Email Marketing
Mobile opens account for 46 percent of all email opens
What is Email Marketing?
There are over 4 billion email users worldwide. This makes email the perfect point of contact to nurture leads. Email Marketing is a digital marketing strategy of sending emails in order to develop and manage relationships with current and potential customers. Email marketing is a simple concept with powerful potential. Done correctly, it can increase brand awareness, foster customer loyalty, and drive revenue.
Why Email Marketing Works
If you’ve gotten to this page, you likely already knew what Email Marketing was- even if you didn’t use our exact definition. You’re probably here for the answers to “why is email marketing important?” and “how is email marketing done?” Email marketing is important because it is one of the highest ROI marketing strategies available. Not only does it have the potential for a great return, but it is also the form of marketing where you have the most control over the way your brand will be perceived. It is also the most direct way online to interact with the people you’re looking to reach. Before you start writing the perfect email, though, make sure you have an audience for it. Your business should already have a contact list as a by-product of your operations. Now what to do with it?
The next steps involve taking your contact list and fostering an honest and ongoing relationship with current and prospective customers. There are plenty of ways to shine a penny, and contact outreach is much the same. However, all of the best strategies start with knowing what to do with your contact list. If your contact list already has a few customer categories, you’ve gotten a head start on the segmentation portion. Dividing your list into groups is one of the best ways to make outreach more personally relevant, and thus more effective. Once your contacts are parsed into very intentional and organized segments, it’s time to craft an email.
The perfect email is dependent entirely on its recipient. Whether you’ll be delivering flashy motion graphics, submittable forms, or just a plain text email is dictated by the purpose of the email and the preference of your target audience. Depending on your strategy, it is either fortunate or unlucky that every detail matters – Title, subtext, body, sender address, what time it is sent, and presentation all have a seat at the table. It is important to note that you are a guest in your recipient’s inbox. Even if you have been invited, be on your best behavior. This often includes providing value up-front. This builds trust and accustoms your contacts to seeing emails from you in their inbox. A good way to do this is by sending out a regularly scheduled newsletter.
Automation
Automation has revolutionized the efficiency and effectiveness of Email Marketing campaigns. Just to reiterate, though, a well-organized contact list is the first thing you’ll need to take advantage of the potential of email marketing, including automated personalization. Small to medium-sized businesses can have Superbowl-style brand awareness in their community if they target the right people and communicate correctly. Depending on your execution, this level of brand awareness can make or break your business, so it is important to intentional with your approach.
With an automated process, you can do everything from welcoming new subscribers to your email list to advertising specials and promotions. A good Email Marketing campaign will also personalize each point of contact based on their step in the buyer’s journey.
Email Marketing with Second Nature
If you’re looking for a partner in your business’s growth that understands the necessity and potential of quality communication, fill out our Company Questionnaire and schedule a consultation to see if Second Nature is a good fit. We look forward to hearing from you.
FAQs
The process of email marketing can be divided into four stages: Create or update your contact list, organize your data, craft and execute an outreach strategy, follow up and follow through. This process repeats itself and should be refined with each cycle.
A business should be collecting customer data as a part of daily operations. The strategies will vary depending on the business, but offering value in exchange for an email is typically recommended.
A successful email marketing campaign will likely have an open rate that is at or above the standard for its industry. Comparing your campaigns against relevant competitors is important for benchmarking the quality of your content.
Each metric of your campaign will indicate where your strategy could be improved. Some of the stand-out metrics to pay attention to are the open rate, CTR, and conversion rate. The open rate will indicate the strength of your Subject Line. The CTR(Click Through Rate) tells you the effectiveness of your email copy. Finally, your conversion rate(which is likely tracked separately on a landing page) will tell you the return on investment of the campaign.