Email Marketing: What You Need to Know
What is Email Marketing?
You know you’ve seen it, and you have experienced it. What is it? It’s email marketing. Your email inbox is probably “spammed” with solicitations from companies to come back and spend more money constantly. These “digital flyers” fill your inbox faster during the holidays and any other chance to show off a sale, discount, new product, or improved services.
Businesses rely on email marketing because advertising is more difficult when the modern generations aren’t watching TV or looking through the Sunday paper. Prior business models relied on more traditional means of communications. Junk mail has evolved into spam emails.
These “negative” connotations are unavoidable, but there is a reason why 1) email marketing is necessary; 2) email marketing is successful; 3) email marketing is not going away; and 4) you need to include email marketing as a part of your digital marketing outreach and funnel campaigns.
Let’s break it down.
How do you do Email Marketing?
You can’t have email marketing without a list of emails.
There are two primary ways to develop an email marketing list. These are not mutually exclusive and are often best used in conjunction. First, you have the email opt-in form. This opt-in form usually exists in some way on your website. It could be a pop-up window, a separate page, or a subtle form in the main content. It could be called a deals list, flyer invite, email update, or anything that seems non-intrusive. Second, you have the “add me” button during checkout. Again, this can be pre-selected or not but usually says, “add me to your email update list.” Regardless of how you do it, you need first to develop a list of possible, potential, or established customers willing to receive additional information about your product or service.
You need to decide who these people are on the list and what you want to tell them.
If you have both an external email opt-in form and a checkout email button, you will end up with multiple lists of potential and established clients. Don’t worry. You want as many people as possible, and you don’t want them all mashed together. Instead, you want them separated such that you know who they are. This step determines who your target audience is based on the email list. You will speak differently to the customers as opposed to the “potential” customers. For example, you may decide only to send “new items or services” email updates to established customers. Alternatively, you may choose to send those and “why you need our stuff” type emails to potential clients to try to convince them to spend their money at your company. Voice is critical in establishing solid customer loyalty and starts from your initial email blast.
You need to craft an email campaign, not just a single message.
How many emails do you get from shopping sites or services sites? Is it a lot? Probably. These companies send out so many emails because they are trying to establish a tone and brand in your head as an established firm that is the authority and leader in that industry. It could be that they don’t have the sales to back it up, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is the continual application of relevant emails at the appropriate time. So, for example, if you sell summer gear, you could plan your campaigns to have different messaging based on the season, holidays, month, or event popular event. Consistency is vital with email marketing. No one remembers that one email they got that they didn’t read from a year ago from that nameless company that they didn’t buy anything from.
You need to incorporate the campaign into your digital marketing funnel.
Regardless of whether they are an established customer or merely a potential client, your goal is to educate and convince them to support your business financially. So, email marketing pulls your target audience back into your sales funnel. Unfortunately, a digital storefront isn’t like a brick-and-mortar store. People don’t walk by and see your sign constantly. Instead, you need to remind your audience that you are still here and still relevant, or someone else will. So, email marketing is a critical component of your sales funnel and needs to be tailored to fit your digital marketing campaigns. If you create relevant and insightful content and deliver appropriately and with helpful timing, you will retain and grow your customer base.
What are the benefits of Email Marketing?
There is a multitude of benefits to email marketing. But, unfortunately, these benefits can’t be listed fully all in one place effectively. So, here is a breakdown of the top five reasons why you need email marketing as part of your digital advertising campaigns.
Improve sales from established customers
Email marketing that advertises sales and new products is ripe for ready buyers to tackle with dollars.
Get leads from potential clients
Pull people back to your site who didn’t initially buy anything with discount codes or why your products are superior.
Generate cost-effective digital advertising
When you run a Google Ads campaign, each ad and each click costs money. However, with email marketing send a single email is the cost regardless of the number of addresses, for the most part.
Create targeted and timely self-promotion
With email marketing, you can create content that highlights the best parts of your company that you want to share with your audience. This means that you get to control the message.
Communicate with a captured and targeted audience
Email marketing is one of the only digital media campaign formats that allow you to grab the attention of an audience who will to “read” content. Most other formats like social media platforms rely on images and videos to convey a message.
What are the negatives of Email Marketing?
There are no inherent negatives to email marketing. Instead, there is only abuse of the system. At the beginning of this article, the main image of email marketing was captured with the word “spam.” No one enjoys getting spammed with useless emails and boring content. Your emails will be considered a negative if you take an “all exposure is good exposure” approach. Instead, your brand image will be negatively impacted. So, here are some quick tips on how to not become the dark side of email marketing.
Connect with your audience with authentic emotions.
Personalize the messages and shape them to your customer’s needs, not yours.
Create interactive features in the body of the email to boost user engagement.
Try automatic software that sends out certain standard emails whenever an action is done.
Always create templates that have continuity with your branding colors and are attractive to read.
Show appreciation for your customers and audience regardless of how much they spend.
The Importance of Email Marketing: The Bottom Line
Once you’ve learned the fundamental importance of email marketing, the next step is to find a digital marketing specialist to help you manage your email campaigns. Not just anyone can write this content. You need someone who can create the right tone for your brand and weave it through multiple emails. Trust your gut and remember that content is critical. Good Luck!
If you’d like to learn more or about email marketing or see the effect inbound marketing can have on your business, book a discovery call and let’s have a chat!
