Is email marketing dead?

There is a growing consensus that email has outlived its usefulness as a communication tool, thanks to artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and chatbots. The truth? Email marketing is still very popular today, and it might be the most effective way to grow your business.

What’s the proof?

Despite social media, SEO, and affiliate marketing being more effective than email marketing, email is still the most effective marketing channel.

Why is that so? Despite all the hype surrounding new channels, why do some old marketing strategies remain effective decades later? While social media has grown, email is still used more than other platforms. After all, what’s the good of marketing to someone if they’re not there?

It is estimated that more than 80% of people use email, and that number continues to grow each year. Moreover, email marketing gives you complete control over the connections you make-you do not have to worry about algorithm changes affecting your reach.

This is why creating a successful email campaign is more essential than ever before. The problem is that most people don’t know how to do it right. (I am sure you have seen these people in your inbox.

We’ll show you how to start an email marketing campaign from scratch today.

What is Email Marketing?

In email marketing, promotional messages are sent out in bulk to a large number of recipients. Typically, it is used to generate sales or leads and may contain advertising.

Don’t forget: You’re in their inbox as a guest

In this day and age, people are constantly interrupted, pitched, and advertised to. Despite the fact that you might think your email is a special one. To the reader, your email is one in a million—and not in a good way.

Therefore, you should remember where you are and don’t be rude. Getting into someone’s inbox is like being invited to their home for dinner. You respectfully remove your shoes if they ask you to.

The same holds true for email marketing, so before we get started, I just want to remind you to always be on your best behavior and remember… you’re a guest in their inbox.

Next, let’s take a look at how to construct your email marketing strategy.

Step 1: Build Your List

Before you can send emails, you need someone to send emails to. How do you get started building your list? Start by adding a banner or form to your website simply asking people to subscribe.

Then, follow these tips.

1. Offer An Incentive

Imagine an email address as money. Would you give away money for free? The simplest way to collect email addresses is to offer an incentive.

Naturally, there are many ways to accomplish this. Some like to give away free stuff, while others provide a free newsletter.

The business newsletter Morning Brew, for example, provides readers with a simple benefit: they receive fun, interesting updates each morning.

Also, you can provide a checklist, white paper, ebook, or other downloadable assets. You can also convince people by having contests and giving away stuff. When trying to find an address, it is important to have a clear purpose in mind. I am not able to tell you which path is right or wrong for you.

It is here where a strong call to action is crucial, and good copywriting is necessary. Make sure people are interested in receiving the emails by establishing your credibility and explaining what they’re for. Simply posting “enter your email for updates” isn’t going to get anyone excited. Instead, share specifics.

By sharing a specific call to action or benefit to providing their email address, you can get more people to subscribe.

Some common ways to entice people to sign up include:

• email series
• free downloads
• Free white papers and eBooks
• Update lists, such as new releases and product updates

Be clear and enticing about your incentive, and don’t be afraid to promote it.

2. Follow Email Marketing Laws and Regulations

In addition, you need to make sure your emails comply with local rules and regulations, including CAN-SPAM and GDPR.

Don’t be intimidated by all the legalese-think about using double opt-in options so your consumers know what they’re getting into. Lastly, make it easy for people to unsubscribe.

Step 2: Provide Great Content

To succeed in email marketing, you need to set expectations.

In the event that you are consistent in your follow-up and strong in your call-to-action, you can expect your email campaign to be successfully executed.

On the other hand, if you promise to send one email a week, but send them daily, you will fail.

Conversely, if someone expects daily product updates from you and you don’t deliver them, then they will likely be disappointed as well.

Because of this, the first follow-up email is essential to the success of your email campaigns.

Send an Introduction Email

You can set up automated welcome sequences with almost all email service providers, so take full advantage of it.

You should send the first follow-up email as soon as possible in order to introduce yourself and tell your new subscriber how you will use their email address.

Long winded and detailed is always better than quick and unobtrusive, but if you can be concise and quick, then that’s great. You simply need to live up to their expectations from here.

 

Don’t Pitch Right Away

If you’re running an email list, you’re not there for fun, you’re there to engage customers and increase sales. Making the transition from an email list that offers tons of free value into one that pitches a product for money can be challenging. 

When you pitch, it’s a good idea to think about it in advance. It’s not a good idea to shock everyone with a pitch all of the sudden. People will react much better to sales pitches if they know they can expect them periodically. Put yourself in the reader’s position if you’re going to sell often. You may want to consider whether your messaging aligns with your expectations. Send similar offers to the customer if possible if they have expressed interest in a particular product before.

If you send blind offers, you are far less likely to get permission to keep doing so. The frequency to which you should pitch and write content depends on the needs of every business. There are no hard and fast rules regarding how often you should do this. Keep in mind that an email list is a permission asset, so it’s better to be cautious than reckless with it.

How to Write a Great Email Newsletter

Let’s discuss the differences between a good and a bad newsletter.

First of all, a bad newsletter may have been sent to you without your prior permission.

Businesses typically do this when they fail to maintain a routine email routine or manually add someone to their distribution list after receiving a business card or personal email. Your best way to ensure people remember you is not to let your emails accumulate for too long. Ideally, you should send out an email once a week or at least once a month.

My favorite newsletters are those that mix messaging with updates in a compelling manner. As an example, the email might contain product updates and images, but there’s a friendly note or personal message included as well.

Do not use your newsletter as a way to sell to your reader/customer but instead as a way to continue your relationship. Save the pitch for special offers, announcements, and updates.

Use Email Automation Carefully

You might think you will have the time to respond to every new subscriber when you are just starting out with an email list.

As soon as you have more than a few subscribers, keeping track becomes impossible. As your campaigns become more complex, following up with everyone will become impossible.

Top marketers seem to do this exact thing. How?

It’s all about email automation. You can schedule emails in advance to be sent out automatically. It is possible to prevent “going dark” for any amount of time by scheduling a set of emails in advance.

Usually, companies plan a series of emails that will automatically deliver over a few days or months, warming up anyone who joins their email list. Therefore, you’ll know that they’re paying attention when you announce a new product or deal. Because you already have a relationship with your reader, it is less likely to annoy them.

Step 3: Analytics and Segmentation

Let’s talk about how to enhance your email campaign now that you know about the fundamentals of email marketing.

In particular, segmentation and analytics can be used to improve your broadcasts and generate even better results.

How To Understand Email Analytics

Analytics play an important role in email copy, as we discussed in the past.

It has always been my experience that email service providers provide complimentary analytics.

Even though they are all important, three of them do take precedence: open rate, click-through rate, and unsubscribe rate. Here’s a closer look at each, and what we can learn from them.

The open rate is the percentage of people who open your emails. It works by loading a single invisible tracking pixel when someone clicks on your message. If you look at open rates, it usually tells you how well you have built a relationship with your readers. In an ideal world, people will open your emails as soon as they are received. A low open rate usually indicates that your subscribers are unengaged. Your focus should be on providing value to customers and managing expectations.

Click-through rates (CTR) are calculated based on the number of times people clicked on links in your email. A low CTR could mean your message isn’t targeted well enough, or it’s simply not getting through. If this applies to you, improve your copy.

Lastly, the unsubscribe rate tells you how many people clicked on the “unsubscribe” button at the bottom of your email.

If you have a high unsubscribe rate relative to your opt-in rate, then you have passed the point where you have built value and written a good copy… now you have some serious work on your hands. It’s basically like you’ve built a sieve, and anyone who signs up eventually leaves. If this applies to you, try to determine when people are leaving and take action accordingly.

If they leave after an automated email, then you need to rework it. Reconsider how you present offers if they leave after marketing messages.

If your email subscribers are leaving early in your funnel, you have to adjust your call to action so that it’s in sync with what you’re sending.

Keeping track of email analytics is crucial because, if you pay attention, they’ll reveal what’s going wrong. It’s all about paying attention here, of course.

How To Segment Your Email Marketing List

Segmenting your email list is the practice of dividing it up into groups that are more targeted. To learn more about this concept, click here.

Below are some methods for segmenting a large list:

• List of customers (compared to leads who haven’t purchased)
• newsletter subscribers
• The daily email list (in contrast to weekly, biweekly, monthly, etc)
• demographics, such as age, location, or job title
• Topics of interest, such as marketing or sales

You can create targeted communications by dividing your list, just as in paid advertising.

A customer might want information about both products and sales, while others may only want information about new versions. It is more likely that sales team leads will be interested in hearing about a new sales feature than a new marketing tool.

In addition, you can thank your buyers directly through emails, like this one from Chrome Industries.

If someone missed your last message (and ask them why), or showed interest (an additional pitch), you can segment your audience. Also, split testing messaging can be used to see how titles, content, and best practices fare in different groups.

As you can see, segmentation isn’t rocket science, but it is work, which is why most don’t take the time to do it right. By doing so, you will stand out immediately.

How Much Is Your Email List Worth?

If you treat your email list right, it can be one of the most valuable resources in your business.

Track your list’s average spending over time by seeing how much each person spends. Your list’s worth can be determined by this.

In the example, if you run two campaigns each year with a list of 10,000 people that usually spend $50,000 on each campaign, you could conclude that each subscriber is worth $10 a year.

When you calculate the loss of several hundred subscribers, it’s easy to see how this could affect your bottom line.

Email Marketing Conclusion

Consider reevaluating your email marketing strategy if you have been ignoring it.

For marketers who know how to use email marketing properly, it can deliver huge returns. It doesn’t have to be too complicated.

Don’t forget you’re visiting subscribers’ inboxes as a guest. It only takes one click to lose their interest forever in your emails. Be polite, respectful, and deliver value.

Ask for permission when you start. It’s the right thing to do. In this era of new data protection laws, like the EU’s GDPR, it is also a legal requirement.

You should follow through on the promises you make. You should provide people with what they have asked for and contact them regularly to ensure that their expectations are met.

It’s impossible to boost email automation with a formula. Everything depends on your personal voice and style, as well as the voice and style of your company.

Following your mastery of email basics, you can go on to email segmentation and analytics. Send different types of emails to different groups of people in order to deliver more useful emails.

Increase Your Outreach With Damex Digital!

As with all things, learning email marketing and email marketing strategy and using them to their fullest takes time. Precious time which you may not have due to other matters regarding your business, family or maybe you wish to use that time to produce more content, whatever the reason maybe. 

The shortage of time has resulted in most people neglecting or completely abandoning optimization to increase their customer. The mistake they make is to think that they will attract customers as long as they put out offers or incentives.

Even though offering incentives and offers can attract more customers in the short term, what you must look for are returning, long term and loyal customers.

Therefore, if you lack the time to learn Email Marketing  from the ground up, you should hire professionals to do it for you! Damex Digital is a professional digital marketing agency based in Smithers, Canada providing comprehensive solutions to all your digital marketing problems— including Email Marketing.

With us you get highly-skilled, professional Email marketers taking care of all aspects of your Email Marketing Strategy. Leave the SEO and email marketing strategy to us, while you take care of other matters pertaining to your business.

Get higher ROI, boost your customers and subscription rates and increase your conversion rates with professional Email Marketing and Digital Marketing services by Damex Digital!