Inbound Marketing: Email Marketing Explained

Inbound marketing is a strategy that focuses on attracting customers, or leads, via company-created Internet content, thereby having potential customers come to the company rather than marketers vying for their attention. This type of marketing tries to make it easier for customers, who are already actively looking for goods or services via the Internet, to find what a company offers. One of the most effective inbound marketing strategies is email marketing, which is the focus of this glossary entry.

Email marketing is a form of direct marketing that uses electronic mail as a means of communicating commercial or fundraising messages to an audience. In its broadest sense, every email sent to a potential or current customer could be considered email marketing. It usually involves using email to send advertisements, request business, or solicit sales or donations, and is meant to build loyalty, trust, or brand awareness. It can be done to either sold lists or a current customer database.

Understanding Email Marketing

Email marketing is a powerful way to connect with people. Think about your own experiences. Do you even know anyone who doesn’t have an email address? You probably receive a number of HTML emails each week (I sure do). You read them, get inspired by them and even look forward to the next one. Email is a big part of our lives. A very big part.

And because it’s such a big part of our lives, email is a powerful marketing tool for businesses of all sizes. Whether you’re a brick-and-mortar store looking to get the word out about your new products, a digital business wanting to reach your audience with a new blog post or online course, or a service provider hoping to attract new clients, email marketing is something you should not ignore.

The Importance of Email Marketing

Email marketing is important for building relationships with prospects, leads, current customers, and even past customers because it gives you a chance to speak directly to them, in their inbox, at a time that is convenient for them. Coupled with the right messaging, email can become one of your most impactful marketing channels.

Building relationships with prospects, leads, current customers, and even past customers is the core of any business’s success. And one of the best ways to do this is through email marketing. By consistently sending valuable content to your email list, you can build a rapport with your audience. Over time, they will come to see your company as a trusted resource and, when they’re ready to make a purchase, they’ll think of you first.

Components of Email Marketing

Email marketing can be broken down into several components. The first is the email list - a list of leads or customers who have given their permission to receive email communication from your business. The second component is the email itself. In its simplest form, this could be a plain text message. More commonly, however, marketing emails include HTML and rich media (like images and video) and fall into one of three categories: transactional, promotional, and lifecycle.

Transactional emails are sent during the checkout process on your website and include actions like order confirmations, shipping notifications, and return updates. Promotional emails include sale announcements, newsletters, and promotional offers. Finally, lifecycle emails are sent based on what stage a customer is in, like a welcome email after sign up, a series of onboarding emails when a user creates an account, a happy birthday message, or a thank you email after a purchase.

Types of Email Marketing

There are several types of email marketing that we use on a regular basis. While some types may be better suited to your business than others, it’s important to understand each of them in order to make the most of your email marketing efforts.

Here are the most common types of email marketing: promotional emails, relational emails, and transactional emails. Promotional emails are one of the most common types of email and they’re likely what come to mind when you think of email marketing. They include offers, newsletters, and announcements.

Promotional Emails

Promotional emails are a simple, yet powerful way to spread the word about your product or service. The objective of promotional emails is to increase awareness, generate revenue or improve customer retention/ loyalty. Promotional emails are so powerful because the recipients of these emails have chosen to receive these.

That means, they are already interested in your message, so they’re much more likely to convert. You can make your promotional emails even more effective by segmenting your email list to target different types of subscribers with different types of emails.

Relational Emails

Relational emails are all about offering subscribers what you’ve promised and providing value. Usually, they are a part of a bigger content marketing strategy and they are used to provide value to subscribers, in the form of blogs, tips, updates, etc. They also include informational messages, like ‘welcome to our list,’ ‘how to use our product,’ and ‘new features/ updates’ emails.

While the purpose of relational emails isn’t to sell, they can lead to sales by building a strong relationship with subscribers. Subscribers who trust you will be more likely to buy from you. They can also help keep your business and products in the mind of your subscribers.

Transactional Emails

Transactional emails are usually triggered by subscribers’ actions and relate to an action they’ve taken on your site. They include things like purchase confirmations, receipts, notifications, and password resets. Transactional emails are not only expected by your subscribers, they’re also opened, read, and clicked on more than any other type of email.

That’s why it’s important to spend time on these emails, even though they are automated. Make sure they’re clear and helpful and that they represent your brand well. While transactional emails aren’t primarily used for selling, you can use them to offer related products, invite customers to connect on social media, or ask for reviews.

Best Practices for Email Marketing

Regardless of the type of email marketing you choose, you’re in control of sending a targeted message to your audience. With email marketing, you can personalize your messaging and tailor messages based on customer actions. You can also segment your audiences to ensure they’re getting the messages that are most relevant to them.

Here are some best practices for email marketing: personalize your emails, segment your subscriber list, send mobile friendly emails, test copy, design, and buttons, automate email campaigns when possible, use catchy subject lines, provide value, and most importantly, respect your subscribers’ inbox.

Personalizing Your Emails

Personalization is not just about using people’s names in an email. It’s also about making sure they receive emails that are relevant to them. Personalization can increase open rates, click-through rates, and conversions. It can also decrease unsubscribe rates and spam complaints.

To personalize your emails, you can use personalization tokens in your email marketing software. This allows you to automatically fill in the recipient’s name or other information in the email. You can also segment your email list based on subscriber data to ensure that your email is relevant to the person receiving it.

Segmenting Your Subscriber List

Segmentation is the process of dividing your email list into specialized groups based on their interests or demographics. This allows you to send more personalized and relevant emails to your subscribers. Segmentation can lead to better open rates, revenue, leads, transactions and more.

Some ways to segment your list could include by demographics, by open rate, by purchase history, by how they joined your list, and by engagement. The more information you collect about your subscribers, the more opportunities you have to segment your list and target your messaging.

Sending Mobile Friendly Emails

With more and more people checking their email from their mobile devices, it’s important to ensure that your email marketing is mobile friendly. This might involve designing your website with mobile users in mind, or using an email template that’s optimized for mobile.

Mobile friendly emails might look different than emails viewed on a desktop. They might have larger text, buttons, and links for easy clicking, and a layout that’s easy to read on a small screen. They might also have different content, with less text and more focus on images and media.

Measuring Email Marketing Success

Like any marketing strategy, in order to know if your email marketing is successful, you need to be able to measure its success. For email marketing, your key metrics are your open rate, click-through rate, unsubscribe rate, and conversion rate.

While these are great places to start, it’s important to think about what these metrics mean for your specific business and goals. For example, if your goal is to increase sales, but you’re noticing that your emails are being opened and clicked on yet no one is buying, you might want to rethink your strategy.

Open Rate

The open rate shows the percentage of the total subscribers who opened the email campaign. While open rate can be a good indicator of how well your subject line is working, it’s not a key metric for measuring the success of your email campaign. That’s because, even if your open rate is high, if your subscribers aren’t taking action (like clicking on links in the email), then your email campaign is not successful.

However, it’s still important to monitor your open rate to understand how well your audience is receiving your emails. If your open rate is low, it could mean that your subject line isn’t enticing people to open the email, or that your emails are being marked as spam.

Click-Through Rate

The click-through rate shows the percentage of subscribers who clicked on at least one link in the email campaign. This is a key metric for measuring the success of your email campaign because it shows how many subscribers are engaging with your content and taking action.

If your click-through rate is low, it could mean that your email content is not resonating with your audience, or that your call to action is not compelling. To improve your click-through rate, you might need to improve your email design, make your call to action more prominent, or segment your list to send more relevant emails.

Unsubscribe Rate

The unsubscribe rate shows the percentage of subscribers who unsubscribed from your email list after receiving the email campaign. This is a key metric for measuring the success of your email campaign because it shows how many subscribers are leaving your list.

If your unsubscribe rate is high, it could mean that your email content is not resonating with your audience, or that you’re sending too many emails. To improve your unsubscribe rate, you might need to improve your email content, segment your list to send more relevant emails, or adjust your email frequency.

Conclusion

Email marketing is a powerful tool for any business. It provides you with a direct line of communication with your customers and prospects, so you can build relationships, promote your products, and drive more traffic to your website. With the right strategy, you can turn your email marketing into a major revenue source for your business.

Remember, the most successful email marketing campaigns start with an engaged and high-quality email list, provide valuable content, and use personalization and segmentation to ensure the message is relevant to the reader. By keeping these things in mind, you can create an email marketing campaign that your customers look forward to, that they’ll share with friends and family, and, most importantly, that will help grow your business.