E-mail marketing

E-mail marketing 

5.1 Introduction to e- mail marketing 

5.2 Challenges faced in bulk emails 

5.3 Types of Email 

5.4 Keywords 

5.5 Summary 

5.1 Introduction to e- mail marketing 

email marketing as a modern way of communicating with consumers. Emails, as a form  of communication, have been around for decades, ever since the first sent email  message back in 1971. Over the years, the World Wide Web has evolved and grown,  and email marketing has found its rightful place in the business world. Although email  messages were once a popular way of communicating with friends, online messaging  apps such as WhatsApp, Viber, etc. have taken over this role. Despite this fact, emails  are still important and a large percent of people do check their email inbox daily.  This gives a high potential to reach online consumers. Email marketing should be a  personalized approach, where your goal is to directly communicate with the online  users in order to achieve something, such as generate a sale, get visitors, encourage  downloads, etc. Even though an email marketing campaign is, in essence, a promotional  campaign, you should go beyond this concept and use a more subtle approach to both  reach and engage online users.  

The goal of email marketing is to get the message to the consumer, but it is not enough  to simply send a message. You need to encourage open rates and you need to explore  how the consumers are interacting with your email, whether they forward it, click on  the links, etc. 

What is email marketing?  

Email marketing is a part of online marketing focused on communicating and  establishing the connection with online users through emails. Regardless if the goal is  promotional or informative, regardless if you send weekly or monthly, the core of email  marketing is still communication with the recipient. The purpose of this communication  is to nurture the relationship with the existing or potential customers, and to encourage  an action which is the goal of an email marketing campaign.  

To make sure you are communicating successfully, your email message should be:  • Relevant to the recipient  

• With a relevant, yet engaging subject line  

• Concise and spot on  

• Planned  

• Sent at the right moment  

• In the language the recipient understands  

• Without any grammatical or spelling errors  

• Without any broken links  

The process of communication between a business on one side and a customer on the  other goes like this. You have a message that you want to share. It can be a promotional  message about a sale in your online store. It may be the news about your latest ebook. It  may be an announcement for the event you will be hosting. The idea is to send a  message that will encourage the recipient to complete an action, such as purchase an  item, fill out a form, etc. The point is you have something to share with the subscribers.  The next step is to write an email. There are lots of things to have in mind here, which  will be the topic of one of the subsequent chapters. Finally, you send the message, wait  and examine the results, in order to find out both positive and negative outcomes of  your email marketing campaign. That is the email marketing process summarized in a  nutshell. 17 

One of the first obstacles every marketer faces is getting emails delivered and read. It is  not an easy task, especially if you have in mind that over 200 emails are sent and  received per person each day. As much as getting the attention through email  marketing is lucrative (with huge ROI), it is a very difficult job. There is a true combat  over users’ attention and it has become a real art to get under that spotlight. This is how  email deliverability was introduced as the process of analyzing and optimizing the  performance of an email marketing campaign.  

Gradually, this is how the field of email marketing evolved, to become a whole new  segment of online marketing, with its own best practices, strategies, and tools to use.  Email marketing as a part of online marketing  

To get the most out of email marketing, you need to combine this strategy with other  techniques of online marketing, including content creation, search engine optimization,  social media marketing, etc.  

Email marketing on its own has a little chance of succeeding. The true potential of this  marketing is seen when it is integrated into the overall online marketing strategy. For  example, you have a new blog article (content marketing) and you want to share it with  lots of online users to get more traffic to your blog (SEO). You send out a newsletter  (email marketing) where you feature a summary of the article, inviting your subscribers  to visit your blog to read the full article. This way you combine all your efforts to get the  most out of it and to have the best chances for achieving your goals.  How to start with email marketing?  

Once you know the basics, it is time to start with email marketing. In essence, this is a  method for achieving goals, a strategy which utilizes your own resources (a mailing list)  to boost your online performance.  

Set up goals  

Like with any other campaign, if you want to reach success, you have to know what  that success is. Goals you want to achieve will dictate the campaign settings, writing 

style, target audience, etc. They will also dictate the way you measure success. This is  why the first step is setting up goals. Sometimes you might have multiple goals. Either  way, start by determining some of them. Here are a couple of examples to get some  ideas:  

• I want to drive new signups for the service  

• I need new leads  

• I want to invite people to an event  

• I would like to encourage people to donate  

• I want to sell my product  

These goals are a bit too general and vague. In order to measure success, you should try  to make them measurable. For example, avoid “I want to drive new signups for the  service”, but add a measurement “I want to drive 100 new signups for the service”. Or,  instead of “I want to sell my product” try “I want to increase sales by 20%”.  Having measurable goals will help you determine if what you have achieved through  the campaign is really in accordance with what you had planned. Not only will this  determine whether your campaign was a success or not, it will also help you realize  what you need to change to upgrade your performance.  

Determine the pace of sending  

Now it is time to think about sending emails. One of the first things you will need to  establish is the pace. The schedule of sending is important to keep you organized, but it  also makes users feel more comfortable, as they know when to expect an email from  you.  

You should also analyze the performance of the email campaigns in the past, to  determine if there was any particular day or period of the day that showed unusual  rates, regardless if that was the surprisingly high or low open rate.  There are also studies that have been analyzing the performance of email marketing  campaigns, in order to find out what would be the best time to send an email. Multiple 

types of research have come to the conclusion that Tuesday is the best day for sending  emails, while morning, 10 am, in particular, was highlighted as the best time  

5.2 Challenges faced in bulk mails. 

1) Low Delivery Rate 

Delivery Rate of emails in email marketing is calculated as “the actual emails delivered  to the inboxes of recipients and then, subtracting hard and soft bounces from the gross  number of emails sent dividing that number by gross emails sent”. 

Your email delivery rate ensures its success or failure. The chances of attracting  customers are when your email lands in the inbox. Look for email delivery rate that  scores 95% or above. If your delivery rate is going down with the time, you need to  check out the reasons. 

2) Low Open Rate 

Open Rate in email marketing is a valued term as it lets you know about “The ratio of  the total number of unique people who opened up your email and the total number of  delivered emails.” 

Let’s understand this by an example, “Suppose you have sent 100 emails, out of  which 20 got bounced, and 80 were delivered. Out of those 80 emails, 40 were  opened, and thus, the email open rate is 50%.” 

The low open rate could be critical if you’re trying to get consumers directly from your  emails. There could be many reasons for low open rate, like, “Unqualified Subscribers,  Not Segmenting Your List, Boring Subject Line, and others”. 

3) Low Click Rate 

Click rate is calculated as “Number of clicks within an email as a percentage of opens”.  Like open and delivery rate, your click rate is also important for the success of your  emails.

Suppose, if your emails have been successfully delivered, but have not been clicked,  would you consider IT a profitable effort? Like open rate, the click rate also relies on  the subject line, so, ensure you have checked it again and again. 

4) High Unsubscribe Rate 

High Unsubscribe Rate is measured as “Number of recipients who unsubscribe as a  percentage of emails delivered”. 

You need to notice this metric as you will have to decide who to be targeted through  your emails. It will also help you in minimizing your unsubscribing rate. 

5) High SPAM Complaints 

When your targeted customers mark your emails as “SPAM”, they lost their utilities.  Spamming is very often in email marketing as your consumers get irritated or found  your emails doubtful when sending continuously. 

6) Low Active Ratio 

Active Ratio is defined as “Number of email recipients who consistently open and  interact with emails as a percentage of list size” 

If you’re facing low active ratio for your emails, then, you should start working on its  rectification right now. 

7) Limited Post-Click Activity 

Post-Click Activity in email marketing is calculated as “The volume of leads generated,  products sold, or other brand-specific objectives completed as a result of email  marketing to a targeted audience.” 

If the post-click activity to your sent emails is not working as per the expectation, it  could be an alarming situation.

5.3 Types of Emails 

Companies send a lot of emails each day, about all sorts of different topics. Some may  share the latest blog update, some might announce huge discounts, etc. Of course, each  of these emails has a different purpose, which is how we can differentiate between several types of emails. There is no a strict classification of emails. For example, some  marketers choose to group emails under the label transactional and non-transactional,  while some choose to go beyond, and have even more narrow groups, so they have a  welcome email, a notification email, etc.  

The first major division we could highlight is based on the number of emails you send  in the campaign, so we have one-to-many and one-to-one emails.  

One-to-many email  

The first group of emails is one-to-many emails, and it refers to the emails sent to the  entire mailing list or a certain targeted group within that list. The main benefit of these  emails is that they have a huge reach, thus the great potential to generate traffic,  increase conversions, etc. Even though you reach out to a huge number of subscribers,  you will still be designing a single email. This could also have a negative effect because  your email might seem too general and it might lack personalization. Narrow downing  the mailing list based on the different criteria could help you avoid this obstacle.  Within this large group of one-to-many emails, there are several types of emails:  Newsletter  

A newsletter is one of the most popular types of emails. These generally contain  information from your blog or website that you have recently published. They could  also feature the news about your company, events, announcements, etc. By sending  regular emails, you establish a connection with the readers, you bring them back to  your website in the attempt to engage and convert them. On one hand, a newsletter is a  very useful type of email as it allows you to combine different types of content, such as  new articles from the blog, the announcement of the upcoming event, etc. Basically, you  share any news related to your company. While this can be considered a benefit, it can 

also be seen as a drawback, because due to this compilation of information, your call-to action button may be less in the focus. A newsletter email is usually sent according to a  certain schedule you have determined.  

Digest email  

This type of email is similar to the newsletter, but the design is much simpler and  concise. In a digest email, you share the most important pieces of content in a form of a  short list with links. This way you help your subscribers find your content easily, which  is especially helpful for blogs that publish a lot of content. The goal is the same as with  the newsletter, you share information, increase brand awareness, and generate traffic,  but the design is what differentiate these two. Digest emails are frequently automated  so that the software simply picks up the scoop from your blog and send it to the  subscribers. This is a perfect way to keep the subscribers informed if you have a lot of  content published each day. Having a schedule for sending a digest email could be  helpful to your subscribers, as they will know when to expect the new digest. Dedicated email  

As the name suggest, this email is dedicated to a certain offer. Instead of piling up  content, like with the previous two types, here you focus on one piece of information  only. It can be an announcement of an upcoming sale, an invitation for your latest  conference, asking subscribers to fill out a survey, etc. The main benefit of a dedicated  email is the ability to highlight a single event that is important to you. You will have a  strong call-to-action button, which will have much more impact on your campaign.  Unlike newsletters, dedicated emails are usually sent without any specific schedule.  Sponsorship email  

Like with paid ads in search engine marketing, email marketing also allows getting  promotion through paid methods. With a sponsorship email, you pay to be included in  a newsletter of another website or company. This means a huge new lead potential, as  you will be targeting an entirely new community. Of course, to make sure you are  getting quality leads, you need to collaborate with companies that have the same target 

group as you. This kind of advertising will be relevant to the recipients and this way  you will be able to get visitors who are genuinely interested in products and services  you provide.  

One-to-one email  

This group of emails includes the types of emails that are sent to a single user. The focus  of such email campaign is not a huge reach because you will not be contacting the entire  community. On the contrary, you will be focused on one subscriber only. The goal of  this approach is to establish a connection with the subscriber, strengthen the  relationship, and increase the credibility of your brand. A large portion of one-to-one  emails is automated. Obviously, businesses will find it difficult to handle a huge scope  of emails each day, which is why this process is automated to a great extent.  The main benefit of these emails is that you can focus on one user as you introduce the  user to your brand and community. Usually, you will use the existing content to do so.  When it comes to sharing the new content, this might not be the perfect way to go, as in  that case, one-to-many type of an email would be a better choice.  

The most common types of the one-to-one emails include:  

Lead nurture  

This is a type of an email that is supposed to establish a firm connection with your  subscriber. After someone signs up for your newsletter, sending out lead nurture emails  can help them discover more about your brand, obtain even more free resources,  discover more great content on your blog, etc. Since lead nurture emails are usually  automated, your company will benefit from them without any extra work once you  have a new lead. Unlike other emails where you reach out to the entire list of  subscribers or a certain targeted group, the reach of lead nurture email is much lower,  because you only target new leads. However, the reach is not even the goal here. The  idea is to deepen your relationship with the subscriber and you will accomplish that by  focusing on their needs.  

Notification emails 

Notification emails are also known as alerts and auto-responders. They notify the  recipient each time something happens, and these actions are also known as triggers.  The sender needs to establish some criteria for an outgoing message, something that  will be a trigger for notification email to be sent. For example, a confirmation email  about a successful online purchase, congratulations on a subscription, a welcome email,  a birthday email, etc. and many other types of emails that are triggered by a specific  action.  

Social media emails  

Unlike the above email campaigns, where you reach out to your subscribers, social  media gives you an option to reach users' inboxes through the social media platform.  For example, LinkedIn groups allow their administrators to send LinkedIn  announcements, which will be sent to the members' inboxes. The same goes for  Google+.  

Although you do not really have access to user's email, nor could you use a software to  customize the email or track conversions, this could still be a good way to leverage the  power of an email campaign. This approach opens up new opportunities to grow your  

business. You are able to reach the people who might not be completely familiar with  your brand which is a great way to gain new leads and potential customers.  The choice of the email type you are going to send depends on the goal you want to  achieve. Each type has its distinctive features and it fulfills a certain purpose.  Understanding the distinctions among them will help you make a better choice for the  future campaigns.