WHAT IS EMAIL MARKETING?
Email marketing is sending messages to a group of people or a person through email. The sole reason for email marketing is to inform your customers or potential customers about your services, updates, offers or discounts. Email marketing is mostly used by companies or organizations to interact with their customers while promoting their brand.
Technology has evolved that email marketing is not only for desktop users but also for mobile users which means that there are more people to reach.91% of internet users check their email at least once a day on their smartphones. When it is done properly and you can connect with the audience the right way, you will see an ROI.
Email marketing is a must especially for businesses since it allows you to design emails depending on your target audience. There are so many benefits of email marketing that are going to be discussed below.
Why Your Business Needs Email Marketing.
- Increases Traffic Website-Email marketing helps in increasing traffic to your website. This is so because when people receive your email and your content has caught their attention, they will want to know more about your company or services. This will make them click a button that links to your website(you are supposed to have one). This button is called a CTA(called to action) and is supposed to be attractive and appealing to the eye to convince the reader to click it.
- Increases brand awareness-When your potential customers see your emails regularly, this gradually increases your brand’s awareness. Even though they might not need your services at that particular time but they will always have you in their mind. So when the time comes that they need your services, you will be the first company that they will call. The only thing that is required of you is consistency. Consistency is key, it’s not just a one-time thing. You are supposed to send emails to your subscribers regularly.
- Cost Effective-One of the benefits of email marketing is cost-effectiveness. It allows you to reach a large number of people without spending much as compared to other marketing strategies such as commercials on TV, billboards, etc. Unlike the mentioned strategies, your emails are delivered to the right people, these are people who are interested in your services. The only thing required for a company is to hire a content creator and pay for email marketing automation services which are usually not that expensive.
Strengthens relationships with customers-It’s more than just promoting your brand, it’s also about building and maintaining a relationship with your customers. This can be done by sending wishes during the festive season or wishing them happy birthday which is a way of showing them that you care about them or giving tips once in a while. It should not always be about your business when you establish a strong relationship with your audience, you will always be their first choice. - Email Marketing can be accessed anywhere-With mobile phones slowly replacing computers, your emails can also be read anywhere and at any time. You should make sure that your emails are designed for mobile phones. Your layout, text, and images should fit the mobile screen. People tend to read their emails more on their mobile phones than on computers. It is estimated that more than 70% of people check their emails on their mobile phones.
- Content can be shared– The good thing about email marketing is that you can design it in a way that can be shared on various social media pages. This way when your subscribers want to share it on their social pages they can easily do that. This means more people will be aware of your services or products which could lead to more customers.
- Builds Credibility-When people continuously receive your emails, it makes it easier for them to want to work with you since people prefer to work with or buy products from companies they are familiar with compared to companies they know nothing about or have never heard before. You should always have in mind that your content should be of help to your subscribers or provides useful information. This will keep them interested in your company.
- It’s Easy to start-Email marketing is not difficult to start. Luckily, there are so many tools that can be used in creating emails. Using these tools to design your email will not take you more than two hours. All you have to do is choose a design that you think is best for you and how you are going to place your content. You get to design your email just the way you want it to look like.
- Know what works-When you are running an email marketing campaign, you can know how well they are performing through metrics that you are given. This will help you to know what your subscribers are interested in and what they are not interested in. So the next time you want to run an email marketing campaign, you know will how to go about it since you know the type of audience you have and their interests which lead to you having more leads.
- A good way of starting a conversation– Email marketing is a good way of starting a conversation with your audience and introducing yourself. Emails that mention the name of the reader tend to get more replies than those which don’t. It makes the reader feel special and unique. Everyone likes to be noticed, so if a big company mentions the name of the reader in the email, it will automatically capture his or her attention.
- Increases your audience-When you create and distribute useful emails, you will gradually have an increase of subscribers. This will be a little bit tricky for small or new business owners but by continuously delivering useful content you will eventually get the people that are interested in your business. As time goes by, you will see you have a large audience.
- Ideal for building excitement-Email marketing is ideal for informing your audience about special offers, events, promotions, sales, discounts, etc. All you have to do is to create an eye-catching content with good images and you will be able to reach existing customers as well as new customers.
HOW EFFECTIVE EMAIL MARKETING MESSAGES CAN BE CREATED
You need to know the goal of your email marketing campaign before you start distributing the email whether it’s to increase awareness, get more customers or inform your subscribers about an event or promotion.
You need to have guidelines to have a successful marketing campaign. Below are some guidelines that you need to follow.
- Segmentation-Avoid sending the same email to all of your subscribers. Make a list of your subscribers and what they are interested in. Most likely not all of your subscribers have the same interest, so not all of them will be interested in a particular content. So design an email that is based on their interests.
- Open and click-through rate-Take time and study how many of your emails were opened by your subscribers and how many of them had any action. This will be a guide when you are making your next email marketing campaign and will help you avoid making the same mistakes you made in your previous campaign.
- Demographics-It’s good to know the type of subscribers you have in terms of their jobs, age, title, job, etc. For example, an email about business tips will not be helpful to bankers, this is because they are in different industries. Most likely the banker won’t even open the email.
- How long people spend on your website-Knowing how long people spend on your website is a clear indication if they are interested in your services or not. If someone spends five seconds on your website, clearly they are not in the right place. If someone spends a long time on your website, they are interested and most probably looking for something. Knowing all this will help in making better email marketing campaigns. You may not know how to go about this, you can always look for a company with email marketing services to assist you.
- Personalize your email-If you personalize your emails you will see an increase in engagement. It doesn’t only mean using the subscriber’s name, it involves using the time and location of the subscriber, asking the appropriate questions which make the subscriber feel like you are communicating with them directly.