Email is still a powerful tool for communication, whether it’s for personal or professional purposes. Most people can’t resist checking their inbox every hour to see what’s new.
That means you have a great opportunity to reach your audience with your ads, if you know how to do it right. As experts and practitioners in email marketing for businesses, we can guide you through the process of creating a newsletter that delivers results.
Email Marketing: What is it?
Email marketing is a way of reaching out to customers through email newsletters.
It can be used for different purposes, such as:
Promoting products and services for commercial organisations;
Selling content or increasing exposure for individual writers;
Informing stakeholders or sharing knowledge for NGOs.
Email can help companies with various goals:
Building their brand identity;
Generating direct sales;
Driving traffic to their website;
Encouraging referrals from existing customers.
Email marketing can nurture the relationship between the company and the client from the first day of cooperation until the end.
Pros and Cons
Before we dive into the details, let’s keep in mind that email is a trusted and reliable channel of communication for most people. They use it to deal with official matters, payments and notifications. They often rely on email to get important and relevant information. Email has the following advantages over messengers:
Easy storage and filtering of incoming emails. You can set up rules in the settings to let the system sort your messages by keywords and senders automatically. You can also create custom folders and labels.
More formats are supported. You can send emails with tables that are displayed properly — messengers don’t show them well, and people rarely open attachments.
Expanded and static display — once a user opens an email, it fills the screen so that they can see every detail clearly. Images and text look great in this format. Messages tend to get buried in messengers.
Despite the popularity of messengers, email marketing is still a forceful and efficient way of communication. Users appreciate email as a convenient way to learn about products and services.
Some of the benefits of email marketing are:
The ability to include links and buttons in the email to direct users to the website easily;
The automation of email marketing processes;
The affordability — you only need to pay for the service that handles your mailings;
The informativeness — you can track statistics, conversions and campaign performance;
The direct connection between sellers and buyers;
The high return on investment — according to statistics, every dollar spent brings back 38 dollars, and segmented campaigns generate 760% more revenue.
Email marketing has some drawbacks too:
Some users ignore or delete emails thinking they are spam;
Some commercial offers may be inappropriate or unwanted;
Competition is fierce — almost all big companies use email marketing.
However, email marketing is still worth using to boost your brand. When customers receive regular reminders of your company’s existence, they are more likely to use your services. Especially if your emails are interesting, relevant and useful.
Effective Email Marketing Campaign: How to Get Started
To make sure that your emails are not marked as spam or ignored by your recipients, you need to have a sound marketing strategy. The key is to personalise your approach to your clients and set clear goals for your campaign.
Identifying your target
The first step in email marketing is to define your strategy. This may involve creating a long-term content plan that will lead to your desired outcome.
Choose a goal that you want to accomplish:
Build a loyal community;
Convey important information to your customers;
Convert users into customers;
Increase your brand awareness.
Make a work plan that includes:
Mailing schedule;
Theme;
Content development process.
The success of email marketing largely depends on the quality of the tactical design.
Types of email marketing campaigns include:
Welcome email — the text tells the customer what to expect from the mailing and the company.
Lead nurturing — stimulating logical sales.
Audience segmentation — subscriptions to different mailings to select a specific group of people interested in communication.
Customer acquisition — used to drive sales. This includes notifications of promotions, sales and promo codes.
Re-engagement — targeting subscribers and customers who have not interacted with the newsletter and the company in 30-90 days.
Effective email marketing guides the customer through the sales funnel to conversion. You should not be too pushy and offer a commercial deal to a cold audience.
Defining your target audience
To pinpoint your ideal customers, you can use the 5W method proposed by the founder of Added Value, Mark Sherrington. It involves answering the following questions:
What do we sell — what product;
Who will buy — create a profile of the potential customer;
Why will they buy — how do we motivate them to buy?
When will they buy — we determine the favourable conditions;
Where will they buy — the place of a purchase.
Make your answers specific, then you will know how to offer your product in the best possible way. The main criterion by which the target audience is defined is its needs. This is a more precise way to understand who you are targeting with your email marketing campaign.
For example, a typical customer of a fitness club is:
Female;
25-35 years old;
Income from 60 000 dollars a year;
Residence in New York (or another major city);
Desire — to lose weight.
But a woman of 45, who is a homemaker and has a slim figure, may also be interested in the service. A better target audience profile is: “Women, 18 to 60+ years old, living in New York, who want to do fitness to maintain health, lose weight or stay in shape”. This will expand the audience which will benefit your strategy.
Segmenting the contact list
Based on the profile of the target audience, you should segment your contact list — group your contacts according to certain characteristics.
The goals of this exercise are:
Personalise your emails and increase their open rate;
Reduce the number of unsubscribes;
Increase CTR by providing only relevant content;
Boost conversions.
There are two types of segmentation — based on demographics and customer lifecycle. You should choose the right type depending on the objective of your campaign.
Demographic data that can be used for segmentation are:
Age;
Gender;
Location.
The criteria for segmentation depend on the nature of your business. For an international organisation, location is a relevant criterion — you can target customers based on the availability of a shop or a representative office in their area. For online shops, gender is a suitable criterion — you can show different products to women and men.
The second approach, based on the customer lifecycle, is useful if you want to guide them through the sales funnel or increase their engagement. In this case, you can segment your audience by the following criteria:
New registrants — they receive welcome emails that introduce them to your product or service features.
Newcomers — they have been subscribed for a while but have not taken any desired actions. You can send them introductory emails, discount offers or benefits of your product.
Engaged customers — they have used your service but not at the level you want them to (they order infrequently, only during sales). You should tell them about features they haven’t used or make a list of recommendations based on their previous purchases.
Loyal customers — they use your service and know your products well. You can conduct interactive activities, offer bonuses and tell them about new products.
Inactive customers — they stop using your service at some point. This group can be further segmented into those who have added items to their cart but have not completed their order, and those who have left their contacts but have not used your service. In this case, the goal is to win back some of the customers.
Additionally, you can divide your audience according to their behaviour with the mailing list and the website. The themes of the emails will vary depending on the situation.
ESPs (email service providers) are usually responsible for database segmentation. This process has to be done in real time. If you constantly segment your contact list into new groups, you will be able to respond to changes in customer behaviour, remind them of your service and notify them of important changes.
Choosing the type of email
In email marketing, a newsletter will be more effective if you choose the right type of email. All your communications are based on them, so it is important to find the best way to reach your audience.
Announcements
This email will not have too much information. It is a notification to the customer about an upcoming product launch, limited edition drop, event and so on. The format of the email depends on the nature of your business.
The goal is to make the customer take advantage of the offer by informing them about it. The email creates a demand for your product, service or offer.
Informational
These emails are mostly sent to customers who have not used your services for a long time. They include:
Current catalogue;
Delivery schedule;
List of promotions.
The difference between this and an announcement is that the email contains a lot of useful information, rather than a single event.
Triggers
These emails are triggered by the user’s behaviour on the website. For example, a customer has ordered a small amount of a certain product — triggers tell them about other similar products from your shop and their features.
These emails:
Introduce the customer to your company and its products;
Provide helpful information;
Give suggestions for successful collaboration.
This is a series of emails that are not meant for direct sales. Triggers are generated automatically and are sent to increase subscriber loyalty.
Transactional
This is a type of trigger email but it does not contain any promotional information, discount offers, etc. A transactional email is:
Confirmation of the registration or order placed;
Status update of the order and its delivery;
Confirmation of payment (receipt, invoice).
These notifications increase the company’s trustworthiness and recognition, as well as encourage the customer to contact the company again.
Promotional
These emails have the sole purpose of making direct sales. They need to be handled very carefully so as not to be too pushy with your services but to spark interest.
Overly intrusive emails can cause a negative reaction from customers. They may mark them as spam or unsubscribe from the mailing list. Especially if the company is too persistent.
A much better option is to offer a selection of products that can be purchased; with clever text, quality photos and offers for customers of different budgets.
Dialogical
These emails are designed to get feedback. They help companies improve by getting customers’ opinions in a convenient way. The customer sees that their opinion matters to the company and this increases their loyalty.
What are regular and automated emails
These concepts are often confused because both types of emails are generated in response to user actions and are sent automatically.
Automated | Regular |
Emails are triggered on the server by predefined events, such as:
| These emails are part of email marketing. They can be used to:
|
Collecting a database
There are two ways to get an email address database — you can buy one or collect one yourself. Ready-made email lists are not suitable for quality promotion as they can result in:
Low open rate — an average of 2%;
Low click-through rate — 0.2%;
Frequent spam complaints.
The last drawback is the most serious as mass complaints will lower your ranking within the email service and ESP. Changing your address and newsletter service will not solve the problem.
Moreover, many addresses in ready-made databases are simply inactive. Getting up-to-date data will help with lead generation in one of several ways:
Subscribing through a form on the website — this can be fixed or as a pop-up window.
Giving consent to receive emails when registering — this is usually checked automatically.
Exchanging subscriptions for discounts — this is not the most honest way but it builds up a customer base fairly quickly.
There are some ways to increase the conversion rate for subscriptions, here are some of them related to the design of the email form:
Subscriptions are more likely if the form is located on the first or second screen of the website.
Its design should stand out and not blend in with the rest of the site. You can add animation but it should not be irritating.
The simpler the form, the more conversions. A one-line subscription works well — you only need to leave an email address.
It is advisable to send the first email within one hour of signing up, and it is best to use automated emails to speed up the process.
Writing and Sending Emails
When creating your emails, remember the key requirements for their formatting:
A concise subject line increases the chances that your email will be opened. It should attract customers, intrigue, surprise and make them curious. It should not be longer than 60-70 characters.
The content of your email should be divided into separate paragraphs to make it easy to read. Paragraphs should not exceed 2-5 lines.
Add images to make your email more appealing. Call-to-action links should be placed near the beginning and the end of your email.
Make your writing interesting and engaging. Use the classic rules of sales copywriting when crafting your text. In some cases, it is better to use minimal text so that the user reads to the end.
The effectiveness of email marketing also depends on the timing of your emails. It is best to send them during the working day — from 10.00 to 18.00, so the customer can read them during their break. Entertaining emails can be sent a little later but you need to consider the time zone.
Analytics
To measure the performance of your newsletter, you need to look at the key metrics of email marketing. They include:
Number of subscriptions. The more people who leave their email, the higher the chance of conversion.
Email open rate. Your newsletter will have no impact if people don’t read it. If the open rate is low, change the subject line — make it more attractive. Humorous headlines will only work if you know your target audience well.
Action metric. After reading your email, the user should take an action, such as visiting your website, placing an order or inviting a friend. Test different versions of your email to find the one with the highest conversion rate.
Bounce rate. It should not exceed 1-2%. Unsubscribe rates are normal in email marketing. But if the unsubscribe rate spikes, you should review your email for inappropriate humour, relevance to the topic and excessive frequency of sending.
Number of spam marks. With a self-collected database, it is very rare for users to block your emails. If the number increases, it might be a sign that your emails have become too intrusive.
Conversions from email marketing should be compared with those from other traffic sources. If your emails are less effective, reconsider your texts and their overall quality.
Email marketing templates
You have probably seen emails from various newsletters but it’s not easy to create a quality one without experience. That’s why it’s helpful to look at some examples for different businesses.
Services
You can use emails to:
Deliver information in stages. The free product that you offer in the first stage of the funnel solves a small problem which is part of a bigger problem. Then you can send an offer to buy access to the full version of the service, for a fee.
Collect an email database. Ask customers who have used your service before to recommend your company to their friends. In return, offer them a discount or a useful bonus.
Send reminder emails. Include an image that clearly shows what will happen if the user doesn’t use your service again.
These examples are suitable for companies, but they can also be useful for solo professionals as their business grows.
Retail sales
Your actions should depend on the outcome of the transaction:
If the product is purchased, you can send exclusive offers within a week of delivering the order. In this case, highlight that the offer is personal and not available to others.
It will be helpful for the buyer to receive emails that reveal the features of the product. In between these, you can make a tempting offer.
If the order is not placed, you need to nudge the customer by sending them stories about the benefits they missed out on. In addition, give promo codes for discounts, offer to pay in instalments — look for an option that will lead to a conversion.
The main goal of these examples is to encourage the customer to make a repeat purchase.
Wholesale
Emails are more straightforward in this case:
Announce new arrivals promptly — on the same day.
If the purchase doesn’t happen, you can use your other customers’ success stories. The idea is to show that it’s profitable to work with you, and by placing a minimum order, the buyer can test it out.
VIPs can be offered free delivery or another nice bonus for any occasion.
Although all these steps are simple, there is also room for creativity in the field of wholesale.
TOP 3 Best Email Marketing Services
Email marketing relies on a service called ESP (email provider). Some companies may try to create their own version of this software, but they soon realise that it’s a fool’s errand — it’s more cost-effective to use ready-made professional solutions.
Mailchimp
The service offers two payment options: subscription and pay-as-you-go. If the plan limit is exceeded, the mailing will continue — the user will be charged accordingly. The database can be segmented based on various criteria, such as user activity, age, birthday and subscription source. There are several ways to add contacts to the database: manually, from social networks, CRM and CMS. Besides standard forms for collecting addresses, users can also design a separate page using the landing page visual editor.
Other Mailchimp features include:
Creating surveys;
Replying to subscribers within the service interface;
Setting up automated and regular newsletters;
Using built-in optimization tools.
Pricing:
Free plan lets you have up to 500 contacts and 1,000 emails per month (with ads). You can use basic features such as email marketing, landing pages, social posting, surveys, and creative assistant.
Essentials plan costs $13/month for 500 contacts and 5,000 monthly email sends. You get everything in the Free plan plus more email templates, A/B testing, custom branding, and 24/7 email and chat support.
Standard plan charges $20/month for 500 contacts and 10,000 monthly email sends. You access everything in the Essentials plan plus advanced features such as automation series, retargeting ads, custom templates, behavioural targeting and dynamic content.
Premium plan requires $350/month for 10,000 contacts and 150,000 monthly email sends. You enjoy everything in the Standard plan plus advanced segmentation, multivariate testing, comparative reporting, phone support and unlimited seats.
Advantages:
Easy-to-use interface for email campaigns creation and management.
A variety of customizable templates to choose from.
Multivariate email testing for result optimisation.
Advanced analytics and reporting to track performance and revenue of email campaigns.
Disadvantages:
Large contact lists or high email volumes require a lot of payment.
HTML code or custom fonts of emails cannot be edited.
Limited personalization due to the lack of segmentation and targeting based on behaviour or preferences.
Phone support limited to top plan.
GetResponse
They offer a range of tools for marketers, from automated mailing lists to website builders. If you are unsure what you’ll need for the job, you can explore ready-made solutions tailored to your business segment.
When crafting a message, you can use templates and insert images from the Shutterstock library. If you have a specific font on your website, you can add it to the message editor. Email layout can be done in both the classic designer and the HTML version.
Main features:
Built-in photo editor: apply frames, effects and text to any image;
Time zones and optimal time functions: send emails at the best time for your audience;
Automatic generation of reports: monitor and measure your email performance;
Adaptation for mobile devices: ensure your emails look great on any screen;
Tracking the impact of newsletters on social media: see how your emails drive social engagement.
Pricing:
GetResponse offers a free plan but it has limited features and supports up to 500 contacts and 2,500 emails per month. You can also enjoy a 30-day full access period to test all the features on any of the paid plans.
Basic plan starts at $15/month for 1,000 contacts and provides email marketing, autoresponders, landing pages, forms and surveys.
Plus plan costs $49/month for 1,000 contacts and adds automation builder, webinars, contact scoring and tagging, sales funnels and more to the Basic plan features.
Professional plan requires $99/month for 1,000 contacts and enhances the Plus plan features with unlimited automation builder, paid webinars, webinar funnels and on-demand webinars.
Max plan is a custom plan for enterprises that offers everything in the Professional plan plus transactional emails, dedicated support, dedicated IP address, deliverability consulting and more.
Advantages:
Easy campaign creation with a user-friendly interface and a drag-and-drop editor.
Website builder feature that lets you design and host websites without any coding skills.
Integration with Google Analytics and other platforms like Facebook and WordPress to track and measure your email performance.
Disadvantages:
No two-factor authentication for account security — this can make it vulnerable to hacking or unauthorised access.
Upper plans are expensive for users with a low number of contacts. For example, the Marketing Automation plan costs $59/month for only 1,000 contacts.
No phone support for any of the plans: users have to use email and chat support which can be slow or unresponsive at times.
Slightly inflexible platform for design and personalization: users cannot edit the HTML code or use custom fonts of their emails.
Sendpulse
This email marketing service offers a one-stop solution for various types of mailings: triggered, transactional, bulk, push notifications and SMS. Users can benefit from chatbots, a block email builder, subscription form integration and interactive message creation. Sendpulse integrates with more than 40 platforms, including all popular CMS sites and CRMs. It also features its own in-house webpage builder, multi-account connection and cloud storage for branded images. Its features include:
Audience segmentation;
A/B testing;
Follow-up mailing to unread users;
AMP4 Email technology.
Pricing:
Free plan includes limited features and supports up to 500 contacts and 2,500 emails per month.
Basic plan starts at $6.40/month for 500 contacts and provides unlimited messages, automated emails, landing pages and web push notifications.
Standard plan costs $7.68/month for 500 contacts and adds A/B testing, advanced statistics, email verifier and more to the Basic plan features.
Pro plan requires $10.75/month for 500 contacts and enhances the Standard plan features with dedicated IP address, priority support and transactional emails.
If you need more than 250,000 contacts per month, you can contact SendPulse for a customised plan.
Advantages:
Creating and managing email and SMS campaigns is simple and intuitive with a drag-and-drop editor.
Users can create automated workflows based on triggers, conditions, and actions.
Email, SMS, web push, Viber, and chatbot services are available on one platform.
Disadvantages:
The collection of email templates is small compared to other email marketing tools.
Email deliverability can vary depending on the sender’s reputation, domain and content.
Two-factor authentication for account security is not offered.
Users cannot get phone support and may face delays or lack of response from email and chat support.
How to fix a newsletter that doesn’t work
It can happen to anyone. And the first thing to do is to check your campaign for common mistakes that many marketers make.
A vague and lengthy headline that doesn’t reveal the content is a dull and boring subject line. It doesn’t entice the reader to open the email, it just makes them want to delete it. Statistics show that this error is found in most messages, resulting in only a third of them being noticed by users.
A low-quality and “fluffy” text that doesn’t keep the reader’s attention. Try to be concise, giving the reader as much value as possible. If your goal is to sell, it should be a real deal or a solution to a problem.
An unappealing design — too much text, flashy colours, no images, poor formatting, long-winded story. Many users read their emails on their mobile phones, and if they have to scroll a lot, they will lose interest.
Not many people consider that the reader might be using a mobile device to view the email. And that’s a big mistake; the number of smartphone users is growing every year. And here’s what they don’t like about newsletters:
Conclusion
Email marketing is a great way to connect with your audience and grow your business. But to make it work, you need a clear strategy and some best practices. You also need a reliable email marketing service that can help you create and manage your campaigns. In this article, we have shared with you the essential steps and tips to create email campaigns that stand out and deliver results. Email marketing is not rocket science, but it does require some planning and creativity. Follow our advice and you will be well on your way to creating email campaigns that rock. Happy emailing!
FAQ
Can I send emails without getting user consent?
You could, but it would be a waste of time — most people would either flag your offers as spam, trash them without opening them or ignore them. E-mail marketing works best when you target users who are genuinely interested and have voluntarily shared their contacts.
What could get my domain blocked for sending emails?
Some possible reasons are: you used paid databases to get email addresses; you triggered a spam trap from the mailing service; you neglected your contact list for too long; you bombarded your recipients with too many emails. If users consistently report your messages as spam, your sender reputation will suffer and you might end up on a blacklist.
Are split testing and A/B testing the same thing?
Yes, they are two sides of the same coin. Split testing involves comparing multiple versions of a single email to see which one performs better and then using it for the mailing.
Who can do email marketing well?
You need either a highly skilled marketer or an agency that knows how to run a mailing list to launch a successful campaign. There is a high demand for professionals who can promote products or services in this way.
