Why is email marketing important?
Email marketing is a digital marketing strategy that involves the use of email to send mass messages whether they are commercial, promotional, offers, news, product updates, relevant content and more, to a specific audience allowing you to customize messages to suit individual needs.
It is important because of its effectiveness in communicating directly with customers and subscribers, something relevant is that 90% of emails reach the inbox, as well as its ability to generate a high return on investment (ROI).
Why is email marketing still one of the most effective strategies?
It is a cost-effective form of marketing, as it does not require large investments compared to other promotional channels; because according to studies, for every dollar invested in email, it can generate an average return of $40 dollars.
In addition, 82% of companies report that email is one of the main sources of income for their business, a very clear example is that if you open your email right now at least half of your messages will be from companies or people who practice email marketing.
Why is email marketing still one of the most effective strategies?
It is a cost-effective form of marketing, since it does not require large investments compared to other promotional channels; because according to studies, for every dollar invested in email, it can generate an average return of $40 dollars.
Furthermore, 82% of companies report that email is one of the main sources of income for their business, a very clear example is that if you open your email right now at least half of your messages will be from companies or people who practice email marketing.
Additionally, if you compare the results of social networks, and other marketing tools with email campaigns are still much more efficient, that’s why many marketers prefer it.
It pays to create a successful and functional email marketing strategy, so it is an important marketing tool to have because of its great value and cost-effectiveness.
Benefits of email marketing for businesses in 2023 and 2024
Advanced Personalization: Message personalization based on subscriber behavioral data and preferences has led to a 74% increase in email open rates.
Customer Loyalty: 80% of companies consider email marketing to be an effective tool for customer retention and loyalty generation
Measurable and Trackable: Conversion tracking metrics can be used to evaluate the success of email campaigns.
Multichannel Integration: By 2023, 63% of companies will integrate email marketing with other strategies, such as content marketing and social media, to deliver a better customer experience.
Since it will allow you to reach a wider and more diverse audience, not all customers interact in the same way, so using email marketing increases the chances of reaching them.However, developing an email marketing strategy is not as easy as it seems. It is not just a matter of writing a message and pressing the “send” button, since most people do not know how to do it.
Don’t worry, because in this article we’ll teach you step-by-step how to get started with email marketing, from the beginning, to take your email marketing strategy from 0 to 100; by the time you’re done, you’ll have all the information you need to start an exceptional email campaign on your own.
7 email marketing tips you need to know before running your first email marketing campaign
Brand consistency: Email campaigns should be aligned with the company’s brand identity. The tone, design and voice should be consistent across all channels and be recognizable to customers.
Add images and/or videos: Add images and/or videos related to the article to make the email more engaging and visual. Images and videos can also help increase subscriber engagement.
Include a call to action (CTA): Include a call to action in the email to let subscribers know what they should do after reading the article. It can be an invitation to comment on the blog, share on social networks, download an additional resource, among others.
Attractive Subject Line (title): The title line is key to attract the attention of the recipient. It should be concise, short, persuasive and relevant to the content of the email, but not misleading, as they may end up unsubscribing and that is not what we want.
Be human: This is an important concept in email marketing and refers to the need to humanize your emails, the idea is to create more authentic connections, rather than simply sending cold, commercial messages.
Short, clear and direct messages: What you use in emails should be clear, direct and easy to understand. Avoid unnecessary technicalities and jargon that can confuse recipients.
Ask permission and deliver on your promises: These are two fundamental principles in email marketing that help establish a relationship of trust with your subscribers.
Make sure people subscribe voluntarily and are fully informed about what they will receive, don’t send content that doesn’t relate to what you promised, and respect your subscribers’ preferences. If you offered the option to customize the type of content they want to receive or the frequency of emails.
Now, we will talk about how to create an email marketing campaign from 0
Fundamental elements that you need to do email marketing
1. Know the email marketing regulations in each country: It is subject to various regulations and laws in different countries and regions to protect the privacy of individuals and prevent spam. We will show you some of the most important regulations you should be aware of.
CAN-SPAM Act (United States): This is a federal law in the United States that regulates commercial email communications. Some of the key requirements include the need to include a valid mailing address, a clear unsubscribe mechanism, and a prohibition on using misleading or false subject lines.
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (European Union): Protects the privacy of EU citizens’ personal data. For email marketing, it implies that you must obtain explicit and verifiable consent before sending commercial emails. In addition, you must provide information on how the data will be used and allow subscribers to unsubscribe at any time.
Consumer Electronic Privacy Law (CASL) (Canada): Regulates electronic commercial communications in Canada, requires explicit consent from recipients and the inclusion of an unsubscribe option.
Communications and Economics Act (CEA) (Australia): Regulates commercial communications by email. Requires consent, valid contact information and an unsubscribe option.
Personal Data Protection Law (Mexico): In Mexico, the Ley de Protección de Datos Personales en Posesión de Particulares (LFPDPPP) establishes requirements for the handling of personal data and its use in email marketing, including obtaining consent.
Local Data Privacy Laws: In addition to the regulations mentioned above, it is important to familiarize yourself with local laws wherever you are conducting email marketing.
2. Choosing an email service provider (ESP), an important decision for your email marketing strategy, is a tool that provides your services to email mailing, track and manage email campaigns.
Consider the size of your subscriber list, how many emails you can send per month, the features you require and your budget, you can even choose a free email marketing plan, and most importantly that it is easy to use for both beginners and advanced users.
As your subscriber list grows, you will need an ESP that is scalable and capable of handling an increasing volume of emails, and that offers good technical support. This is important in case of technical problems or questions.
3. Establish the objectives, as it is a powerful tool that allows us to send targeted mailings effectively.
Boost Sales: Email is an effective way to promote our products or services to an interested audience.
Increase Customer Loyalty: Keeping our customers satisfied and engaged with our brand is essential. Email allows us to maintain ongoing communication, provide updates on our products and services, and deliver exceptional service.
Generate Quality Leads: It is an effective tool for lead generation. We can attract new prospects interested in what we offer and nurture those relationships over time.
Increase brand recognition: Sharing our story, values and achievements through email helps to strengthen brand recognition.
Encourage Interaction and Engagement: Email gives us the opportunity to actively interact with our audience. Through surveys, forms and calls to action, we can encourage subscriber participation, collect valuable feedback and further personalize our communications.
Education and Added Value: We use email to provide educational and valuable content to our audience.
4. An email list, is an email database of people who have given their consent to receive mailings, which makes them subscribers, these lists are used in marketing to send emails to a specific audience.
Therefore it is important to have an email list, if you don’t have one you will have no one to send messages to, Below we will show you how to create an email list.
Learn how to build and grow your subscriber list.
Tip 1: make it easy to sign up to your email list, create a popup on your website, many people place the signup at the bottom of the home page. That way, it is very likely that many visitors and potential customers will ignore the request. However, if your main goal is to expand or build an email list, you should set the popup to appear on the screen as soon as people enter your website.
Offer several options within your website for them to sign up, one on the home page of the blog, one under the banner with a bold color on the home page, and finally one on individual blog posts with the word “subscribe” as a call to action.
By offering your readers multiple sign-up options, site-wide, you’re more likely to get them to follow you.
Tip 2: Create a free subscription offer: with an attractive incentive for people to subscribe they can have a free email list. It could be a free ebook, an exclusive discount or access to premium content. Make sure your offer solves a problem or meets a need of your audience, create a strategy and publicize it on the different channels you have.
Tip 3: Use social media to create a compelling subscription offer, social media advertising platforms allow you to create customized ads to reach your target audience more effectively.
For example using retargeting ads on Facebook and Instagram. These ads allow you to reach people who have already interacted with your brand, either by visiting your website, or by interacting with your social media posts.
Select the type of email for your Email Marketing Strategy
Here are some email marketing examples that you could use to increase your conversions and improve your relationship with your customers.
- Welcome emails: Did you know that welcome emails have a 50% open rate? Take advantage of that opportunity to make a good impression right from the start. Be sure to welcome your new subscribers, offer some kind of discount or incentive, and guide them through your website so they can find what they are looking for.
- Newsletters: Newsletters are a great way to keep your current customers informed about the latest news, offers, and updates on your business. Make sure they are visually appealing, easy to read and full of valuable information.
- Cart abandonment emails: Has it ever happened to you that you’ve left something in your online shopping cart and then you get an email reminding you that you left it there? That’s a cart abandonment email. This tactic is an effective way to recoup lost sales and remind your customers about the products they were about to buy.
- Referral emails: Use the information you have about your customers’ interests and buying behavior to send them personalized recommendations. This can include products similar to those they have already purchased or even items they may like based on their searches on your website.
- Follow-up emails: After a customer makes a purchase, be sure to send them a follow-up email to thank them for their purchase and offer them some sort of incentive to return. You can also ask for feedback to improve your business and provide a better customer experience in the future.
- Purchase Confirmation Emails: After a customer makes an online purchase, they are sent a confirmation email that includes details of the purchase, a summary of the products purchased and shipping information.
- Transactional Emails: These emails are sent in response to a specific user action, such as a website registration, password reset request, or reservation confirmation. They have a functional rather than promotional purpose.
- Reminder and Notification Emails: These emails are used to remind your subscribers of important dates, birthdays and anniversaries. They can also include reminders of brand events or scheduled appointments.
- Feedback and Survey Emails: Companies use these emails to gather feedback and comments from customers. They usually include links to surveys or feedback forms.
How to write an email marketing copy
Personalize and segment Emails: Use the recipient’s name in the salutation and in the body of the email. Personalization goes beyond the name; you can also personalize content based on the subscriber’s purchase history, interests or location.
Write Conversationally: Instead of using formal, corporate language, write in a more conversational manner. Use a friendly, relatable tone that makes your subscribers feel like they are having a conversation with you.
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Tell stories: Stories are a powerful tool to humanize your emails. Share anecdotes related to your brand or products. Personal stories and real customer experiences can be especially effective.
Showcase Your Team: If you have a team behind your brand, feature them in your emails. Include photos and short bios to let subscribers get to know the people who work at your company.
Use preview text properly: Also known as “preheader” or “first look”, it is the text snippet that appears in the inbox of emails right after the subject line, you can use keywords.
Its purpose is to give recipients a brief description or preview of the email content before they fully open it. Having effective preview text can increase open rates and engagement. Remember to write it according to segmentation and to be free of grammatical errors.
How to design an email
Creating a design template is very easy, as most email tools have customizable templates like these:
Step 1: Select a base template that fits the type of email you want to send. You should consider aspects such as the structure, the layout of the elements and the number of columns.
Step 2: Customize the template to reflect your brand’s visual identity. This includes the choice of colors, fonts, logo and any other design elements that are consistent with your company’s image.
Step 3: Design an attractive Header and Footer that includes your company’s title or name. You can do this in simple design programs like canva, and add a footer with contact information, social media links and unsubscribe options.
Step 4: Organize the Content in your template. Define sections for images, text, headlines and calls to action (CTA). Use spacing and structure to improve readability.
Step 5: Add Visual Content and incorporate relevant images, illustrations and graphics that complement your message. Make sure images are of adequate resolution and look good on different devices.
Step 6: Create Calls to Action (CTAs), including buttons or CTA links that stand out and motivate recipients to take the action you want them to take. Use clear and persuasive language in your CTA.
Step 7: Optimize for Mobile Devices, make sure your design is responsive, that is, it automatically adapts to different screen sizes, especially mobile devices.
Step 8: Test your email and devices to ensure that the design looks and works correctly. Verify that all links are active and that there are no visual errors.
Step 9: Save and Use the Template, to use it as a basis for creating future emails consistently.
How to correctly segment your email list
Email list segmentation is a fundamental strategy to improve the effectiveness of your email campaign. It allows you to divide your list into smaller, targeted groups with similar characteristics.
- Collect relevant data: Before starting segmentation, make sure to collect relevant data about your subscribers.
- Detailed sign-up forms: When asking subscribers to sign up to your mailing list, include additional fields. You can ask for details such as name, gender, age, geographic location, interests, product preferences, among others.
- Surveys and questionnaires: Send surveys and questionnaires to your subscribers to obtain specific information.
- Online behavior tracking: Use web tracking tools to track visitor behavior on your website.
- CRM and database integration: This will allow you to access customer data stored in your CRM and use it to segment your list.
- Email interaction tracking: Observe the behavior of your subscribers in response to your emails.
- Social media: If your subscribers are connected to you on social media, you can get additional information from their profiles. This includes demographics, interests, social media activity and more.
- Analyze metrics from previous campaigns: Analyze metrics from your previous email marketing campaigns to better understand how your subscribers interact with your messages and what content is most effective for them.
Use an email marketing tool: Use an email marketing platform that allows you to create segments based on the criteria you have defined.
Define your segments: Once you have enough data, define the segments you are interested in.
- Demographics: Age, gender, geographic location.
- Behavior: Previous purchases, browsing history on your website, clicks on previous emails.
- Interests: Product preferences or categories of interest.
- Customer lifecycle: New subscribers, loyal customers, inactive, etc.
- Purchase frequency: Frequent vs. occasional buyers.
Create personalized content: Once you have your segments defined, create specific content for each group. Personalize messages, offers and calls to action to fit the needs and interests of each segment.
How to measure Email Marketing results
To measure the performance of your email marketing campaigns, you should pay attention to these key metrics:
- Link click-through rate : (no. of users who clicked on a link) ÷ (no. of email opens) x 100.
Expressed as a percentage, it gives you immediate information about how much your content appeals to readers. - Conversion rate: (no. of users who took a desired action) ÷ (no. of emails that were opened)
This is a metric to measure the effectiveness of an action or campaign in performing a desired action. - Bounce rate: 1 – [ (no. of emails delivered) ÷ (no. of emails sent) ].
Each time an email cannot be delivered, a bounce occurs. - Unsubscribe rate: ( [ [ (no. of new subscribers) – (no. of users who unsubscribed + email/spam complaints)] ÷ no. of total email addresses in your list) x 100
It is super important to pay attention to this metric as it tells us how many people unsubscribe, the most important thing is to determine why they unsubscribed. - Return on investment (ROI): [ [(value in sales made) – (value invested in the campaign) ] ÷ (value invested in the campaign) ] * 100
It is the total revenue divided by the total expenditure. There are several ways to do it, depending on your type of business.
How to automate emails and at what time to send them
Email automation is an effective strategy for sending personalized messages to your contacts at the right time without having to perform repetitive manual tasks. You can automate emails using an email marketing platform.
Periodic testing and tweaking is essential to make sure your emails are delivered at the right time to get the best results. If you don’t know how often to send them, you can let them choose the frequency settings or send a survey to find out how often they want to receive them.
The type of content and the purpose of your email can also influence the optimal time to send it. For example, promotional emails may work best during weekdays, while newsletters may be suitable for weekends.
Keep user psychology in mind, think about the behavior of your subscribers. For example, people tend to check their emails in the morning before starting work, during breaks or in the evening. This may vary depending on the type of audience.
Consider time zones, If you have an audience in different time zones, many email marketing tools allow you to schedule automatic sends based on the recipient’s time zone.
What A/B testing is and how to perform it
Performing A/B testing, also known as split testing, is an effective strategy and consists of comparing two different versions and seeing which one performs better based on specific metrics.
The first thing you have to do is to split your list in an equal and random way, use the tool that already comes with the Email Marketing platforms and review the results.
We have come to the end, we are delighted to have provided you with the keys and the knowledge you need to build a solid and effective foundation in the world of email and digital marketing. With all these tools at your disposal, you are ready to create and email blasts campaigns that will effectively reach your audience.
Remember that patience, attention to detail and creativity are your best allies – don’t hesitate to experiment, innovate and adjust your strategies to adapt to the changing needs of your audience!
Good luck and go for it!