What is Email Marketing, and What Are Its Benefits?
What is email marketing and its benefits?
Email marketing is a digital marketing strategy that involves sending emails to prospects and customers. It is used to promote products or services, build relationships, and engage customers. The benefits of email marketing include cost-effectiveness, the ability to reach a large audience, personalised communication, and easy performance tracking through analytics.
Did you know that over 345 billion emails are sent daily - and that number is rising every year?
Despite the rise of social media, email remains one of the most prevalent forms of communication, and more importantly, one of the most powerful tools for reaching customers directly.
This staggering volume of email traffic highlights an undeniable truth: email is far from obsolete. In fact, it continues to be a vital communication channel for businesses worldwide.
Email marketing leverages this power, offering a strategic approach to connect with customers, drive engagement, and boost revenue. Whether you're a small business looking to build relationships with your customers or a large corporation aiming to enhance your marketing efforts, understanding and utilising email marketing can unlock significant potential.
In this blog, we'll delve into what email marketing is, explore the different types of emails that can drive your business goals, and discuss the numerous benefits that make email marketing an indispensable tool for any marketer. Let's get started and discover how you can harness the full potential of email marketing!
What is Email Marketing?
Email marketing is a strategic approach where businesses send targeted emails to prospects and customers to promote products, share news, or engage their audience.
It involves crafting messages that are not only informative and promotional, but also personalised and relevant to the recipients. By directly reaching the inbox of potential and existing customers, businesses can create a more intimate and effective form of communication which you cannot fully achieve with other marketing channels.
This form of marketing is incredibly versatile and can be adapted to suit the needs of various industries. Retailers can use email marketing to announce new products and exclusive sales. Service providers might share success stories and updates to keep clients informed. Nonprofits can leverage email campaigns to drive donations and share impactful stories. No matter the industry, email marketing enhances customer engagement, fosters loyalty, and drives revenue by keeping the audience informed and involved.
Email Marketing Terminology Cheat Sheet
Before we go any further with how you can utilise email marketing for yourself, it’s handy to know some of the important terms that come with it. We’ve put together a cheat sheet of a few common phrases in email marketing, so you’re more familiar with some important terminology!
Open Rate: This is the percentage of recipients who open your email. It gives you a clear indication of how well your subject line and preview text are performing in capturing your audience's attention. A higher open rate typically means your email content is engaging and relevant to your subscribers.
Click-Through Rate (CTR): This measures the percentage of recipients who clicked on one or more links within your email. It's a crucial metric for assessing the effectiveness of your email content and the call-to-action (CTA). A higher CTR suggests that your email content is compelling and prompts readers to take action.
Conversion Rate: This represents the percentage of recipients who completed a desired action after clicking a link in your email, such as making a purchase, following a link to a page on your website, or downloading a resource. It’s a key indicator of how well your email campaign is driving business goals.
A/B Testing: Also known as split testing, this involves sending two versions of an email to see which performs better. For instance, you might test different subject lines, images, or CTAs. A/B testing helps you optimise your emails for better engagement and results.
Bounce Rate: This is the percentage of emails that could not be delivered to the recipient’s inbox. There are two types of bounces to be aware of:
Soft Bounce: A temporary issue, like a full inbox or a server problem.
Hard Bounce: A permanent delivery failure, such as an invalid email address. High bounce rates can affect your sender reputation, so it’s important to keep your email list clean and up-to-date.
Understanding How and Why You Should Use Email Marketing
Email marketing is a powerful tool that, when used effectively, can significantly boost your business's engagement and revenue; but the key to leveraging email marketing is understanding your audience.
By knowing who your customers are, what they are interested in, and how they prefer to receive information, you can tailor your emails to meet their needs and preferences. This personalised approach not only makes your emails more relevant and engaging but also helps build stronger relationships with your customers.
Starting Your Email Marketing
Starting out your email marketing might seem overwhelming at first, but breaking it down into manageable steps can make the process straightforward and effective. Here are some things to consider before your get started:
The Best Email Marketing Platforms
Selecting the right email marketing platform or platforms is crucial for your campaign's success. Here are some of the best email marketing platform that are often used, each having their strengths for different things:
A comprehensive tool for building, sending, and tracking email campaigns. It’s user-friendly and offers robust analytics to monitor your campaign’s performance.
Specialises in creating visually appealing email designs. It integrates with many email service providers, making it a versatile choice for design-focused campaigns.
Brevo (formerly SendinBlue)
Known for its ease of use and affordability, Brevo is excellent for small to medium-sized businesses looking for email automation and SMS marketing capabilities.
Particularly popular with eCommerce businesses, Klaviyo offers advanced segmentation and powerful integrations with shopping platforms like Shopify and WooCommerce.
Offers a powerful suite of marketing tools, including email marketing, CRM, and automation. It’s ideal for businesses looking to integrate their email marketing with other aspects of their marketing strategy.
Building Your Email List
An effective email marketing campaign starts with a solid email list. You can encourage sign-ups a few ways through multiple channels, depending on the business and your preferences:
Website: Use pop-ups, sign-up forms, and lead magnets (like eBooks or discounts) to capture email addresses.
Social Media: Promote your email list on your social media profiles, offering exclusive content or promotions to followers who sign up.
Events and Webinars: Collect email addresses from attendees to build a targeted list of engaged prospects.
Setting Up Tracking & Analytics
To get the most out of your email marketing efforts, it’s important to set up tracking and analytics. This will help you understand how your emails are performing and make data-driven decisions to improve future campaigns. Many email marketing platforms offer built-in analytics, but you can also integrate with tools like Google Analytics 4 (GA4) for more in-depth tracking.
Platform Tracking: Platforms like Mailchimp and HubSpot offer robust tracking features that allow you to monitor open rates, click-through rates, and other key metrics directly within the platform.
Google Analytics 4 (GA4): Set up GA4 to track user interactions with your emails and website. This provides a comprehensive view of how your email campaigns drive traffic and conversions on your site. By analysing this data, you can gain insights into what’s working and what needs improvement.
Making a start on your email marketing with these steps will ensure that when it comes to designing and sending emails, you’re familiar with how to do it and how they perform, allowing you to make data-driven decisions as a result!
Creating Email Templates
Crafting effective email templates is a crucial step in your email marketing strategy. A well-designed template ensures your emails are visually appealing, on-brand, and engaging. Here are some tips to help you create impactful email templates:
1. Use Brand Colours and Fonts for Consistency: Consistency is key in building brand recognition and trust. Ensure your email templates reflect your brand’s identity by using your established colours, fonts, and logo. This not only makes your emails instantly recognisable but also reinforces your brand's visual identity every time a subscriber opens your email.
2. Include Clear Call-to-Actions (CTAs): Every email you send should have a clear purpose and guide the reader towards a desired action. Whether it’s making a purchase, directing customers to a page on your website, or reading a blog post, your CTA should be prominent, compelling, and easy to find. Use action-oriented language and make your CTA buttons stand out visually to encourage clicks.
Use phrases like "Get Started Now," "Learn More," and "Shop the Sale" in your content to create a sense of urgency and entice your readers to take immediate action.
3. Take Advantage of Pre-Built Templates: Most email marketing platforms offer a variety of pre-built templates that you can customise to fit your brand. These templates are designed to be user-friendly and often include best practices for layout, design, and functionality. Starting with a pre-built template can save time and ensure your emails look professional from the get-go.
4. Check Mobile Formatting: Did you know that over 80% of emails are opened and read on mobile devices? This is why it’s extremely important to check how your email template looks on a mobile device, which you can do on most email building platforms by either previewing your email and switching the view to mobile, or sending yourself a test email and opening it on your own phone.
By following these tips, you can create email templates that not only look great but also effectively engage your audience and ultimately get them engaged with your messages!
Different Types of Email Campaigns
Your email marketing strategy should be like a well-stocked toolbox - different types of emails are their own tools that serve their own purpose, but each one is just as important as the other. Having a variety of emails at your disposal ensures you can strike a good balance between engaging your audience and driving revenue. Take a look below at some of the most important ones to know.
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Introduce your brand to new subscribers and set the tone for future communications. These emails create a positive first impression and start building a relationship from the very beginning.
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A standard in email marketing which promote new products, offer special deals and discounts and more to drive sales. These emails entice your audience to make purchases, boosting your revenue.
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Whilst there are many crucial automated emails that you should be aware of, abandoned cart emails are an especially useful asset in email marketing. These remind customers of items left in their shopping carts to encourage purchase completion, which help recover potentially lost sales by nudging customers to complete their purchase.
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Create promotional emails that align with seasonal events and holidays, as well as other days of interest such as payday. These campaigns tap into the positive mood of your audience, making your promotions more timely and appealing.
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Not all emails need to be selling something! Share news, blog posts, or videos to keep your audience engaged and informed. These emails keep your audience up-to-date with your brand, fostering continuous engagement and interest.
Not only can you keep a good variety of content by using each of these types of emails, but you can create a great relationship with your audience and entice them to make purchases they may otherwise not have.
Audience, Lists, and Segmentation
Growing and managing your email list is like cultivating a thriving garden; it requires attention, care, and strategic planning. Let’s explore how you can grow your audience, keep them engaged, and use segmentation to make your emails even more effective.
Growing Your Audience
To expand your email list, offer compelling incentives that encourage sign-ups. Discounts, exclusive content, special promotions and giveaways can entice visitors to share their email addresses. Promote your email list across various channels, such as your website, social media, and during events, to reach a broader audience.
Keeping Your Audience Engaged
Once you’ve grown your list, it’s crucial to keep your audience engaged without overwhelming them. Sending regular emails—typically once a week to a few times a week, depending on your business—helps maintain interest without causing fatigue. Make sure your content is relevant and valuable to your subscribers.
Using Segmentation to Tailor Emails
Segmentation is the process of dividing your email list into smaller groups based on specific criteria, such as recipient behaviour, preferences, or demographics. By tailoring your emails to these segments, you can deliver more personalised and relevant content. This increases the likelihood of engagement and conversions, as your audience receives information that directly appeals to their interests and needs.
Implementing these strategies will help you build a robust email list, keep your subscribers engaged, and maximise the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns. A well-managed audience, combined with thoughtful segmentation, can have a huge impact on the success of your email marketing!
The Benefits of Email Marketing
There are plenty of businesses that overlook email marketing - even though the average email ROI is a whopping $36 for every $1 spent (source: Hubspot).
This powerful tool is about building relationships, driving engagement, sharing information and tapping into unrealised revenue. Email marketing presents a host of benefits that can significantly impact your business's success, so let's explore the myriad advantages of incorporating email marketing into your strategy and why it should be a cornerstone of your marketing efforts.
Email Marketing Advantages
Email marketing offers a wealth of advantages that make it an indispensable tool for any business. Let's delve into the key benefits that can help you drive success and growth:
✔ Direct Communication: Reach your audience directly in their inbox. Email marketing allows you to communicate with your customers in a personal and direct manner, making your messages more impactful
✔ Cost-Effective: Lower costs compared to traditional marketing methods. Email marketing is one of the most cost-efficient ways to reach your audience, providing high returns on a relatively low investment.
✔ Measurable Results: Track open rates, CTRs, and conversions to gauge success. With email marketing, you can easily measure the performance of your campaigns and make data-driven decisions to improve your strategies.
✔ Personalisation: Tailor messages to individual preferences and behaviours. By segmenting your audience and personalising your emails, you can deliver more relevant content that resonates with your subscribers.
✔ Increased Engagement: Foster stronger relationships with your audience. Regular, meaningful email communications help build loyalty and keep your audience engaged with your brand.
Who Can Benefit from Email Marketing?
Email marketing is incredibly versatile and can be tailored to suit the needs of virtually any type of organisation, which can differ greatly from business to business. Here’s a few examples of those who can leverage email marketing slightly differently to achieve their own goals:
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B2C businesses use email marketing to promote products, drive sales, and engage customers. This includes sending announcements of new collections, offering exclusive discounts, and keeping customers updated on the latest trends. Apparel companies, food and drink businesses, and travel companies are all great examples of B2C businesses that use email marketing to stay connected with their audience, and encourage repeat purchases.
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With B2B digital marketing, email marketing helps nurture leads and build professional relationships. Companies will often send informative content to demonstrate their expertise and value. Many service providers share case studies and industry news, while other businesses like software companies provide product updates and tutorials. This approach helps maintain strong client relationships, provide valuable information and potentially generate leads.
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In a more unique sense, charities and other non-profit organisations can benefit from email marketing. It can be used to raise awareness, drive donations, and keep supporters engaged; they may also send updates on their work, success stories, and calls to action for donations or volunteer support. Email marketing helps charities maintain a strong connection with their supporters and mobilise resources effectively.
Whether you're looking to boost sales, share valuable content, or keep your audience informed, email marketing offers a flexible and powerful solution.
So, what is email marketing and can it benefit me?
Email marketing is an extremely versatile tool that allows businesses to communicate directly with their audience, personalise their messages, and achieve measurable results. By understanding the different types of emails, growing and segmenting your audience, and leveraging the numerous benefits, you can create a robust email marketing strategy that drives engagement and boosts revenue.
The great thing about email marketing is that it’s both useful and accessible to just about anyone, and with the platforms that are on offer today you can start creating your email designing and strategising today. However, it can be a fairly time consuming and often confusing task, especially if you’ve never tried doing it before. That’s where we come in! We offer email marketing as part of our services, helping to boost ROI, growing your email list and much more; so feel free to get in touch today and see how we can help!
