitors should sign up with messaging that describes the content.

For example, on a blog post about how to increase sales marketing efforts, you could include a sign-up form that reads, “Receive weekly sales tips in your inbox every week. Subscribe today for emails that help you drive profit value, increase sales revenue and easily turn more leads into customers.”

Receive permission

When you invite people to subscribe to your email list, they must input their email and click a “subscribe” button According to the CAN-SPAM Act marketing email guidelines, email senders should:

• List a clear “from” email address, name, subject line and “reply-to” address.
• Include a subject line that isn’t deceptive and accurately reflects your email’s contents.
• Disclose that your message is an ad.
• Include your physical address somewhere in the email.
• Explain how recipients can unsubscribe.
• Unsubscribe recipients at least 30 days after they opt out from receiving your emails.
• Constantly monitor any email marketing third-party companies are sending on your behalf to ensure they’re following CAM-SPAM laws.

Segment your list

To better personalize your content and cater it toward your recipient’s specific needs, segment your list accordingly. Segment your prospects by using your sign-up forms and other marketing material to learn the following recipient information:

• Demographic data:Age, gender, location, job title, salary
• Behavioral data:Product features they use, products they normally buy, the last time they clicked on your email, how often they purchase your product
• Stage of the purchasing process:Need a solution to their problem, want to learn more about your product, about to buy your product, already a current customer

Craft valuable and engaging content

Write quality content that’s personalized to your recipient’s needs and attributes. Your content should make customers feel valued. Methods to follow to craft great content include:

• Writing a strong subject line:Give your audience a reason to open the email. Most recipients decide whether to open an email based on how compelling the subject line is. Pique their interest with a subject line about your email’s purpose and benefits the recipient gets if they open it. An example would be, “Are you ready to grow your business in just 6 months?”
• Directing your greeting toward the recipient’s industry:Select a greeting that your recipient is familiar with. For instance, if you’re emailing someone in the title industry, choose a professional greeting like, “Dear Mr. Johnson.”
• Catering your introduction to the recipient:Lead your email with content geared toward the recipient. For example, “I see your nonprofit has over 100 donors. We can help you get to 1,000.”
• Providing them with valuable content:Explain how your services will help them achieve their business goals. Provide additional tips or resources to learn more. Examples include sharing links to articles, white papers, eBooks, blogs or webinars they may find helpful.
• Adding a call to action:Include a call-to-action at the end of your email that entices them to purchase or learn more about your product. Examples are offering a special discount for your product, scheduling a demo or meeting, sharing a link to purchase your product or adding social media links for your customers to tell others about your product.

Build a schedule and follow it

If you’re sending consistent emails, create a schedule and stick to it. Write out your emails ahead of time and schedule them for specific dates and times. Check your analytics to learn how many people are clicking on your emails, which links they’re visiting and how often they’re opening them. This helps you gauge information to include in your emails and the best scheduling times.

Optimize it for mobile

Your customers may be away from their computer when they open your emails. Optimize your email displays so recipients can easily view the contents on their mobile phone. Your email marketing software should have a mobile preview option. Make sure all of your images and copy fits within the mobile size and still looks visually appealing.

Once you take the time to craft and send your marketing emails, you’ll give recipients a stronger chance of learning more about your product and eventually purchasing it. After sending email campaigns, review your analytics to better understand what your audience is viewing and clicking on to better cater your emails toward their wants and needs.