Email Marketing

Email marketing is primarily sending transactional, content and conversion emails to people who opted into your website.

Why Email Marketing?

Email marketing has been the most underrated marketing strategy in recent times among VARs and MSPs. It’s a misconception that no one reads emails today. No matter what pace social media evolves; email marketing is still going to be the most crucial communication channel. It is a platform that will bring to you undivided attention from your subscribers. According to WordStream, the number of email users in the US was projected to grow to 244.5 million by the end of 2017, and 254.7 million by 2020.

Now that you know email marketing is not going out of benefits anytime soon, don’t get fooled by any of the misconceptions and ensure you bring maximum value to your store through this evergreen channel. Here is the path that will guide you further-

1.   Creating an email list

Sending emails to an email list that have been bought is not marketing but spamming. For email marketing, your source of collecting email address should not be violating the CAN-SPAM ACT 2003. Ensure that your email list consists of only those people who have subscribed to your store. You can create a Double opt-in funnel to reassure your subscriber’s approval. The email list is a portable asset for any company. Segment your email list on the basis of the recipient's taste and preferences and send personalized emails to each segment. Here are a few ways to build your email list-
·       You may recollect email ids of previous and current customers.
·       You can ask for email ids of your customers at the checkout 
·       Keep a subscriber form in your website for whoever is interested.
·       Organize social media events and giveaways. Incentivize your target group through discounts and loyalty programs to get into your list.
·       You can mention a link to your subscribers form at the end of your blogs.
·       Start providing your target market content of their interest; it will make them subscribe to you in search of more such contents.
Also, you can verify your email list to ensure it doesn’t carry any invalid ids.

2.   Choose an Email Service Provider

Before choosing an ESP, know the future growth potential of your business. Changing ESP frequently can be wastage of time, efforts and money. You will have to make sure the ESP you choose will be able to scale with your company’s growth rate. List down the services you will want your ESP to perform and accordingly sort the solution providers who fulfill your requirement. Your ESP should be capable of automating emails for different target groups in a unique manner and also maintain the time frame between two emails in an effective pattern. Make sure your ESP facilitates system integration to integrate with your CRM. Also, your ESP has to be reputed enough and shouldn’t land your emails to spam. You can get in touch with professionals like the American Marketing Association for their feedback on different ESPs.

3.   Design the template

The template of your emails will be unique for different segments. Your ESP can automate emails to them without any further effort on personalization. There are certain points which you need to keep in mind for all the different templates that you create.
·       Clear and correct “from” address.
·       Subject line that speaks the purpose of your mail.
·       Clutter-free CTA option. Preferably place it above the fold.
·       Your brand logo should be in the upper left-hand side.
·       Provide an “Unsubscribe” option at the bottom of your mail. It will be highly appreciated.

4.   Launch a Campaign

A good email marketing campaign begins with setting goals. You can have various reasons to send an email. Welcoming new subscribers, boosting sales, offering existing subscribers some discount, re-engaging old subscribers, targeting different segments in unique ways are some of them. Depending on your goal you can choose whether to send transactional mail, content mail or conversion mail. Also, one of the very effective ways of generating sales is sending cart abandonment emails. Cart abandonment refers to sending automated emails to those subscribers who add the certain product to their cart but do not complete the checkout. Usually, cart abandonment mail is sent 2-3 times to convert a lapsed buyer. All these emails should be automated by your ESP and you need not broadcast it every single time.

5.   Analyze the results of your campaign

You have launched your campaign but any marketing campaign is of no use till the time it brings you desired results. Now that you have launched your campaign, study what response is it getting from people. Your ESP will be giving you data on different aspects of your mail which will help you in altering your campaign further. Here is the data which you will require-
·       Open rate- No. of recipients who opened your mail.
·       Click through rate- The no. of people who clicked on it.
·       Bounce back rate- No. of emails that couldn’t really reach the one you sent it to.
·       Conversion rate- No. of recipients who actually took the action which you framed the mail for.
·       Spam rate- No. of people who marked your mail as spam.

6.   Optimize your campaign for conversions

Sending an email is not the end of the story, you have to ensure that your emails bring you maximum conversions. Recipients of the emails should at least come a step forward towards getting converted customer through your emails. Your subscribers might be receiving dozens of emails daily, you will have to ensure you stand out. A good email marketing campaign can be of highly beneficial in generating sales. According to WordStream, in the UK, every one pound spent on email marketing has an ROI of 38 pounds; in the US, it's $44.