Email Marketing – Is it Important?

Email Marketing

A primer

It is a form of marketing where you, as the advertiser is in direct communication with your customers / potential customer through the medium of writing (using online tools like Mail Chimp or Get Response)

This could involve a few strategies, but everything is directed in either giving more information about your brand or trying to get more people interested in buying / investing time & money with you / your firm

The key features are

• Communicating to a group using a common mail thread
• Trying to voo your customers for a commercial action which in turn will enhance your revenue stream
• The core of any such endeavor is to get more income into the firm’s account

There are two types of Emails viz. Promotional & Transactional. The former is targeted at a larger group aimed at increasing brand awareness, while the latter is typically a follow-up email after a discussion has opened up

The transactional emails are more targeted at a particular kind and have a few salient features as below:

• It is more of What to do or How to do kind of emails that highlights the next steps
• There are some marketing tools, which claim certain great numbers. Please do not use them as there is high chance of getting black-listed
• Avoid images, as much as possible in this step as it makes it a generic one

Why is Email Marketing Important?

You own an Email Address and so do 50% of the world have it and is seen as a strategy that can enhance the ways by which you can customize your way of reaching out to your TG (Target Group)

Emails can be personalized

All other Ad mediums – traditional or digital, can have challenges if the message has to be made specific and they typically have some orientations

Might not address a specific person; Doesn’t solve a specific problem; Specific buying or browsing behavior – Not reached out; lacks personal connect

However, the biggest difference, when you do an Email Campaign is that, you are able to establish a connect right from the first interaction as the tools can make it a personalized one

Examples

• Coupon code: The Name is included + The First Name is included in the Coupon + Only sent to people who haven’t shopped in a while (Online Behavior)
• Drop Box: The Name is included + Only sent to people who are accessing their Dropbox account through more than 1 device (Online Behavior) + Exclusive Discount Code
• Birthday Event: Name + Birthday Event + Favorite Color

Emails are Accessible on Mobile

There are 3.5 billion smart phone users in the world and in the next 2 years, it has a potential to reach most of the urban population and 20% of the rural belt. Checking emails on phones is the 3^rd most frequently undertaken activity, which means there is a very high potential for you to engage with your customers

Emails are at a reasonable low cost

It’s a low-cost investment tool as the major players like Get Response have plans as low as $15 /month where you can reach up to 1000 customers and has a 30-day free trial period

It works out to about 15 cents /person which is easily at lower end as even an FB campaign starts at about 50 cents for an awareness campaign

A targeted approach like this will have CPLs (Cost Per Lead) at a minimum of $1, which is also an exceptional case. Other channels on the Social Media platform like LinkedIn typically costs at least $5 / lead and Google Ads are in the range of $15 to $20 per lead

Another important metric that should be kept in mind in CAC (Cost of Acquiring A Customer). This is defined as the Total cost of ALL campaigns / Number of leads got

Smart and Automated

Under a scenario, where your business requires you to follow up with a potential customer after he /she has shown some interest, an automated email sequence can aid doing this work

This has got a great chance of closure as the person has already shown the interest and is targeted at the right person at the right time. There are few situations that demand this approach

• Your customer has missed purchasing your product after he / she has interacted with you – A good situation for sending email with Missing You message
• Create Urgency since your potential customer has added the product to the cart, but has not purchased it: A pertinent time for this kind of message with some CTA (Call to Action) immediately
• Provide Discounts as your user is still evaluating your competitor’s offer and this can entice him / her to take the decision of purchase: In your favor

A good situation that deems thinking is when you have got some closures after your email campaign. Assume that you had sent 100,000 emails and got 50 closures, which is a rate of 0.05%

Thee are two ways to look at the result: Do ANOTHER campaign to the same group / another new group OR analyze the results.

Like any other marketing campaign on any other marketing channel, it’s important to analyze the numbers of your previous Email Campaign before sending out a new batch. It can help you optimize various aspects of your email, for instance: Subject Line, Content, Links in the mail, Unsubscribed rate, Open rate etc.

Measurable

There are various parameters that are shown as a report. Most of the popular tools have this information, once the campaign is done

• Open Rate = Emails Opened / Email Sent * 100
• Clicks – No of times, your link (if there is any) was clicked
• CTR (Click Through Rate) = No. of Clicks / No. of Emails sent * 100
• Conversion rate = No. of Leads / CTR

Examples of Email Marketing

• Sending a welcome e-mail to registered users
• Replying to an enquiry
• Sending a discount offer
• Thanking someone for opting-in on your e-mail list

How is Email Marketing done?

• Step 1: User creates the email using client like Gmail / Outlook. This is sent to the Mail Servers
• Step 2: Mail Server located the destination server location using the MX records (DNS details)
• Step 3: Once mail reaches the server; it checks if the mail is authentic and the recipient of the email exists
• Step 4: Destination server saves the e-mail in the proper inbox

When to use Email Marketing?

There are two types of marketing when you can use Email, these are while doing for a specific group – A Niche market or a larger group – A Broad market

Marketing within a Niche – Key features

Targeted campaigns using opt-ins; Will have higher CR (Conversion Rates) due to an interested group; Information regarding the product/service; Higher discount/sale

Broad Base Marketing – Key features

It could be without soliciting permission – sometimes called as Spam; CR (Conversion Rates) are lesser than a Niche group as it is a broad-based approach; ideal for businesses that have multiple products to sell as there are more; Good for large number of e-mails

Increasing the subscription

There are some strategies that can increase the number of subscriptions. A few ideas are listed below:

1. Pop-Ups based on Heat Maps that has high potential
2. Leads from other similar databases (Never buy)
3. Have different locations for capturing the E-Mails: Don’t get other details like Phone, which reduces the closure changes
4. Having an Email Signature makes the potential customers feel that they are interacting with a live person
5. Use different spaces for improving your list like social media platforms like FB / LinkedIn
6. Have Send to a friend option on all communications
7. Try other marketing channels
8. Add social proof, if it is significant

Advantages of Email Marketing

Some merits are – Transparent measurement of ROI (Return on Investment) + Personalized discussion with the customer + Customized, as you know your potential clients + Almost ALL internet users have e-mail ids + Cheap

Challenges of Email Marketing

The biggest issue is how to keep your readers interested, which is nothing but a sustained interest in your business. Hence, it’s a good idea to keep your audience engaged with multiple areas of interest

Just talking / updating about your business makes your readers lose interest in the directions that you want to engage them on. A few key items include – how to build your credibility, keeping your clients engaged with you, creating a 5-year plan for keeping your CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and directing your customers for making a purchase

In addition to the positioning of the two types of E-Mails that were mentioned earlier, there are two methods of reaching out to your customer

1. HTML
2. Black & White

An HTML Email

• These are the typical marketing mails that you receive which is mostly embedded with a picture / image about the product or service that is being offered
• Now, tools are available, where you can create a video and also send it out and the thumbnail of the video can be used as the image
• This will mostly end up in the Promotional folder, which has only a 19% open rate.so, its better to use these mails when you have large database
• Since these mails resemble a marketing positioning, your users might not be interested as most of us, don’t like being marketed to
• Hence as a marketing strategy, all Transactional Emails should not be HTML mails

B&W (Black & White) Emails

• These types of mails have higher chance of readability as these are looked at being more personal
• B&W mails are the style that you might receive from a friend and hence has a better open rate

The Problems with Email Marketing

These are some situations that arise while doing these activities. You need to be cognizant of it

• If it is not a transactional email, if the sender’s id is sales@ or donotreply@, there are very high chances that the mail could be ignored
• A Robotic Email also has a similar treatment in the receiver’s inbox
• That’s the reason, an email with a personal name as the sender is devoid of any major issue

 How to build an Email List

1. Purchasing Email Database – Specific requirements need to be mentioned while purchasing a list. Purchasing a user’s information can come at a cost of less than 0.20 cents
2. Affiliate Agencies – The agency will run a Lead generation campaign to generate the leads for a business. It’s easy and can get started in 24 hours. The CON – there could be a lot of junk leads that could come through such a campaign
3. Referrals
4. Social Channels – This can be generated by either doing a paid or organic campaign across various social channels. For instance, Lead Gen ads on Facebook, Posts in Communities and Groups in LinkedIn

Is the Email Optimized for Mobile?

• Readable content: The user shouldn’t need to zoom / increase the font size to read the Email
• Subject line: Should be short & precise, making it intriguing enough to open the mail
• Description: Content of the mail should not be verbose and can have a few hyperlinks that lead to relevant pages
• Have the signature with a full name

When is Email Marketing SPAM?

There are two types of customers when the information that you send is not needed at all and that is considered as SPAM

• The 1^st type is not your TG at all. Assume that you are selling fashion apparels for girls and it is guy who is 35 years old – No point in reaching him
• The 2^nd type could be a person who is a potential customer in the next few days or years. Let’s say that you are selling a studio apartment and the guy is 25 years old. He might need it after a few months, when he wants to settle down
  • This could be due to personal or professional reasons

TIPS to Avoid the Promotions Folder

• Avoid Using Following Keywords in Subject Line – Discount, Free, Off, buy it now, Exclamation Marks (!!), Free Trial, Guarantee, Limited time offer, Limited time only, Free Money, Make Money Fast and so many more
• Mail content with Spam Words included could also result in the mail going to the promotions folder
• Mails which have images displayed in their content always land in the Promotions Folder
• If the email has multiple links in them then it will be considered as a promotional mail, and the mail will get delivered in the promotions folder
  • It’s best practice to only include one link in your Email. This link can redirect the user to a landing page of your choice. You can maximum include one more link in your mail in the signature of your email
• Free Email Marketing tools use a shared server. This leads to a higher probability of the mail getting delivered in the Promotions Folder

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