Email Marketing 2021

 

What is Email Marketing and How Does it Work? Definition and Best Practices

 

This beginner’s guide will explain exactly what is email marketing and how it works. By the end, you’ll have a solid grasp of the basics along with the know-how to launch email marketing for your business.

Email marketing is the most profitable direct marketing channel, generating an average return on investment of $42 for every $1 spent(DMA, 2019). 

 

Email should be a key pillar of your digital marketing strategy. To not do any email marketing is like leaving money on the table.

But if you’re a bit confused about where to begin, that’s totally normal. Email’s a vast discipline. It’s easy for beginners to get lost in a sea of tools, techniques and terminology.

What is email marketing?

 

Email marketing is when you send a commercial email message to your ‘email subscribers’ — contacts who have signed up to your email list and given express permission to receive email communications from you.

Email marketing is used to inform, drive sales, and build a community around your brand (e.g. with a newsletter).

Modern email marketing has moved away from one-size-fits-all mass mailings and instead focuses on consent, segmentation, and personalization.

Examples of different types of marketing emails

Emails can either be promotional or informational and fulfil a specific purpose in the buyer journey.

Promotional emails

Email marketing campaigns are used to promote, whether it’s to promote a special offer, a new product release, an eBook, or a webinar.  A campaign could consist of 3 – 10 emails sent over several days or weeks. 

Promotional emails have a clear call-to-action — or CTA for short. The CTA represents the specific action you want the reader to take, whether it’s visit a webpage or make a purchase. 

This type of marketing email is sent as and when required, in line with the rhythm of your business.

Informational emails

 

Newsletters: A newsletter as the name suggests, share news related to your business (new milestones reached, new product capabilities) or to highlight a product use case. Sent according to a set schedule (weekly, bi-weekly, monthly), newsletters help maintain a consistent connection with your subscribers.

But did you know? Newsletters don’t just have to be about ‘news’. As email guru Ann Handley says, focus on the letter aspect. Imagine you’re writing a one-to-one letter to your subscribers about something that interests them. 

Put like this, a newsletter is an opportunity to share insights, thoughts, tips – whatever brings the most value to your audience. 

Announcements: Email is the perfect way to inform customers of company announcements, new releases, changes to the service, etc. 

As a channel, email has the necessary formality for delivering important messages. This would explain why email was the channel of choice for brands sending crisis communication during COVID-19.

Is email marketing still important in 2020?

Email isn’t a new technology. In fact, it was one of the very first means of digital communication to arrive back in 1971. But get this: Email marketing — almost 50 years old — is more widely used today than ever.

The phrase ‘Email is dead’ gets bounced around the marketing echo chamber every now and then. But don’t believe it. Email is only getting bigger. Just take a look at these statistics:

• In 2019, there were 3.9 billion global email users (source: Statista)
• 80% of Americans check their email at least once per day, with nearly a quarter of them checking their personal email several times a day (Fluent Inbox Report, 2018)
• 80% of business professionals believe that email marketing increases customer retention (Emarsys, 2018)

Given the figures, it’s not surprising that email is hailed as the most effective channel in B2B marketing.

Not having an email marketing strategy means missing out on sales opportunities and the chance to strengthen ties with customers.

 

The Benefits of Email Marketing

From order confirmations to newsletters, emails are an essential aspect of the growth and management of your business.

Email marketing will help fulfil 3 key objectives:

1. Conversions (selling your products and services)

Launching a sale or promotion? You can send an email marketing campaign to your subscribers to drive sales. 

Other email marketing techniques known to increase conversion rates include:

• Emailing a discount or special offer (birthday/anniversary emails, welcome emails, reengagement emails)
• Abandoned cart emails (triggered whenever a visitor abandons a cart at your online store)

2. Brand awareness

What’s great about email is that it lets you reach someone directly. It’s one-to-one communication at its best. And besides, people don’t just let anyone into their inbox these days. It’s a curated space reserved for favorite brands and publications.

Showing up in someone’s email inbox will help your brand stay top of mind. A personalized marketing email is more impactful than a social media post where you can’t be sure if someone has actually seen your message.

One of the major benefits of email marketing is its scalability. This means that emails can be sent to a large number of recipients for a relatively low cost (compared to other marketing channels). 

3. Customer loyalty

Email drives customer loyalty at every stage of the buyer journey: lead-nurturing, conversion, onboarding, retention.

It’s a powerful tool for building a community, as discussed at length in our guide to building relationship

You can create newsletter content so good that subscribers will be waiting for it to arrive each week. Keep reading and we’ll tell you how.

Why email marketing is important

Accessibility

Email is accessible to all age groups. It opens the door to a wide range of audiences — even the least digitally-savvy among us. 

We might live in the digital age but not everyone is that comfortable using the internet. However, most people do know how to check their email. This makes it the most mainstream form of marketing.

Affordability

Email marketing is extremely cost-effective. Most email marketing tools offer pricing packages to suit all budgets. In reality, the barrier to entry has never been so low.