But what exactly is email marketing and how does it work?
In this blog article you will learn everything you need to know about email marketing to use it successfully for your business.
Here is a small overview of what you will learn today:
Table of content
What is email marketing?
Types of email marketing
What purpose does email marketing serve?
Why email marketing?
How does email marketing work?
How is email marketing structured
Important elements
What does it all entail
What elements are there?
Areas of application
How to learn email marketing
How you start today
Email marketing facts
Conclusion
Additional information
What is email marketing?
Definition:
Email marketing is the type of marketing that uses email to connect with potential and existing customers to build up a long-term relationship in a commercial and monetary manner.
Explanation:
Email can be used for various purposes, such as sending newsletters, promoting offers, announcing new products, or building customer relationships.
Overall, email marketing is about exposing prospects or customers to your brand or company so that the company is never forgotten.
Of course, the company always wants growth in the long term, which means that you can leverage email marketing for this – your existing customers are familiar with your company and have maybe forgotten you?
No problem, just set up an email campaign and you will see some of your customers again.
Types of email marketing
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Transactional emails: These emails are sent automatically when a customer takes an action on your website, such as placing an order or creating an account. You already know this email, here is an example for you so you can imagine it better: “Thank you for your order, here is your order number…”
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Newsletter: Newsletters are sent regularly to subscribers and contain informative or entertaining content that is relevant to the target audience. Blog articles, forums and even online shops like to use this type of email marketing because it definitely fits into the grid. The subscriber receives relevant or entertaining emails and the blog etc. gets reach.
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Promotional mails: Promotional emails are used to promote products or services. Let’s say a well-known sportswear manufacturer has developed a new pair of trousers and wants to sell them as quickly as possible, so he sends emails to customers who already trust the manufacturer because they already know how good it is.
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Relationship emails:
Relationship emails are used to build and maintain customer relationships.
A former work colleague or friend who you are in touch with via Linkedin is a similar process.
What purpose does email marketing serve?
Email marketing can be used for various purposes, such as:
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Generating leads: Email can be used to attract potential customers who will then be interested in your products or services.
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Strengthening customer relationship: Email can be used to keep in touch with existing customers and promote their satisfaction, for example by responding to customer feedback.
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Scaling revenue: Emails can be used to encourage customers to buy more. With new products, product promotions or sales, for example, you can attract customers by making them aware that these things currently exist in your company.
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Enhance brand awareness: Emails can be used to promote your brand and your products or services because the customer or prospect is exposed to your emails more often and therefore knows your name or is used to getting emails from your company or brand.
Why email marketing?
Email marketing is extremely effective, because it is:
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Relatively affordable: Email marketing is very cost-effective compared to other marketing channels such as paid ads (PPC advertising) because you exploit and use existing opportunities within your company.
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Very targeted: You can send your emails to specific audiences who are interested in your products or services. If you already have an email list, then you know that these people are definitely interested in your products/services or information.
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Extremely effective: Email marketing can lead to an increased conversion rate. According to statistics, the average email open rate is 26.8% and the average click-through rate is 3%.
(GetResponse 2024: Email Marketing Benchmarks)
How does email marketing work?
Companys POV:
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Integration: Email marketing should be integrated in the whole marketing strategy of yours.
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Utilization: Use email marketing, to inform your prospects or clients about sales, products or news.
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Benefits: Email marketing can help you with generating leads, building relationships and increasing revenue
Recipient POV:
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Receiving: Recipient gets emails.
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Effect: Emails can be used to inform, entertain or motivate prospects or clients to do a certain action.
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Benefits: Recipients can benefit from these emails in form of news, exclusive information and sales, which helps the business staying in contact with its customer base or target audience.
Psychological effect:
Email can have various psychological effects on the recipients, such as:
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Credibility: You can build trust, credibility and familiarity via email.
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Urgency: Emails can help you with instilling a sense of urgency in the customer to furthermore accelerate their purchase decision.
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Exclusivity: Emails can emit the feeling of receiving something special and exclusive.
How is email marketing structured?
Email marketing structure – from plan to execution
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Planning: Define goals and target audience.
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Preparation: Create email list and choose email marketing tools.
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Creation: Create appealing and informative emails.
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Delivery: Deliver emails at the right time.
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Analysis: Analyse results and optimize email marketing campaign.
Important elements
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Subject line: The subject line is the first thing your prospect or customer sees, which is why you need to instantly grab their attention by keeping it informative, appealing and simple
Opening the email is the most important part, if your email will not be opened, the rest is irrelevant.
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Sender: The sender should be identified easily and clearly. It’s best to use the name of your company or brand (domain) as an email.
Avoid using generic and privately used emails such as gmail and use your business email (domain) to build a sense of seriousness and authority.
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Preheader: The preheader is the part right beneath the subject line and it should only be used to really intrigue your recipient so that they are keen to clicking the mail
The preheader serves the purpose of a short snippet about the email.
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Content: The content of your email should be informative, easy to understand, simple and entertaining, all at once. Try to configurate the email and use visual effects such as images as well.
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Footer: The footer primarly entails information about your business, such as: Business name, logo, website etc.
What does it all entail?
Email marketing includes various tasks, e.g:
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Email list building: You need to build an email list with the addresses of your potential and existing customers.
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Segmenting your email list: You can segment your email list to send your emails to specific audiences.
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Creating Email Campaigns: You should create email campaigns that achieve your goals.
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Sending emails: You should send your emails at the right time.
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Analyzing your results: You should analyze your results to optimize your campaigns.
What elements are there?
There are different elements in email marketing, e.g:
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Email Marketing Software: You need email marketing software to create and send your email campaigns.
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Email templates: You can use email templates to create your emails faster and easier.
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Email list segmentation tools: You can use email list segmentation tools to segment your email list.
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Email analytics tools: You can use email analytics tools to analyze your results.
How are these elements integrated?
The different elements of email marketing must be integrated together to create successful campaigns.
It is important to weld all parts of the emails together and not leave any of them out, otherwise the campaign could fail as values are “diluted” for example.
What individual effects do these elements have?
Each element of email marketing has its own impact.
The subject line, for example, has the effect of motivating recipients to open the email.
The content of the email has the effect of informing, entertaining or encouraging the recipient to take action.
Areas of application
Areas of application:
Email marketing can be used for various purposes, such as:
Lead generation:
Email can be used to attract potential customers who will then be interested in your products or services.
Customer loyalty:
Email can be used to keep in touch with existing customers and increase their satisfaction by asking for feedback and respectfully integrating it.
Increase in sales:
Emails can be used to encourage customers to buy more.
Brand awareness:
Emails can be used to promote your brand and your products or services.
Examples:
An online store can use email to announce new products, offer discounts, and inform customers about the status of their orders.
A software company can use email to inform customers about new features, provide tips and tricks, and offer support.
A tour operator can use email to inform customers about new destinations, promote offers, and provide travel tips.
Email marketing in e-commerce
Benefits of email marketing in e-commerce:
Email marketing is a very effective marketing tool for e-commerce companies. It can help increase sales, increase customer loyalty, and increase brand awareness.
Occurrence:
Email marketing is used by almost all e-commerce companies.
Benefits of email marketing in e-commerce
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High reach: Email marketing has a high reach because almost every internet user has an email account. 4.37 billion people worldwide use email
(Statista:Email usage)
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Affordable investment: Email marketing is very cost-effective compared to other marketing channels.
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Effective targeting: Emails can be sent to specific audiences who are interested in an e-commerce company’s products or services.
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High conversion rate: Email marketing can lead to a high conversion rate, that means many email recipients end up purchasing something from the e-commerce company.
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Improved customer retention: Email marketing can help strengthen customer loyalty by informing customers about news, offers and products.
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Personalization: Emails can be personalized to improve customer engagement.
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Measurability: The results of email marketing campaigns can be easily measured, allowing eCommerce businesses to optimize their campaigns and ultimately sales.
How to learn email marketing
There are many different ways to learn email marketing, such as:
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Online-courses: There are many different online coaches or courses, that teach the fundamentals and advanced techniques of email marketing.
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Books: There are copious amounts of books about marketing in general and email marketing specifically.
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Blogs and websites: There are many different blogs and websites, that revolve around the topic of mail marketing.
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Webinars and workshops: Try out some webinars or workshops to get real life experience and/or knowledge from someone, that is in the field and has skin in the game.
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Certification programs:
Google provides a certification program for google ads and seo and the same exists for email marketing.
Planning
Planning is the most important step in email marketing.
You need to define your goals, determine your target audience and determine your budget.
Preparation
Once you’ve completed your planning, you can start preparing your email marketing campaign.
To do this, you need to create an email list, choose email marketing software, and create email templates.
Approach
There are different approaches to email marketing.
You can e.g: Send newsletters, send promotional emails or send relationship emails.
Tip: Use different types, otherwise your entire email campaign will become too monotonous and predictable and therefore boring.
Execution
Once you’ve prepared your email marketing campaign, you’re ready to send it out.
Make sure you send your emails at the right time and that you analyze your results to optimize your campaigns.
How you start today
If you want to get started with email marketing, you can follow these steps:
Define your goals.
What do you want to achieve with email marketing?
Determine your target group.
Who do you want to reach with your emails?
Build an email list.
How can you collect email addresses from potential and existing customers?
Choose an email marketing software.
There are many different email marketing software programs on the market.
Choose software that fits your needs and budget.
Create email templates.
Your email templates should be attractive and professional.
Send your first email campaign.
Start with a small campaign and test different elements to see what works best.
Analyze your results.
Monitor your results and optimize your campaigns to improve your results.
Email marketing tools
There are many different email marketing tools on the market.
Choosing the right tool depends on your needs and budget.
Some popular email marketing tools are:
Email marketing facts
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The average open-rate of emails is at 20%
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The average clickrate of email lies between 1-3%
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Email marketing can bring an ROI (Return on invest) of up to 400%
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60% of consumers prefer to stay in contact via email
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Email marketing can enhance your customer relationship by about 70%
Conclusion
Email marketing is an essential tool for businesses that want to succeed in today’s digital world.
It is an effective and cost-effective way to stay in touch with potential and existing customers, generate leads, strengthen customer loyalty and increase sales.
Would you like to learn more about email marketing or do you need help creating your email marketing campaign?
Then contact us!
HQ-MEDIA is your high-performance marketing agency that specializes in SEO, copywriting and email marketing.
We’re happy to help you achieve your email marketing goals.