Email marketing is one of the best-known and most important online marketing channels. To put it another way, the numbers speak for themselves. According to current projections, users will send almost 333.2 billion emails worldwide in 2022. this strategy continues to prove successful. But what does that mean in practice?
What is Email Marketing?
Email marketing is an online marketing measure belonging to the direct marketing category. Goals are broken down into three main areas:
- Generate traffic for your website or online shop
- Strengthen customer relationships or win back customers
- Build up expert status
In the business-to-consumer (B2C) area, businesses use email marketing mainly to offer purchase incentives through discounts and offers to increase conversions.
In the business-to-business (B2B) area, email marketing is used to build long-term, loyal customer relationships.
Why Should I Use Email Marketing?
Besides email, there are many other marketing channels, such as social media, influencer marketing, and messenger marketing. So why is this strategy important among these alternatives?
The advantages of email marketing at a glance:
- Low cost
- Direct personal communication with target groups and customers
- Customizable
- Little technical understanding required
- Exportable customer data
- Easy success trackability
Marketing emails are fast, easy, and effective at a comparatively low cost.
Email Marketing Offers Many Options
The versatility and flexibility of email also mean that it can be used in different forms and for various purposes. A general distinction is made between three types of emails:
- Transactional emails
- Marketing emails
- Automated emails
The most significant difference between these types of emails lies in their technical implementation.
1. Transactional
Transactional emails are “personal” emails based on an action by the user. For example, the triggers include:
- Order confirmations
- Shipping confirmations
- Password resets
- Full shopping cart reminders
- Account balance information
- Thank you’s
Transactional emails provide the user with requested information, such as a new password, a link to activate the user account, or a shipping confirmation.
2. Marketing
Marketing emails are emails sent to many people on an email list, because they have subscribed to a company’s content or because they have already purchased a company’s products or services.
There are different kinds of marketing emails depending on the goals you’re trying to achieve. They include:
- Newsletters
- Event invitations
- Sales letters
- Holiday greetings
- Product information
Notably, these are written manually and sent at a specific time.
3. Automated
Automated emails are not an email type but a hybrid of transactional and marketing emails. In terms of content, email automation belongs more to the field of marketing emails. However, what they have in common with transactional emails is that they are event and behavior-based, created once and sent automatically.
Automated emails include:
- Welcome series
- Birthday mailings
- Newsletter subscribe/unsubscribe option
- Coupons
These automated emails are sent automatically after a specific activity, such as to welcome customers after registration, inform them of remaining products in the shopping cart, or remind them of the company and the account created after a long period of inactivity.
The Goals of Email Marketing
There are different types of emails and diverse goals that you can achieve with an email.
A lot is possible with email marketing – but not all of it makes sense. It’s important to realize that before you start an email campaign, your marketing strategy should be in place. Determine which goals you want to achieve, and which resources are available in terms of time, personnel, and money. You should tailor the type and content of your marketing emails to the goals set previously.
Goal 1: Generate Traffic
Would you like to generate more traffic for your website or online shop? In that case, linked marketing emails are a great option. With this in mind, you can link to public content and gated content. In order to download gated content, the user must enter his personal data.
It’s important that your email offers a clear incentive to click on the links as a prominent call-to-action (CTA).
Goal 2: Strengthen Customer Relationships
Emails to strengthen customer relationships are usually addressed personally and refer to specific occasions. For example, these include:
- Birthday emails
- Holidays like Christmas, New Year, Easter
- Anniversaries
- Special days like Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Women’s Day, etc.
Product-related marketing emails can also help bring customers up to date, build trust, and deepen customer relationships. Markedly, exclusive information on upcoming products and services or a look behind the company’s scenes are popular and well-functioning content.
Goal 3: Hone Expert Status
Without a doubt, expertise in a certain product or service affects customer loyalty. However, emails to build up expert status often contain more specific information than event-related emails. Consequently, these emails provide users with important information that they wouldn’t get otherwise. For example, this includes:
- Excerpts from market research and analyses
- Presentation of trends, new technologies, and study results
- Expert opinions
- Summaries of developments in a specific area
- Outlook and assessments
Obviously, there are a multitude of options in email marketing.
Email Marketing Done Right
Coupled with the help of tracking, evaluations, and tests, you can find out what interests your target group, which emails they’re opening, and which links they’re clicking on.
Remember, it’s a process. Once you’ve discovered the promising email marketing channel, we can help you get started.
Would you like to learn more about how to make your email marketing campaign a success? By all means, call the experts at NuMedia Marketing at 317-563-7235 or send us a message.
