Email marketing has long been synonymous with spam and intrusive communications.
However, thanks to the advancement of marketing automation tools, this channel has become the best way to deliver the right messages to the right people at the right time.
In addition to being an excellent tool for digital marketing and inbound marketing professionals, email is an extremely democratic channel.
According to a survey by Pew Research, 92% of online adults use email.
Therefore, contrary to what many believe, email marketing is not dead, and it can be a great way to grow your business!
This guide is made for those who are beginners and want to know more about how to start doing email marketing, as well as for those who already have an established strategy and are looking for ways to optimize it.
Definition of Email Marketing
Email marketing is communication between a company and its clients or potential clients, through email.Some common examples of email marketing that you should have already received in your inbox are:
• Airfare offers
• Promotions
• Confirmation of an online purchase
• Newsletter
Initially, the use of email as a marketing tool was seen as a digital version of advertisements sent through correspondence (also known as “direct mail”).
Thus, email was seen as a mass communication channel and the messages sent were far from being relevant to the recipient.
For this reason, for many years email marketing was viewed as invasive communication.
But it evolved, and today the best marketing professionals see that email is one of the most personal ways to communicate with consumers, through a direct exchange of messages.
Reasons To Use Email Marketing
In recent times, social media has gained visibility in digital marketing.However, email marketing can also be a great option for those who collect email addresses and want to increase the relevance of their brand among these contacts. Look at some reasons:
Powerful
According to Radicati, in 2015 there were 2.5 billion email users, and the trend is for that number to reach 2.9 billion in 2019. That number represents more than a third of the world's population!Our email address concentrates all the actions we do in other channels.
Every time we create a login on any site, for example, we use the email address. Thus, it is an essential part of a user's activities on the Internet.
Predictable Scope
When a company makes a post on a social network, such as Facebook, not everyone who follows your page will see your message.This occurs due to algorithms that determine which messages are most relevant to each user.
For this reason, the scope of posts on social networks is not predictable. I mean, you have no control over how many people actually see your post.
In email marketing, the same does not happen. One of the great advantages of this channel is its predictable reach.
This means that if you select 100 email addresses to send your message, all 100 will receive your email in the inbox (unless there is a technical problem, but we will discuss this later).
Flexible Format
Email is the blank screen that every digital marketing professional is looking for. Messages sent by email have no character limits, they can contain images and even GIFs.An email can be made with templates and include graphic elements, or it can contain only text, as if you were writing personal messages for all your contacts.
Through it, you can communicate short messages, include various links to web pages, or tell a long story. Therefore, the email can be in the format you want!
Obviously, there are good practices to follow when writing and designing an email. But we will address this matter a little later!
High Financial Performance
To start an email marketing strategy, you need only 3 ingredients: a domain (for example, "rockcontent.com"), an email marketing tool, and a person to execute the strategy.Choosing a good email marketing tool is essential. There are several options on the market that cater to all levels of need, including free tools such as Mailify, which allows you to send automated email and SMS marketing campaigns, separately or by combining automatic sequences.
To contextualize you a little more with this tool, Mailify stands out above all for its graphic editor, a very simple and intuitive email builder, to create newsletter templates, landing pages or forms.
Hooking Up Leads
When a person chooses to receive emails from your company, they expect you to have contact with them from time to time.This may seem obvious, but many companies forget to maintain a constant relationship with their email contact base!
Therefore, email marketing can be used in your marketing strategy to engage your leads.
This can make your leads always remember you, increasing the chances of them becoming customers.
Promote Your Content
If you have a blog, you know that promoting the content you produce is essential for the success of your strategy.There are several channels you can use to promote your content, and email is one of them!
Sending a newsletter, for example, can help your blog posts get more access, and thus increase your visibility on the Internet.
Nurture And Educate Your Leads
Lead nutrition is one of the most important strategies of Inbound Marketing. Only with it is it possible to transform your subscribers into leads, and your leads into clients.For this to happen, it is necessary to educate your contacts about your business and strengthen your relationship with them.
Email is the best channel to nurture your leads, as it only allows you to send personalized messages to the right people at the right time.
Therefore, if you use a marketing automation tool, you can use email marketing to nurture and educate your customers.
Sell More
Have you received emails with offers or promotions in your inbox? Many companies, especially those that sell products directly to consumers such as clothing and airfare, use this channel to increase their sales.Today, it is possible to stimulate your contacts to carry out transactions with just a click on the email.
And soon the payment directly in the email will also be a reality. Therefore, take advantage of email marketing to promote your products!
Improve Your Relationship With Consumers And Customers
After making a purchase, you can't get away from your customers! The enchanting part is one of the most important of the input methodology and you need to give it attention.Satisfied buyers bring several advantages to your business, and you can maintain that relationship by email.
Take advantage of this channel to send your clients relevant content, as well as discounts and promotions.
The 4 Types of Email That Your Strategy Needs To Have
To begin to understand how to create a successful campaign and how to insert email marketing in the daily life of your company's digital marketing, it is important to know the different types of emails that your company can send.1. Blog Updates
This is the type of email you should already be used to seeing. It is the one that announces when new content is published on your blog.They are great for starting to interact more with your readers. When someone signs up for your list for the first time, chances are these are the first emails you'll receive.
It is a way to keep your list active and in touch with the new content you publish, as well as increasing the chances that you will generate leads with the CTAs within your texts.
2. Newsletter
The newsletter is an old acquaintance of e-commerce and blogs. Many companies send monthly or weekly updates to their contacts with the main blog posts and company or market news.If you really want your newsletter to be read, spend time creating a newsletter that has its own identity and contains relevant content for your readers.
Don't forget to include links to take the reader to external pages where you can read more about that topic.
3. Event Invitations
Emails are great for promoting events you are hosting. The big challenge here is to present clearly because that event is worth the attention of your contacts.When writing emails that promote events, do not forget to include all the necessary information, such as location, date, time, limit of participants, among others.
And remember to highlight the link for the registration or ticket purchase page!
4. Lead Nutrition Emails
Depending on the action your person decides to take within your blog or website, you may want to insert into a nutrition stream.Nutrition consists of a series of emails with relevant and segmented content.
As the name suggests, these are email marketing messages that help the lead walk the sales funnel into a clear buying position.
By identifying a group of contacts that you know are interested in a specific topic, you can continue the conversation with more relevant and segmented content that increases the probability that these customers will continue to contact your company.
How To Choose The Ideal Template For Your Emails
With a tool in hand, the next challenge will be writing your first email marketing. And for that, you will have to choose which template to use!It is possible to create a template from scratch, in HTML, or use ready templates that are provided by tools like Mailchimp. The last option is the simplest, since it reduces your work.
When you choose your template, look for one that is responsive, that is, that adapts to mobile devices. Today, most people read emails on smartphones or tablets.
Therefore, if your template is not responsive on these devices, reading your marketing emails will be very difficult (or even impossible).
In addition to being responsive, your template should have space for images and text. Many companies send email marketing messages that only contain images.
However, some providers consider this type of email as spam. The ideal is to combine image and text blocks, which makes your email lighter and more pleasant to read.
Finally, when looking for the ideal template, remember that less is more. As cliché as that expression is, simplicity is the key to focus your reader's attention on what you want, be it the content of the email, the call-to-action, sharing or any other action you want him to perform.
Steps To Build An Email Marketing List
As sad as it is, an email contact list drops 22.5% a year. Email addresses change, people leave old accounts, and contacts choose to leave your list.For this reason, one of the most challenging aspects of an email marketing strategy is to build and grow your contact list.
But where to start?
The first solution that often comes to mind is to buy an email list. However, the golden rule of email marketing is never to buy contact lists! We will explain why.
1. Don't Buy An Email List
A person's inbox is an extremely personal space. It is there that she handles messages from work as well as personal matters.Therefore, if someone has given you their email address, it means that this person is willing to interact with you.
By purchasing a list, you are acquiring email addresses that have not chosen to receive your messages. Therefore, none of these people gave you permission to send messages directly to their inbox.
In addition, these lists also often contain false, non-existent, or typographical email addresses, indicating to providers that you are sending emails to a purchased list, leading to a potential provider penalty.
That is, buying an email list is a full plate to harm the image of your company.
Building an email list takes time and effort, but read on to discover tips that will make this process easier.
2. Focus on the Quality of your List
The first step to start collecting email messages is to add a space on your blog where your visitors can register their emails to receive communications from you, such as newsletters, promotions and news.Some tools facilitate this collection of emails. Our favorite in Rock Content is Hellobar, which adds an email collection window or pop-up to your site.
An alternative to this tool is OptinSkin, a WordPress plugin that allows you to place email collection boxes anywhere on the blog.
Remember that the simpler the process for your users to register their emails, the more addresses you will collect. Therefore, it facilitates the user experience on your blog.
You may wish to request other information, in addition to the email, at the time of registration. This is normal, but be careful not to ask too many questions. This can scare your visitors and make them stop giving you the email address.
Finally, remember that building a good list of email messages involves two components: getting new contacts and maintaining the ones you already have.
To keep your contacts close, always send content that is relevant. Otherwise, you can lose everything you've worked to conquer.
Good Email Marketing Planning Consists of 5 Basic Steps:
• Define your buyer persona
• Determine what content will be sent
• Establish the frequency of shipments
• Define the objectives of each campaign, as well as which metrics to accompany
• Organize a shipping schedule
Tips For Writing Effective Emails
When you already have a tool for sending email messages, a template and a contact list, you will be eager to send your first email marketing message.
1. Keep The Text Short
Did you know that the average attention time of human beings today is 8 seconds? With that in mind, it is clear that you need to be concise and objective when writing your emails.Check and edit your emails to get rid of everything that is not necessary to communicate your message. Go straight to the point you want to express and avoid distractions.
2. Use The Right Language
When you're writing your emails, consider who will be on the other side reading. That is, who is the person in your emails?From this, you will be able to determine what tone of voice to use, and what type of expressions, slang or language you should avoid.
3. Set A Conversation Tone
Email serves to nurture relationships with your contact list. Therefore, create proximity in your texts, treat your reader by name and speak in a way that will captivate your contacts.In this way, you create a dialogue with them.
4. Write Creative Topics
The subject is one of the most important elements of an email. Its objective is to stimulate the user to open the received message, summarizing the essence of the email content in a few words.So be sure to explore creativity when writing your topics. You can use some techniques to arouse your recipient's curiosity and increase your opening rate.
A successful example we have of creativity in affairs is from an email we sent to announce a webinar on the importance of updating blog content to reach the top of Google.
5. Stages To Level Up Your Email Marketing Strategy
Until now, we have covered the basic knowledge you need to start an email marketing strategy that will contribute to your relationship with your subscribers.After all this implemented, you can ask yourself what are the next steps to take your strategy to another level, where you can generate business opportunities, deliver personalized messages and optimize your campaigns to achieve the best results.
The most important step for this to happen is to establish an action plan. It will help you define a periodicity of sending email marketing, as well as determine what type of email to send and to whom.
