What is Email Marketing? The Full Guide.

July 20, 2018

One of the oldest channels in marketing is email. The first one was sent way back in 1978 and had $13 million worth of sales to show for it! Email isn’t as flashy as newer platforms like messaging apps and social media sites, but that doesn’t mean they don’t get results – sometimes even better than other methods because you own the audience rather than renting them from Facebook or Google.

Email is a channel that allows you to build relationships with your customers while delivering relevant, personalized messages authentically. Email marketing isn’t spamming. It’s not a personal note from an old colleague either, and it can be both a relationship-building and profit-building tool if used correctly. When you use email to build upon an existing customer relationship with relevant information that will help take action on their goals, this is what we call good email marketing versus bad or irrelevant emails (aka spam).

How does email marketing work?

Email marketing is a valuable way to stay in touch with your customers and subscribers. It helps maximize conversions by providing them with helpful information for achieving their goals.

When you should use Email-Marketing?

You can use email marketing in many ways, such as:

• Build relationships – Establish and build relationships via personalized engagement.
• Boost brand awareness – Keep your company and brand in front of prospects for the moment when your prospects are ready to engage.
• Promote your content – You can promote your content through email. Send relevant blog posts, useful assets, or anything else that you want to share to keep them updated on what’s happening in your space by sending emails!
• Generate leads – Generating leads by creating valuable assets that people can’t resist giving their personal information for.
• Market your products – Promotion of your products and services.
• Nurture leads – Producing content that can help guide customers in their journey will help nurture and close leads.

Benefits of email marketing

• You can’t afford to skip out on email marketing. With 3.8 billion subscribers, there is an opportunity for your company to reach all of them with just one message!
• Email is the most profitable social media tactic for gaining a return on investment. For every dollar spent, it generates $38 in revenue – a 3,800% return on investment, which is difficult to match with other form of marketing.
• Only 20% of leads that are sent directly to sales qualify, meaning they need nurturing via email and great content.
• With email marketing, you have complete control over the channel. There is no one else that can impact how and when your emails are delivered to your subscribers’ inboxes outside of compliance regulations.
• Customers are more likely to purchase when they receive a marketing email from their favorite store. This idea is proven by the results of numerous studies that show two-thirds of customers have purchased as a result of an email message, making them clickable in ways many other forms cannot match.
• The average person spends 4 hours on social media per day, so companies have a lot of catching up to do. Especially now, after latest ios 14.5 took place you need to be innovative with advertising on paid social to stand out.Email may be the answer because it is 40X more effective than Facebook and Twitter combined!

Email Marketing Stats by Industry

A recent study conducted by Experian Marketing Services found some interesting stats about B2B companies: 64% of respondents claimed they would spend more on building an effective inbound strategy if it could lead them to generate leads.

Email Marketing Stats for B2B

• Up to 86% of experts of professional people always look at email as a default communication channel
• 60% of marketers surveyed believed email marketing had a positive return on investment. It comes down to customer engagement and building trust with your audience through personalized content.
• Did you know that emails triggered by an action perform 3X better than nurture emails or drip campaigns? Find out what kind of actions your subscribers take, and then use them to increase the success rate with email marketing.
• CTR ( Click Through Rate )is higher for B2B emails than B2C which would be 47% more in B2B.

Email Marketing Stats for B2C

• 78% of people surveyed said that when brands send too many promotional messages, it’s not worth the inconvenience so they’ll just opt out on their own accord- meaning there will be less competition in your inbox!
• In the email industry, more than 90% of customers check on emails daily.
• Email subscribers are 3X more likely to share content than those who don’t subscribe, and email marketing is a great way for businesses to keep in touch with their customers.

Email Marketing Stats for eCommerce

• Brand subscribers are more likely to have an interest in receiving promotional emails from brands they subscribe to, and 86% of these consumers would like a monthly email.
• An email has become a crucial part of our daily business interactions. It is estimated that segmented emails generate 58% of company revenue.

Email Marketing Stats for Real Estate

• Ninety-two percent of real estate companies now use their website to advertise. Most people find out about a business on the company’s site, so it makes sense that 92% of real estate professionals rely heavily upon using this medium as well.
• Email marketing is a powerful way to reach customers and businesses that blog are getting twice as much traffic from email.
• For the 40% of real estate companies out there that use list segmentation, they have found a way to better reach their target audience. Segmenting lists allows them to work on more specific niches and make sure each individual is being marketed towards with content in which he or she may be interested.

Getting Started with Email Marketing

Are you new to email marketing? I know it can be overwhelming with all the possibilities for your campaign. So, let’s break down a few key steps to get you started building an effective strategy that will delight customers. You can think of these as the way into creating successful email marketing campaigns! 

You’ll learn how to build an effective email strategy and send emails that people actually want to read. It just takes a plan (one that can be broken down into a few key steps).

The 121 chances your customers get every day will disappear unless you create strategies for them. We’ll break it all down with the following six points:

1. Define Your Audience

You can tell your audience everything they need to know about a product or service just by reading an email. The key is making sure that it’s the right message, for them. Start with understanding who you’re talking to what do their needs and wants look like? What are their interests? Once you have this figured out, tailor as many of your messages accordingly until all audiences feel understood.

2. Establish Your Goals

You may have a lot of work to do, but before you take on the task head-on, get some context. Research your industry’s average email ratios and use them as benchmarks for goal setting. For example: if most emails are opened within two days – aim for that number! having a goal will help you to achieve your vision.

3.Create a Way for People to Sign Up

Why not offer a free ebook, access to an exclusive webinar series, or one-time consultation as part of the signup process? The possibilities are endless. Who knows what you would have been able to produce if these people signed up for your email list!

Building your email list can be hard. The key is to treat every subscriber and lead like gold–even if you only have a few people on the list now. This will help grow organically over time, but it may take some patience!

4.Choose an Email Campaign Type 

One of the hardest things to do when it comes to email campaigns is deciding between all the different types. Sending a weekly newsletter can be great for staying in touch with your customers and building up anticipation, but if you’re trying out new products or releasing blog posts then sending them as individual emails might work better. With so many options how are you supposed to know which one will best suit your needs? 

Interesting question, isn’t it? What’s the best type of email marketing campaign to use for your business? You will have to learn about all the different types so you can decide which one works well with your target audience. Setting up a list that targets specific individuals is also important in order not to overwhelm them and confuse potential customers or be irrelevant for current ones who may unsubscribe from emails they don’t want anymore.

5. Make a Schedule

To build a robust customer base, it is important to make sure that you are staying consistent with sending out emails. It’s also key not to bombard your list by selecting email contacts and time frames wisely so as not to lose the trust of those who signed up in the first place or have forgotten about they ever did sign up for your list. Selecting certain recipients can be helpful because this way customers know what their inbox will look like; no more surprises!

6. Measure Your Results

There are a lot of factors to keep in mind when measuring the success of your email campaign, but it also pays off. As marketers, we measure everything – and this should come as no surprise! Deciding on which metrics you want to focus on is really important though, so be mindful about what will help you make small changes that’ll produce big results. We’re going to touch more specifically into those KPIs later (or if you just can’t wait for now) – suffice it to say they’ll have an impact both here at home and abroad.

Now that you understand the steps to creating an email marketing strategy, we’ll look at what’s involved in building your list of potential customers.

How to Build Your Email List

There are many ways of doing so that can be fun and creative! One way is through lead magnets – which give prospects something valuable (like resources or exclusive discounts) for signing up with their contact information. Opt-in forms also work well because they make opting into your mailing list as easy as possible by providing prewritten sentences on what people should say ‘yes’ when asked “Do you want more from this brand?”

1. Use lead magnets.

You want a lead magnet, but people are too protective of their personal information. That’s why you need to give them something they’ll love in exchange for an email address – like the free offer that will make your life easier!

The fear of getting spammed is so widespread that it’s become a cliché. But you can use this as an advantage to your benefit by offering something valuable in exchange for their email address, like free content or a product sample.

What if you could create a lead magnet that is relevant, useful, and makes your prospect’s lives easier? Here are types. 

• Ebook
• Whitepaper
• Infographic
• Report or Study
• Checklist
• Template
• Webinar or Course
• Tool

How to Create a Great Lead Magnet

If you want to create a great lead magnet, then it’s important that your content is relevant and valuable. Follow these guidelines for creating an asset that will help grow your list of prospects: 

• Make sure the offer appeals to what they’re interested in or needs to be addressed 
• Include social proof so people know others are getting benefits from this product or service too!

Make your offer solution-oriented and actionable.

You need to take a realistic approach when you’re dealing with people and their problems. Offer solutions that are specific, actionable, and give practical information for achieving the solution so they can feel confident in your expertise while also being motivated by the reward of solving this problem together!

When it comes to offering solutions or advice on how someone should go about tackling an issue in their life there is one golden rule: Be honest.

Ensure that the asset is easy to consume.

Ensure the asset is easy for your new lead to consume. Whether it’s a PDF, webpage, video or some other format make sure they are able to download and enjoy with ease!

Create your offer with future content in mind.

Are you tired of signing up for an offer and then being disappointed by the content that follows? Make sure your offer is aligned with what will be provided throughout your relationship. If it isn’t, don’t risk damaging trust!

Treat your lead magnet as a stepping stone to your paid solution.

Building a list of followers is one way to turn those free offers into profit! With your email marketing, you can offer subscribers the chance at something new with each update. They will be more likely to purchase from you as they see the value in what’s being offered and are eager for another enticing piece of content.

Create offers that are relevant to each stage of the buyer’s journey.

Create offers that are relevant to each stage of the buyer’s journey.

Every new lead will be at a different stage of the buyer’s journey, and it is your responsibility as an entrepreneur or marketer to know which one they’re in. It can tell you a lot about their mindset by looking through some content they consume!

2. Create an enticing opt-in form.

Opt-in forms are a crucial part of any email marketing campaign. When crafting your opt-in form, pay close attention to the following tips:

Create an attractive design and attention-grabbing header.

Your design should be attractive, attention-grabbing, and enticing. Stand out from the page with a branded header that entices readers to sign up.

Make the copy relevant to the offer.

The goal of your form is to get people to enter their information, but it’s not about deceiving them. Any information on the form should represent what you are offering honestly and accurately in order for this process to work out well.

Keep the form simple.

You’ll want to create a profile for your prospect with only the most essential information: first name and email. This will be one of their earliest interactions, so don’t scare them away by asking too much upfront.

Set your opt-in form for double confirmation.

If you want to increase your open rates, use a double opt-in. You may be wondering why it would seem counterproductive to ask for permission twice – but studies have proven that this is the best way! In fact, customers prefer confirmed opt-in emails 2.7x more than welcome ones because they know their information will never go into spam or get shared with third parties without them knowing first and opting out if they don’t like those options.”

Ensure that the flow works.

To ensure that you are presenting the best impression possible, carefully go through your user experience before going live. Double-check to make sure all of the forms work as intended and send out an email thanking them for subscribing with a link so they can enjoy their free ebook offer in exchange for accepting marketing emails from you. This is one of our first impressions on new leads—make it professional and positive!

How to Send Marketing Emails

Before you start emailing your list, make sure it’s a robust one. You can’t just send emails to everyone and expect them to be opened or clicked on – there is a high chance they will end up in spam folders or blocked lists! So before sending out those first few messages that set the tone for future ones, read this article from HubSpot about how not to build an engaged audience with painfully lame subject lines.

1.Choose an email marketing service.

HubSpot’s Email Marketing tool is an excellent resource for any company looking to create email campaigns that feel and look professional. With features like optimized templates, personalization tools, the ability to run A/B testing on your emails with a single click of a button, you’ll be able to reach all your marketing goals efficiently without hiring designers or IT support.

HubSpot provides marketers with everything they need in order to craft their perfect campaign: personalized mail merge fields which allow them to access thousands of images from Hubspot’s library; drag-and-drop design elements allowing users flexibility when designing branded messages; intuitive video tutorials providing step by step instructions for even beginners.

• CRM platform with segmentation capabilities
• Good standing with Internet Service Providers
• A positive reputation as an email service provider (ESP)
• Easy-to-build forms, landing pages, and CTAs
• Automation
• Simple ways to comply with email regulations
• Ability to split test your emails
• Built-in analytics
• Downloadable reports

2. Use email marketing tips.

sometimes you probably don’t think twice about the formatting or subject line of an email message to a friend, it is important that your marketing emails get attention. The time when you send them, which devices are used by who receives them, and other considerations all affect how effective they will be in getting people interested in what you have to offer and scale your website traffic !

Your goal with every email is to generate more leads, which makes crafting a marketing email an involved process.

Nail these components and you’ll be on your way to the top of that inbox!

Copy: If you want to have a successful email that is delivered with the right voice, keep your copy in the body of your emails consistent with what others would expect from you and stick to only one topic.

Images: select the images that can be optimized for every device, attractive and similar.

CTA: call-to-action is the best thing you can do to stand out from the rest of the emails. Use power words to instill urgency and compel clicks

Timing: Tuesday at 11 AM ET. this Is the best day and timing to send your emails because it was observed from the 20 Million emails response survey.

Responsiveness: you don’t know but 55% of emails are opened on smartphones. so you must optimize the content for mobile and other devices also.

Personalization:  The best way to write an email, according to studies is by writing it like you are talking directly with the person. Ask them questions and use a tone that they know from day-to-day interactions as if your correspondent was in front of you.

Subject Line: the subject line should be clear and neat like it is personalized with the body of your mail.

3. Implement email segmentation.

Segmentation is a way to divide your large email list into subcategories that pertain to the unique characteristics, interests, and preferences of members. This will allow you more opportunities for engagement with targeted audiences!

It is important to segment subscribers in order to send them the right content. If you don’t, they might unsubscribe and it will be a waste of time trying to gain new followers.

Why should you segment your email list?

Segmenting your email list is important because it allows you to tailor the content that people see. For example, if someone has just signed up for an account and doesn’t know what their problem might be yet, sending them a coupon may not make much sense since they’re still exploring potential solutions on our site or elsewhere! Sending them articles about how they can solve common problems instead will help build trust while educating this person so that ultimately we’ll have helped diagnose their problem one way or another – after all, building relationships with customers is key in business.

 How to Segment Email Lists

Segmenting your email list is the perfect way to maximize how much you can offer. Don’t waste time trying to divide up different lists with a strategy that doesn’t work for every person on it – create separate lead magnets and opt-in forms so contacts are automatically divided into individualized groups according to their needs, interests, or stage in the buyer’s journey!

Beyond that, email marketing platforms allow you to segment your list by contact data and behavior. This helps you send the right emails at the right time to different people in order to optimize conversions. There are many ways for this including: 

• Geographical location
• Lifecycle stage
• Awareness, consideration, decision stage
• Industry
• Previous engagement with your brand
• Language
• Job Title

4. Personalize your email marketing.

Personalizing your email marketing is now easier than ever! Now that you know who to speak with and what they want, it will be much simpler to send emails tailored just for them.

Personalized emails not only have higher open rates and click-throughs, but they also make your leads feel special. You want to send a message that’s personalized. You can use your email marketing software tokens to make it seem like you know them better than any other company out there, which will naturally lead to an improved open rate and click-through rate of 14%.

Your email marketing software allows for personalization tokens to make each person feel special when they see your messages in their inboxes. There are no excuses left not to send out personalized emails that inspire action!

Here are some ways to personalize your emails:

• include a first name In the subject of the line add information about specific regions whenever it looks appropriate
• to send the content that is related to your lead’s lifecycle stage send out emails that pertain to the last engagement a lead has had with our brand.
• Write about relevant and/or personal events, as region-specific holidays or birthdays
• write about personal and exciting events like region-specific holidays.
• leave your personal signature generated by humans the best thing while ending your emails.
• use a related call to action offer that can be useful to the reader.

5. Incorporate email marketing automation.

Automation is the perfect way to keep your email marketing campaigns alive. Once you’ve segmented and identified potential customers, automated emails are a great way to reach them with highly targeted messages. You can either implement automation manually or use an app that does it for you!

Autoresponders

Autoresponders are an effective way to stay in touch with your audience and keep them interested. Let’s say you’re writing a book, for example. You can create autoresponder messages that will automatically be sent out once someone downloads the ebook or subscribes to updates on upcoming releases from you! If they already subscribed but didn’t download yet, then it’ll just remind them about their subscription status when they log into their account next time (or something like that). Basically what I’m saying is – if people subscribe to get notifications of new content being released by YOU-you should do everything possible so these subscribers don’t unsubscribe because there weren’t enough reminders of fresh material coming up soon 🙂

What would you do without autoresponders? You can set it and forget, letting all your subscribers be part of the line.

You have to admit that while they take a little getting used to at first, once you get into the swing of things with an email campaign (or even just one), there’s no better feeling than knowing every message has been delivered as planned – or not having any worries about when those messages expire from people’s inboxes!

Workflows

Workflows are like a flow map with branches that execute different actions based on the criteria you set. It’s easy to see why many people think of this as an autoresponder because it can take care of all your customer needs, but Workflow is more than just automated messages – it has some powerful features for managing large volumes of customers and sending out personalized content at scale.

Workflows have two primary components:

1. Enrollment criteria, or the action that would qualify a user for the workflow.
2. Goal, or the action that would take a user out of the workflow.

Workflow tools are intelligent enough to know if a user opened an email or downloaded an offer, and it will set off a series of actions based on that behavior. That means, the tool can send out an email campaign including offers for users who open emails but not download them as well as change their prospect’s lifecycle stage according to what they do- so those prospects move from Prospecting Stage 1 (which is being contacted by sales reps) into Lead Generation Stage 2 when they sign up for the app themselves! That way, sales reps can focus on their A-player leads.

You can create workflows that react and change the course of your automated series based on what your prospect would find useful. For instance, if a new subscriber claims their welcome email with all sorts of valuable information but receives an offer they downloaded from our site in their next message-the workflow tool will know to adapt. In contrast, with autoresponders you receive specific emails at fixed time intervals no matter how many times subscribers interact or take any action whatsoever–it’s as though it doesn’t even notice when people are clicking off!

Sending the wrong email at the right time can be detrimental to your bottom line. A study found that companies have seen a 20% increase in revenue when they send emails based on lifecycle stages.

Use email marketing templates

Email marketing templates are a great resource to help you with your email campaigns, and there are lots of them out on the market like these ones from HubSpot! If you’re more focused on other areas besides design or coding, this is an excellent way for getting started without having to worry about all that work beforehand.

It’s important to take into account email regulations when crafting emails and developing your marketing strategy. However, you should also be mindful of the templates that are proven to work best for your needs. Seek out high-quality templates; their expertise will make all the difference in getting a competitive edge over other organizations that have not put as much effort into creating quality messages or thinking deeply about how they can improve customer engagement through interactive content like quizzes or contests!

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