What makes email marketing effective?
What are the best tips for email marketing success? What is the best sales automation tool for email campaigns?
Remember the movie, You’ve Got Mail? You know the one where Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan fall in love with each other after exchanging emails? Though that film hit theaters in 1998, it still demonstrates why email marketing remains one of the most important communication tools in today’s society.
Consumers Prefer Email
The number one reason why email marketing is a no-brainer for companies is because consumers prefer email. Most small businesses are working with limited marketing budgets, which means that they can’t waste time with marketing tactics that won’t resonate well with their target market. While social media has become a popular way for small businesses to communicate with their audience, brands sometimes just can’t get the organic reach they are looking for through these channels. However, social media isn’t the only answer. Email also provides a professional and direct medium that allows businesses to reach out to their leads and customers.
What’s more is that most consumers actually prefer to communicate with brands through email. The most probable reason is because it is permission based. The people on your list actually signed up because they want to get updates from you. They’re interested in learning more about your brand including your promotions and discounts. And that alone makes email marketing such an effective strategy to reach your consumers. In fact, one study from Marketing Sherpa reports that 72% of consumers prefer to receive promotional messages through email.
When it comes to business promotional content, consumers prefer to be contacted through email.
You may be wondering why consumers prefer receiving updates from brands through email. Here are just a few reasons why we think email marketing works so well with the modern consumer:
It’s convenient. With access to email right on their smartphone, most consumers find this type of communication very convenient. Not only can consumers stay connected with their favorite brands wherever they are, but they can easily redeem any coupon codes or other special offers right from their phone.
It’s personal. Today’s consumer is bombarded with marketing messages, and they tend to respond best to those that are personalized and relevant. With this marketing strategy, you can personalize your messages and content based on the subscribers preferences and buying patterns. Email segmentation makes it easy to deliver the most relevant offers and content to the consumer.
It’s instant. Consumers like the ability to get information about exclusive offers and last minute deals. Sending email campaigns allows your small business to instantly and directly get the word out about these sales and promotions so that your consumers can take advantage of the opportunity to save.
Now that you know why email marketing is so popular with consumers, it’s important to understand how often they prefer to receive email communications and what types of email communications you should deliver. Many studies have shown that email users prefer to receive marketing emails just once a week. This frequency allows you to communicate consistently without overwhelming your subscribers.
When it comes to the types of email messages that consumers like to receive, there are a few different reasons why consumers generally sign up for email communications from brands:
Coupons and Sales Promotions
Loyalty or Rewards Programs
Company News and Updates
Contests and Sweepstakes
Free Content like E-Books
Products or Service Information
Exclusive Peeks at New Products
The only way to know for sure what types of content resonate with your unique target audience is to track the success of your email campaigns over time. Track metrics such as open rates, click through rates, and conversions to see which types of content your subscribers respond to best. Unsubscribe rate patterns can also help you better understand what types of content your audience is not so interested in.
Email Helps You Reach More Mobile Consumers
It’s no secret that today’s consumer has become increasingly more mobile, proving yet another reason why email marketing is ideal for reaching your customer. Though not all consumers shop from their smartphone, many will check their email from these devices. In fact, reading and sending emails is one of the most popular activities for smartphone users, beating out web browsing, the Facebook app, and even apps for maps or directions.
There's different approaches based on the stages your in. If you're attempting to market products or services, it can be an effective way to personalize your advertising and promotional campaigns beyond typical 1:Many channels. Email puts you in front of an individual customer. So you can make it personalized to them. If your list is enriched with buying history and other attributes about that user you can hyper target based on their historical behaviors (did they buy for specific offers in the past, did they like certain products etc...)
If you're looking to validate a new idea, reach a new target audience for a newsletter, or book some meetings for a business to business sale, cold emails can be effective. But if you're doing cold email outreach you never sell directly in the first email or to. One because it violates CAN SPAM laws, but also because your goal should still be nurturing a new relationship.
Offer value first before making the sale. Make your first message short and conversational not full of sales and ad jargon, and if someone asks to be removed from your list REMOVE THEM.
There's lots of different automation tools:
HubSpot has drip campaigns that you can automate
Marketo is also a good automation option
The first problem you have to solve is getting emails:
SumoLists is a great place to find US based industry based or micro niched based email lists
InfoUSA is great if you just want to buy a massive random list
You must keep one thing in your mind, what your customer wants. Your title, body, and images included in the email must be clear to your receiver. Otherwise, your email might get clicked but they are going to visit the landing page. I agree with other fellows who shared their important information.
1. Build your subscriber list
2. Encourage readers to reply
3. Make it personal
4. Keep your emails out of spam folders
5. Make sure your emails look clean and crisp
6. Include interesting links and calls to action
7. Make it easy to unsubscribe
8. Make emails mobile-friendly
9. Track your data
10. Don’t overwhelm your subscribers
Think about what you like and don't like when you receive email marketing. You probably like useful insights that provide value to you. You don't like too much selling.
That's the formula for success. Be conscious of your readers' time. Treat it with care.
I've worked closely with the email marketing team of my company. Here are some of the deciding factors that I observed:
-Irresistible subject lines.
-Segment your subscription list and send the right emails to the right customer segment.
-Make it personal. Create personalized emails.
-Keep your emails out of spam folders.
-Keeping the ratio of the content and images to 70:30, this can even help you land in the inbox of the customer -rather in the promotion section.
-Emails should look clean and crisp.
-The call-to-action should grab the attention of the reader.
-Make emails mobile-friendly. 66% of emails are opened on hand-held devices.
-Test it before deployment.
Hi guys, I wrote this small article on SuperiorSolos Website when someone asked me is email marketing dead.
It sure isn't! And it's here to stay for a very long time... Email is still the most popular content channel.
Worldwide there are more and more people using email every day. The number of email users worldwide is forecasted to increase to 2.9 billion by 2019. That’s almost half of the world’s population.
So email is still the most popular marketing and content channel in the world.
In the U.S., the number of people projected to use email is 244 million.
I myself and many many others make big $$$ in affiliate marketing through email marketing… I’m going to show you how you can get so much more from your email marketing!
Too many people are too busy focusing on everything else other than email marketing, and when they do email marketing they use the refurbished, overused, old spammy methods.
Copy an email, paste it, change the signature then send! Later, when things don’t work they ask “Why the heck didn’t I make more sales or get more clicks or opens?”
Also remember, it's not about the size of the list, it’s how you use it. Money is in the list, YES, but not any list.
You need to work on creating a great relationship with your list, connect with them, train them to: receive, open and engage with your email.
Do what others aren’t willing to do or are LAZY to do.
This is the MAIN key: Email is the easiest channel to automate. Marketers see a 760% increase in revenue from segmented emails and segmented and targeted emails generate 58% of all revenue and deliver 6x higher transaction rates.
So stay unique, write unique content.
Now, a small easy setup I recommend:
One or two emails MAX a day… that’s not a lot if you are thinking it is and it works. And ONE call to action hyperlink per email (you can do two, but to stay on the safe side, one is better).
One of my winning formulas (5, 7, 10, 14 or even 30-day sequences, whatever suits your offers and you know you can do).
Segments! Make sure you segment your list to stay in control.
Create an engaged segment, un-engaged segment, and dead segment.
1. Engaged = people who have opened within 30 days (some use more, I use 120 days myself but for optimal results use 30 days).
2. Un-engaged = people who haven’t opened an email between 30-120 days.
3. Dead = people who haven’t opened an email between 120-180 days.
I use those types of emails in this order:
VALUE-BASED EMAILS: I always prefer blog style with some educational and entertaining content that lead to blog posts about your offers and some hyperlinks/ads here and there for cross-selling.
P.S. I build and use my own FULL affiliate blogs, mainly Clickbank, with other CPA offers on side-widgets. Extra: we build this for clients too, if you are interested, get in touch.
SUCCESS PROOF EMAILS: This is a killer email that uses your testimonials. You’ll take testimonials and create stories out of them, sending that to your customers! Even if not your success, other people's success is the main key to converting your leads.
THE BIG BANG: Here you’ll Promote your main winning product and send it to ONLY the engaged segment because we’re gonna ask for a sale here! Take your winning product, throw it in front of engaged people who OPEN your emails!
Last email of the week if you are using the weekly sequence:
THE BIG PROMO: The Final Countdown, the Special Discount, The Doors Closing… Make up some BS to create urgency to close your deals.
This is how you’ll keep them SUPER engaged.
P.S.S. Make sure once a week if you can, go to the DEAD segment and delete those useless emails after you tried everything with them. This will keep your list clean and healthy, and less cost on your autoresponders.
May you be healthier, happier and richer!
Robert, here's my two cents on your question:
1) Effective email marketing is done by connecting with a niche group of people. I don't know your business, but I'm assuming you've hammered out your unique value offering, and you've targeted a specific group with specific needs. When that's the case, then you can really bond with them by being personal in your emails. Don't open up an email automation series with sales. First talk about how you landed in the same spot they are - with that same need. Include high drama. Be engaging. People are wired to metabolize information via story. So hold their hand, and guide them in that matter. And one key to storytelling? Drama and conflict. It's just like a film. You can see a series I did at https://outergain.com. Just opt-in on the home page.
2) As far as sales automation, I've heavily used Aweber, Mautic and MailChimp along with looking at some other competitors. I still think MailChimp is the best. Primarily due to their easy-to-use tools. Mautic is nice, but the email editor (which it all boils down to that) is worthless. MailChimp has come a LONG way. Now they operate off a single master list with groups and segments so you can pretty much do anything you want.
After banging my head against the wall trying to provide a good solution for our customers, we decided to launch Cultivate CRM which is a Wordpress CRM that allows you to tie into MailChimp for both email and postcard automation, and then Project Broadcast for text automation. It's a sweet plugin. If you're on WordPress, check it out at https://cultivate-crm.com.
People do business with people they know, like, and trust. An email marketing effort will build your credibility if you share interesting, informative and entertaining content with your contacts. But the challenge is making sure the content in the emails you send to your contacts is focused on helping them, it's not about you.
You want to stay top-of-mind. Using a consistent email newsletter is a great way to keep contacts engaged throughout the year. If you focus on creating informative and engaging emails, your contacts will view you and your staff as advisors and mentors. They'll remember you when they need help or asked for a recommendation.
A fully automated tool is available from Newsletter Station: https://www.newsletterstation.com/
I think email marketing is effective for you if you have thousands of opted-in subscribers. There's nothing to do with email marketing if you have no subscribers. So, you need to get subscribers first, whether through social media or your own blog or site.
Though recently the trend in the market to nurture leads is through content and social media marketing, very few marketers understand the limitation. Social media marketing has a short lifespan and heavy competition.
The quickest way to nurture leads through the sales funnel is to get the website content in front of the lead. This requires a high search ranking for relevant keywords which takes a lot of effort and time.
The best way to make your content reach and consumed by the lead is email marketing. Add modern email marketing strategies to your lead nurturing efforts you can create convert at a faster speed, deliver relevant content, add a touch of personalization and monitor it actively.
The following stats will explain why and how B2B marketers can use email marketing as the best digital marketing solution to convert leads effectively:
-17% of B2B purchasers are using the online chat feature, they rather prefer using email to get in touch with their clients.
-For every dollar spent, email marketing has an average return rate of $38.
-Recipients are 14% more likely to open an email which is part of a segmented campaign rather than traditional emails.
-Emails containing a video see click-through rates that are 96% higher than non-video emails.
-56% of marketers using an emoji in their subject line had a higher open rate than those who did not.
I've been using an email marketing service (https://bsg.world/) for 3 years already and it really works.
-It’s easy to download lists from CSV or excel.
-Create beautiful emails easily. No coding needed.
-Costs based on payment for Internet traffic only.
-Campaign results in a convenient form: open rate, heatmap, unsubscribers, etc.
-Your data is under strong protection.
-Organize campaigns from your site and familiar account.
Have a report to check on user behavior, time spent on the site, and how many times people visit your site and which sections. The best way to go about collecting email addresses for email marketing is with an opt-in email ID. Then create an email campaign according to user behavior like if they completed a transaction, information they've provided or engagement. For example, if you are looking to run a sale/CRO email campaign to create urgency, send an offer based email campaign and make it time-sensitive so your customers will have to make a purchase to get the sale.
In order to make email marketing effective, you should use additional tools that can optimize your work. Personally, I recommend Reply.io, thanks to it boosting my sales.
Email marketing seems more like pushing people to buy from you, but it is more of a subtle way to notify new offers and products. As we know nobody is willing to open a promotional mail or respond to it. It should be more like spreading knowledge rather than pushing for the sale. Here are some great examples you can refer to: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/email-marketing-examples-list