A Comprehensive Guide to Successful Email Marketing

Email marketing is the kind of direct marketing that utilizes email to promote your business's products and services. It can help you to make your customers aware of your latest items and offers. It can also play an essential role in teaching people about your brand or keeping them engaged between the purchases.

A Brief History of Email

The email was first sent in 1971 by a computer engineer called Ray Tomlinson. The message he sent comprised just a string of numbers and letters. It indeed was the start of a new era of communication. Tomlinson was also the same person who introduced the use of the "@" symbol in the email addresses.

In 1978, a marketing manager at a Digital Equipment Corporation named Gary Thuerk used this new method of direct communication. He used this to send out the first-ever commercial email to let people know about his new product. His email list only consisted of 400 addresses, but the emails he sent generated in about $13 million in sales.

By the '90s, the internet already became commercially available to the masses. The way people communicate with one another began to change dramatically. Marketers found out that email could be an effective method to advertise. The emergence of marketing emails also announced in need of regulatory updates. Canada's Data Protection Act, for example, was adjusted to need an "opt-out" option for all marketing emails.

Why is Email Marketing Important?

From order to newsletters, emails are a critical part of the management and growth of your business.

Email marketing is about informing, persuading, and earning the loyalty of a clientele that is interested in your product and services.

Marketing emails contain a particular call-to-action destined to generate sales or boost traffic to specific pages of your site.

If you are looking for effective email marketing services in Toronto, feel free to contact NetMaticO. We are providing you the solutions to all your email marketing issues.

Business Goals Achieved by Email Marketing

Email Marketing can Help Achieve Three Categories of Objectives:

• Conversion (selling your products and services)
• Brand awareness
• Customer loyalty

Email is an excellent medium because it has a specific degree of intimacy attached to it. For a lot of people, the inbox has become a curated space clustered with messages from the brands they adore.

By communicating directly into your contact's email inbox, you have an exclusive opportunity to be present in their everyday lives. It is much more impactful than a social media post, where it is not sure if someone has seen the message.

Apart from intimacy, email has a certain formality when it comes to communicating important messages. It explains well why the email was the channel of choice for brands sending crisis communications during the recent COVID-19 pandemic.

Email plays a vital role in every stage of the buyer cycle: at the information and prospection stage, during conversion, and later on for customer retention.

One of the critical benefits of email marketing is its scalability. It refers to the fact that emails get easily deployed on a massive scale to a vast number of recipients.

The State of Email Marketing in 2021

Email is not a new technology. It was known as the very first means of digital communication to arrive back in 1971. But at almost half-century old, email marketing is more widely utilized Today than ever before.

The best things about email is its accessibility.

Email allows you to reach a wide range of different audiences, including those who are not generally comfortable with using the internet. Moreover, this makes it the most mainstream type of marketing.

As well as that, email marketing makes an opportunity to establish long-lasting relationships with your clients and leads.

Have a peak at some of these statistics:

• According to a recent report, 80% of Canadians check their email at least once per day. Almost a quarter of them check their email a few times a day.
• Customers who purchase products through email spend 138% more than those that don't receive email offers.
• 86% of business experts prefer to use email when communicating for business purposes.

Given the figures, it is not at all surprising that email is known as the most effective channel in B2B marketing. Not having a well-thought email marketing strategy means missing out on the sales opportunities and the chance to strengthen your bonds with customers.

Advantages of Email Marketing

For smaller businesses, deciding where to spend their marketing budget is a serious business. You do want to generate new leads and engage your existing customers, but you need to ensure that the digital marketing tactics drive results and are cost-effective

So what is the answer?

Email Marketing.

Besides, email marketing has been around for a while now. It continues to generate impressive results for small businesses all around the country.

These last few years, email marketing strategies have transformed to be more in-depth. The companies do not focus on discounts and promotions only. What they prioritize now is the content that matters to their audience, re-engagement campaigns, and more.

Statistics forecasted that there would almost be 4.3 billion people who will use email in 2023. That means a brand generates $44 for every $1 they spend on their email marketing strategy on an average.

Other marketing platforms are also rising in popularity, says email marketing agencies in Aurora. Email marketing is still known to be one of the best tactics that brands are using to reach and engage their audience. Below, we will cover the top 25 of the advantages of email marketing and explain to you how they can help your business enhance lead generation, conversion, and revenue.

Your Customers Check their Email Every Day

How many times did you open your email on your computer or mobile device? Whether it is personal or work-related, most people check their email at least once a day to see what are the new messages they have received. To be specific, they check their inbox almost 20 times a day. And 69% of these recipients open marketing messages using their mobile phones 2-3 days a week. It means that email marketing offers small businesses the advantage of getting in front of their audience daily. The simple fact is that your customers check their email every day is one of the essential benefits.

You can Generate more Conversions with Email Marketing

A key benefit of email marketing is that it often generates higher conversion rates than other marketing tactics. Moreover, McKinsey reports that the average order value of any email is at least 3x higher than the average order value of the social media posts. After creating an impactful communication strategy, your business can gain more conversions through email marketing. Create well-written emails that end with a clear call-to-action. This way, your brand can encourage readers to take the next step in the buyer's journey, moving them closer to conversion.

It is more Economical than Traditional Marketing Tactics

Email marketing is known to be relatively inexpensive as compared to other traditional marketing tactics like print media and direct mail. These conventional print marketing tactics need you to spend money on printing and advertising space. Email marketing needs only a small investment of resources and time in developing compelling content. In addition to low operational costs, email marketing also gives an attractive return on investment (ROI). According to a report from DBS Data, most businesses can expect an average return of $38 for each $1 they spend on email marketing.

You can Automate your Sales Cycle

Email marketing lets you automate your sales cycle. Your business can use the email automation tools to create email drip campaigns. It will automatically send email messages to individuals on a set schedule, helping you create automatic touchpoints with customers.

You can also create automation campaigns to trigger specific messages when a user takes action on your site. For example, if a customer visits your pricing page but then leaves your website, you can reach back to them using an automated message to make sure that they do not have any further questions.

It can Boost Traffic to your Website

Email marketing messages can also help you boost traffic to your website. You can link to relevant site content within your email message. You can also craft a compelling CTA that asks readers to head back to your website to take individual action. If you desire to make your CTA stand out, you might want to use a colorful button. It will make it easier as possible for readers to take notice of your CTA and make their way back to your site

Email Marketing is Simple to Track and Measure

With email marketing, you can see exactly how many people are opening, reading, and clicking through your email content.

It lets you determine if your email campaigns are successful. You can also see how much of a return on investment these campaigns have to offer to your business. As you adjust subject lines, messaging, and types of offers, you can continue to track success. It will help you to see which strategies are giving the best results.

You can Enhance Brand Awareness Through Email Marketing

Brand awareness is known as one of the essential advantages of email marketing. Email marketing helps you to increase your brand awareness. You can do this by getting your email messages into the inboxes of new potential customers. The more consistent your communication is with the email subscribers, the more likely they will think of your business.

People Prefer Email

Your customers and leads are more likely to read and take action on your marketing emails. It is because most of them are looking forward to receiving this kind of communication from you. According to Marketing Sherpa, 72% of adults prefer to receive email communications from companies. I compared to adults, only 17% of them prefer communication through social media channels.

Target your Email Marketing Campaigns for the Best Results

Yet another critical benefit of email marketing is list segmentation. It lets you to segment or separate your email list into different groups with relevant characteristics or interests. Once you get done with this, you can begin to deliver more targeted content to your readers. It increases value and relevancy, which can encourage more conversions.

Email Marketing can help you in Creating Credibility

Consumers love to do business with companies that they trust and like. Email allows you to create credibility with your audience by delivering informative and useful content that adds value. A lot of businesses will create a monthly email newsletter to provide valuable content to their readers regularly. By providing accurate and relevant information that consumers find helpful, these businesses work to build their credibility.

Use Marketing Emails to Strengthen your Relationships with your Customers

Furthermore, email marketing can also allow you to strengthen your relationships with existing customers and new leads. Through valuable and consistent email communications, you can stay on top of your audience's mind. You can educate your readers on the topics that matter most to them. Show them your appreciation for their business by letting them know about special promotions.

Make sure that your Email Marketing Content is Shareable

Making your email marketing content shareable is a piece of cake. You must include email and social media share buttons on your email messages. It will let readers to quickly and easily share their favorite email content with their friends, family, and colleagues. It helps improve your reach and bring new leads to your business.

You can Reach People on any Device

The majority of people check their emails from their mobile devices. Based on the latest numbers published, it states that 42% of email opens get done on smartphones. What does this mean for your business? You can utilize email marketing to reach people no matter where they are or what kind of device they are on, enhancing visibility and reach over time. Ensure that your emails are easy to open and read from any mobile device. Pay close attention to the amount of text on the page and image sizes.

Email lets you Add a Personal Touch to your Marketing

The benefits of email marketing is that email lets you personalize your messaging. It offers to reach the right audience at the right time. You use segmentation to assure that readers are getting the most effective and relevant content.  You can also address your readers by name and speak directly to them. The email subscribers are more likely to respond to the content that appears like it was written just for them. In fact, according to HubSpot, emails that have the first name of the recipient have higher click-through rates than those that do not.

It is the Perfect way to Create Excitement for Promotions

Known as one of the most popular uses for email marketing is to build excitement for future promotions. Whether you are putting a seasonal sale or a last-minute development, you can use email marketing to reach out to your potential customers. This way, you can let them know about the opportunity to save.

Email Helps you to Save time while Reaching the most Massive Audience Possible.

Some digital marketing tactics need time to implement and much longer to deliver results. Email marketing is rather fast and direct once you learn the basics of developing an effective campaign. The assortment of email marketing tools and its platforms make it easier to quickly build and distribute professional marketing emails to help you gain immediate results.

Automated Emails can Help you Boost Abandoned Cart Conversions

Every e-commerce company is familiar with the abandoned cart. Consumers visit your website, put items in their shopping cart, and then leave without making a final purchase. Either they get busy with something else or want to take time to think about their purchase. You must grab the opportunity to reengage these potential customers. You can also send an automated email message to these potential consumers with email automation. This way, you can encourage them to come back to your site and finalize their purchase.

Email Marketing provides Real-time Communication

Unlike other marketing channels such as flyers, email marketing lets you communicate with your potential customers and leads in real-time. It makes it the perfect medium to send timely messages to your existing and new email subscribers.

For example, if you are having a last-minute sale or just want to remind customers of a promotion that will end soon, you can rapidly put together a marketing email. It will reach the reader's inboxes in just enough time to let them take advantage of the promotions that are about to expire.

You can Stay on Top of Mind of your Customers with Email Marketing

One other benefit of email marketing is that email communication lets you frequently communicate with your subscribers. You can make sure that you are on top of their minds. To create a sustainable business, you need to influence new conversions. You should also encourage repeat business. With emails, you can periodically check in with your subscribers to remind them of the value that your company provides. It is a great way to keep in touch with customers in between purchases while also sustaining relationships with potential leads.

Testing Email Content helps you Optimize Content

Using email marketing, your business can identify the content. It can also determine the message that resonates best with your audience and optimize content for the best results. With demographic targeting, list segmentation, and testing, you will be able to create an effective strategy. You can use the strategy for reaching each of your audience segments once you can use the data to determine what kinds of messaging and offerings work best for each audience.  Only after this, you will be able to maximize open rates and conversions.

Email Integrates Easily into your other Marketing Mediums

One of the best things about email marketing is that it can easily integrate with other marketing mediums. For example, you can take email marketing content that has performed well and develop several social media posts from this content. This way, you will not have to start from scratch. Or you might use email marketing to promote a social media contest, helping to bring more traffic to your social pages.

You can reach Existing Customers on your Email list without Relying on Adverts or SEO

With email marketing, you can rapidly and directly reach your existing customers and leads on the email list. This direct communication means that your business does not get bound by the decreasing organic reach of social media. You do not have to wait months to see organic traffic drive to your site through the search engines. You also do not have to buy PPC or social media adverts to begin seeing results. Your email list becomes an essential asset if you are using email marketing,  that you can continue to see advantages from for the years to come.

It is Easy to get Started Quickly

Initiating your email marketing campaigns is quite easy. There are several templates and tools at your disposal that can help you create your first campaign within an hour. Email automation tools make it simple to create drip campaigns. It triggers specific email messages when individuals take particular actions like leave their shopping cart or visit the pricing page on your site.

Email is Versatile and Offers a Variety

One of the significant benefits of email marketing is that email provides a more versatile medium for communicating with your customers. You can send text and images over email. You can also include attachments, videos, and links to the relevant content.

For example, if your business has already created some content assets that you would like to share with your email list. Those assets can include an informational e-book or how-to video, or you can link to or embed video into your email message. You can also attach any additional content assets or link to a landing page that lets customers download the e-book.

There are no Character Limits

While social media platforms and PPC adverts limit the number of characters you are allowed to use in your brand messaging. An Email has no character limits. Besides, this does not mean that you should abuse this feature by sending novel-length emails to your clients and leads. Moreover, it does mean that you can take advantage of the opportunity to present a more detailed and longer and message when required. You should always consider the goal and the purpose of your email when crafting the content. Keep mind that you have a little more space than other channels may allow.

Disadvantages

Spam

People's inboxes get filled with email, both solicited and unsolicited. To cut down on the number of unwanted emails, a lot of servers have filters in place. It is to lessen the number of spam emails a person receives. ("Spam" is a collective term for bulk distributed emails.) People can further adjust the email filters to their tastes. Your email marketing could well land in a spam folder and never get viewed.

In some cases, you could find yourself or your business in some serious legal trouble. The CAN-SPAM Act sets forth tight guidelines that companies must meet to use email marketing. Violations of the act can cost you up to $16,000, and several people might get charged. No matter what, make sure your email marketing conforms to the rules. Or you might be accused and have to prove your campaigns are legitimate.

Engagement

Email marketing needs constant tweaking to keep your subscribers fully engaged. A person will often sign-up to receive email solely as a part of a promotion. For example, if a user gives his email address, he might receive a discount on a product. A user may also unintentionally sign up, such as if subscribing was the default choice on a web page. In such cases, your email marketing might get perceived as a nuisance.

Even in that case, if someone deliberately signed up to receive the marketing emails, like an industry newsletter. You must still work to maintain a level of engagement to keep your readers from unsubscribing.

Appearance

You might have worked to create your email marketing to look precisely the way you envisioned. Unfortunately, due to the different servers and computer settings, your design might not come through the way you hoped, which can finish the impact of your message. The text might move from one line to the next on a person's screen. The email setting on another person's computer might only let the book, blocking images from coming through it. If the critical focus of your marketing was a logo, it could be lost.

If you want to evade a misconstrued or possibly messy appearance, you will need to ensure the code is used to translate it to the most basic processing systems. It might entail consulting with a technical specialist or marketing firm.

Costs

Sending a quick email to someone might not cost you much more than the Internet access, but the costs of initiating an email marketing campaign can add up. Even basic self-managed monthly plans with less than 10,000 subscribers can be $70, according to one marketing software firm.. It includes templates and consultations and can get pricey. A start-up package can cost a few thousand dollars initially plus a thousand or more per month for continued management.

Running an Effective Email Campaign can be Hard:

While anyone can run a successful email campaign, it is generally hard to make sure its success and effectiveness. There are many issues related to running an effective email campaign. Most often, it is because of the poor targeting that these campaigns are not successful. Unless you are sending the right emails to the right contacts, such mails will fail at gaining leads. Whatever ends you wish to achieve through the email marketing campaigns. Targeting the right audience and creating the right messages that will interest them is an essential step but can be very challenging.

Size and Design-related Issues:

There are some important considerations related to making your email marketing campaigns successful. You should consider the design of your email as well as its size, content, and other aspects to make it interesting, attractive, and engaging. Apart from the content type, design, and color selection, there are other factors too, which you have to keep in mind to make a campaign successful.

Building a Mailing List

If you are a new business, the benefits of email marketing may not be available to you yet. Why? Because you have not got a mailing list as yet. Creating a list takes time. You have to earn subscribers. But, because you have not yet reached a mailing list or perhaps only a few customers have signed up to receive communications.. Make every effort to create your database. Add sign up forms to your site or blog. Encourage your customers to sign up with promotions or giveaways. Create your mailing list one email address at a time. It may take some time to create, but do take the time to grow it, and you will feel the pros and reap the rewards very soon.

Deliverability Issues

Undelivered emails are considered something of an unavoidable issue within the email marketing world. As time goes on, some of the addresses you are emailing may be inactive or may have full inboxes. In other cases, you might have a title that seems too spammy, which is then filtered out by email software and email service providers. Avoiding spammy content and regularly updating your mailing list to exclude those who have repeatedly caused deliverability issues can help you ensure your message gets through to most, however.

The Risk to your Website

If you are not careful in avoiding spammy tactics with your email marketing campaign, some or many of the recipients may end up marking it as spam. Not only does that make sure they do not see emails from you again in the future, but enough reports could also end up sending an alert to your web host or mailing service company. If they don't end up ruling in your favor, your email account or website could be temporarily suspended or even permanently shut down.

How to do Email Marketing?

Welcome Emails

Initial contact with prospects generally finds them unready to do business. Research shows that only 25% of the leads are rapidly sales-ready. At the same time, 50% of leads are qualified but are not yet ready to buy. Nurturing, therefore, is essential for pushing your leads closer to the buying stage.

Welcome emails portray better open and click-through rates when they offer a personal touch and introduce your organization without slathering on the sales pitch. Do not introduce a new product or service before you have created a relationship. Simply work on giving off a great first impression. One that portrays your industry expertise and knowledge and carves the way for future contact.

Advantages Of Welcome Emails

The Start Of A Business Partnership:

When you send that first welcome email to potential prospects, it is the first step in building a relationship. When done correctly, this will turn out to be a positive experience for them and will leave them more receptive to future emails. The subscribers who read an initial welcome email will read 40% more content from a sender over the next 180 days.

Boost Metrics:

Welcome emails possess higher open rates and click-through rates than regular marketing emails. It can be a great way to kickstart your email marketing metrics for the better.

Disadvantages Of Welcome Emails

Bad First Impressions:

A welcome email is an initial communication you will have with a potential buyer. If you do not nail it right out of the gate, you can blow your chance of closing a deal.

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