What is email marketing?

Introduction

E-mail marketing is the most profitable direct marketing channel one can invest in for the company’s growth. E-mail should be a fundamental pillar of your digital marketing strategy. To not do any e-mail marketing is like leaving money on the table.

But if you are a bit confused about where to begin and what to do, which is regular, then take a tour of this article about What is E-mail marketing. E-mails are a vast discipline. It is pretty easy for beginners to get lost in a sea of tools, techniques, and terminology at the same time.

It’s best to learn how to do and why to do e-mail marketing before launching your first e-mail campaign. This way, you will surely get better results and avoid embarrassing mishaps. So, hang tight while we teach you about the fundamentals of e-mail marketing.

What is e-mail marketing?

By definition,

“E-mail marketing is known as the act of sending a commercial message, typically to a group of people, using your e-mail.”

You can include every single e-mail sent to a current or potential customer to expand your sales in the category of e-mail marketing. One may adopt this to achieve three key objectives: customer loyalty, trust build-up, and brand awareness. Generally, It works as a marketing strategy for every mode or sector of business. It doesn’t matter if you run it through a web page or sit in your house in pajamas. It can do wonders in generating more traffic to your webpage and expanding your client base.

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How does e-mail marketing works?

Introducing ESPs

Businesses and companies use what’s known as anE-mail Service Provider (ESP)to send marketing e-mails to customers.

An E-mail Service Provider is basically software that sends and manages e-mail marketing campaigns.

It is also referred to as an e-mail marketing platform and tools, e-mail marketing tool, e-mail marketing service, or e-mail marketing software.

Now you might be wondering, can’t I send marketing e-mails with my regular inbox provider? Do I need to pay for this additional e-mail service?

Technically, it’s possible (we even explain how to send a mass e-mail with Gmail).Beware, though. You are likely to run into problems with limited e-mail bandwidth, design, and, more importantly, e-mail deliverability. Here’s why:

Internet Service Providers-ISPslike Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, etc., are designed forpersonal use, note-mail blasts. So when a mass e-mail is sent from an ISP platform, it’s quickly flagged by spam filters, and your account can also be disabled for any suspicious activity.

ESPs, on the other hand, serves the necessary basic infrastructure in place to ensure e-mail deliverability and the ability to land e-mails in the inbox. Get yourself a dedicated e-mail marketing service if you want to set yourself up for e-mail marketing success from day one.

Types of e-mail marketing

For better understanding, you can categorize e-mail marketing into two different types.

Direct e-mails

First and foremost, we will discuss direct e-mail, which is generated solely for offering or supporting a promotional campaign. Companies collect and maintain lists of e-mails of prospective or current customers. They send their promotional messages and catalogues to that list of e-mails. Sometimes a third party is hired for the sole purpose of providing the e-mail addresses and running marketing campaigns on behalf of the company.

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Automated e-mails

Secondly, another type of e-mail marketing to discuss is automated e-mails. These e-mails are principally in response to a particular action of a customer. You can say it isn’t triggered by the customer without their permission and is only initiated on customers entering the required data.

Undoubtedly, one can save a lot of time using automated e-mails for growing customer relations. As you can assess by the name, no one is there to press the send button. Instead, your software sends your e-mails on your behalf in reaction to a particular action. These automated e-mails have been proven to do wonders for so many entrepreneurs in the industry.

Automated e-mails can be further categorized into automated marketing e-mails and automated transactional e-mails, as illustrated below.

Automated marketing e-mails

In response to a customer’s particular action, a present promotional message or material is sent to the customer in the form of an e-mail. These are based on the explicit consent of the client to receive such material. It could be a simple welcome message on sign-up or a monthly subscription to your promotional catalog. It is pretty similar to direct e-mails except for automation.

Automated transactional e-mail

The primary purpose behind these e-mails or relationship messages is to facilitate a customer in completing a transaction. These may include password reset requests, account confirmations, login requirements, order confirmation, order reset, status e-mails, payment receipts, etc. In this way, a transaction e-mail helps facilitate a customer and allows to build a solid client-customer relationship for future sales.

Benefits of e-mail marketing

The idea behind an effective e-mail marketing strategy or campaign lies in the goal of nurturing leads. The more you can nurture leads and turn them into your clientage, and your business grows more prosperous.

Why should e-mail marketing be one of your top marketing priorities? To answer this question, here are some key considerations to make.

No. 01 communication channel

Are you aware of the percentage of consumers who check their e-mail daily? Research shows that this number goes as high as 99 %. That’s a massive group of connections. Every other person checks his phone 20 times a day, if not more. This makes e-mail marketing a great way to reach the audience.

Reliability

Unlike most social media platforms where your accounts can be blocked or suspended for various reasons, e-mail is more than a reliable platform. You can maintain your list of e-mail contacts, and that’s yours and yours alone. Nobody will be there to block it or snatch it from you.

Accessibility

With the increasing trend of using smartphones and the introduction of new gadgets, people are more accessible than ever. They could be in the extreme weather of Antarctica, and your e-mail can reach them.

Experts found that mobile devices have enormous advantages over computers and laptops upon careful analysis of data. You can analyze the data available for the last year when 41.9 % of e-mails were opened on smart mobile devices, with webmail at 2nd position having 39.9 % e-mails.

Conversion

Stats show that people who nurture potential customers through e-mail marketing spend 138 % more than those who do not receive any marketing offers. Return on investment of e-mail marketing is as high as 4400 %. You can easily imagine how vast the impact it can have on your business activity.

Instant results

Most definitely, you will start seeing results within minutes of sending an e-mail. It’s that quick of a marketing technique. Several tactics are used in these e-mails, which we will discuss later in this course. For instance, a sale promotion with a 24-hour deadline clock will create a sense of urgency and push the customer to do something about it.

You can also measure the success ratio of this e-mail and use this in your next targeted campaign for more efficient results. In this way, e-mail marketing helps you identify who was responsible for the purchase in a particular timeline.

E-mail marketing tools 2021

Business owners are constantly trying to improve and upgrade their marketing efforts. E-mail marketing remains a powerful marketing tool, with a return on investment of $42 to every $1 spent.

To harness the various power of e-mail marketing, it’s essential to choose the right software to take your marketing to the next level.

E-mail marketing software is so much more than just a way to send and track e-mails. E-mail marketing tools are available in the market to increase your audience, segment your lists, and combine your marketing channels to turn the software and platform into an impactful solution to grow your business and company and earn more revenue.

• Best Overall: Mailchimp
• Best for Automation:ActiveCampaign
• Easiest to Use: MailerLite
• Best All-in-One Marketing Suite: Hubspot
• Best Affordable Option: Moosend
• Best for E-commerce: Drip

Mailchimp

• Mailchimp is known as the best overall e-mail marketing software because it has the features most businesses need without being overly complicated, complex, or confusing. Companies can schedule campaigns, A or B test copy, and get reports that include open rates, click-through rates, unsubscribe rates, and many more. Plus, it also has the most generous free-forever plans of the software we tested.

Pros

• Free-forever plan (up to 2,000 contacts)
• Easy to build and customize campaigns
• Transparent reporting that helps optimize future sends
• Integrates with hundreds of software platforms

Cons

• Pricey for more extensive contact lists (more than 15k subscribers)
• No phone supports
• Not designed for advanced marketing teams

ActiveCampaign

• ActiveCampaign software is one of the best e-mail marketing software for automation because it has hundreds of pre-built automation structures that help you personalize campaigns for each subscriber. Help guides are provided throughout the platform as you get things set up, plus ActiveCampaign’s customer support is fast and friendly.

Pros

• Great pre automation features that simplify customer interactions
• Helpful, very friendly, and fast customer support is available
• All plan levels by the platform include data migration and implementation services availed by the tool
• CRM with sales automation included for free-limited time offer
• Has almost + integrations with the most popular software

Cons-

• The learning curve can be a challenge
• Lite plan is minimal (and includes ActiveCampaign branding)
• Projects quickly jump in price with the number of contacts

MailerLite

• MailerLite is the most accessible e-mail marketing software to use because it has a drag and drop interface that makes it fun and intuitive to create the design you want to customize. Simplicity is in the heart of the company’s mission and vision, which is why the software has a clean and streamlined look.

Pros-

• The drag and drop interface makes it easy to design e-mails
• Free plan for first to 1,000 contacts
• 24-7 live chat and e-mail support
• Lots of e-mail templates to choose from

Cons-

• It doesn’t include CRM functionalities
• Limited integrations
• We need to provide a lot of company information to get an account set up

HubSpot

HubSpot is the best all in one marketing suite because it has excellent tools and reporting available for all of your marketing campaigns across various channels and websites, social, e-mail marketing, and more. You can store all contact information also with Hubspot’s CRM and attract an audience through lead forms, live chat, and online ads.

Pros

• Complete marketing suite with CRM, social media, blogging, as well as e-mail marketing capabilities
• The E-mail health tab helps keep deliverability rates on track in your mind
• You only have to pay for the contacts you are marketing
• The trail leads throughout their buying journey
• Helpful online training resources

Cons-

• Does not avail a free forever plan or a low cost plan
• Not for businesses that are strictly looking for e-mail marketing tools
• Intricate and complex to integrate as a separate CRM, like Salesforce or Pipedrive
• The steep learning curve to fully unlock the marketing potential

Moosend

Moosend is the renowned best affordable option among all because its paid plans cost is minimal than most on the market, and because you can pay either by the number of your subscribers or by the number of e-mails sent, depending on which option is cheapest and affordable for you. Plus, its tools are user-friendly and make it easy to get attractive and timely e-mails out to your audience.

Pros

• Lowest plan costs availed by platform
• Option to pay only when you send e-mails
• the platform includes phone support also.
• Easy to use customize templates or use one from the template library

Cons

• Can not send e-mails from a Gmail or Hotmail address
• Less-sophisticated user interface
• Limited integrations

Drip

• Drip is the best e-mail marketing software and tool for e-commerce businesses because it combines sophisticated workflows with advanced list segmentation. This combination means that subscribers can receive personalized e-mails triggered by their shopping behaviors on your website and receive timely follow-ups based on how the customers interact and respond to your e-mails.

Pros

• Simple yet powerful
• Easy to set up and use interface
• Excellent customer support is available
• Sophisticated contact list segmentation also provided

Cons

• Lacks a few critical integrations in the interface
• No drag and drop method functionality is available for designing templates.
• Support only is open on weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. CST strictly.

FAQs-

Q.1. What is e-mail marketing means?

E-mail marketing isa form of marketing that can make the customers on your e-mail list aware of new products, discounts offer, and other services. It can also be a softer sell strategy to educate your audience on the value of your brand or keep them engaged between purchases.

Q.2. Is e-mail marketing Easy?

E-mail marketing is a strategic and skillful act. One needs to learn it properly and use the tools and software to create the most potent e-mail marketing templates.

Q.3. How does e-mail marketing make money?

Create a hook and engaging content so people sign up for your list of e-mail marketing. Create the best unique template with the help of software and tools. Educate and advertise the products to your customer at the same time in the e-mail content.

Q.4.Why do you need e-mail marketing?

E-mail marketing is essential forbuilding relationships with prospects, leads, current customers, and even past customers because it gives you a fair chance to speak directly to them, in their inbox, at a convenient time. Be friendly and personable.

Q.5. Is e-mail marketing Effective in 2021?

E-mail marketing is alive and compelling. According to Litmus, 2020 was a great year of e-mail for all;2021 will not be different. The growing value of e-mail marketing is evident. It is now known as the most trusted communication channel among others.

Conclusion-

Finally, to sum it all up, this introductory course chapter about what is e-mail marketing and what are e-mail marketing aims to be a beginner’s guide covering the fundamentals of e-mail marketing. We have tried to explain to you the basic structure of what e-mail marketing is.

Later in this course series, we will dive into the vast sea that is e-mail marketing. Try to digest the knowledge imparted to you in this chapter and learn some new skills fromFiverif you feel the need.