E-mail marketing strategies

Why Email Marketing Is Crucial For Businesses

Marcel Sattler is an entrepreneur and founder of an agency. He is the brain behind many profitable brands with his sustainable strategy.

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Email marketing is still relevant in 2021, and it will likely continue to be in the years to come. Why? Because you can monetize your list of contacts. 

With email marketing, in contrast to Facebook Custom Audiences or Google Ads targeting, you don’t have to build your business on rented land. Maybe Facebook will turn off the Custom Audiences feature tomorrow, or Google will restrict targeting options. If you build your business exclusively on third-party systems, you run the risk of losing revenue sources.

That’s why your email list is a treasure. The contacts are your contacts, and you can contact them whenever you want (until they unsubscribe) — for free.

Drawing on my own experience with email marketing, here's my advice on who it is for, what tools you can use and how to get started.

Who Is Email Marketing For?

Email marketing makes sense for most businesses, whether you have a Shopify store or are a local dentist. Why? Because it is an easy and cheap way to get in contact with your customers and leads. 

Consider these two cases in more detail:

• 

 A Shopify store: Let’s say you have a small range of baby products and have generated many sales in the last few years. Now you have a new collection of baby shoes in different colors and sizes. You already have a lot of customers who are happy with your products. They are exactly the right audience. Leverage your previous sales by sending out a few emails to the people who've already purchased from you. You will likely get sales without spending anything on advertising.

• A local dentist: If you collect email addresses from your customers, you can get in touch and boost your sales dramatically. Maybe you offer a new bleaching service and want to make it public. The best way to do so is to email clients who already trust you.

As you can see, email marketing can work for just about any kind of business. It can be effective for B2B marketing too.

The Connection Between Your Audience and Your Business

In my experience, no advertising method is as effective as an email in your customer's inbox. You can build trust by sharing valuable content, generate engagement by sharing insights from your company, or sell more by sending great offers.

One of the many significant benefits is that the audience already has a connection with you. Your contacts already gave you their email addresses — maybe during the purchasing process or in exchange for a white paper or another goodie. 

Trust can be the key to boosting sales. If customers were happy with their previous purchases, why shouldn't they buy another product from you?

Let's jump back to the Shopify store with the baby products. Maybe a young mother purchased a bathtub for infants in January. It makes sense to show her your collection of infant rompers in February and shoes six months later.

With this logical understanding of your audience, you can turn your email list into money.

Email Marketing Software

There are a lot of email marketing tools out there. There are fantastic free tools and also complex and expensive tools.

I'll be completely honest: If you are a consulting business and have 50 clients, you likely don't need email marketing software. It may be enough to manage your contacts in Outlook or Gmail and send out messages from your personal inbox. You can use the BCC field to send emails to your crowd without letting them know who else is getting the email.

If you have a large contact list or need additional features, I recommend using tools like Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign or HubSpot.

To choose the right email marketing software for your business, make sure you have the end in sight. What's your main goal for your list? What would you like to accomplish in two to three years? Perhaps you would like to automate your lead generation and send out many emails in a special order to your contacts or automate birthday and Christmas wishes for your clients. No matter what ideas you have to boost your business, there is a tool for you.

The Best Time to Start Email Marketing

Do you already have a thousand ideas on how you can boost your sales, push your customer engagement and leverage your business with email marketing?

The best moment to start is right now. The sooner you start, the faster you will see results.

Maybe the automation stuff above sounds overwhelming to you. Do not let that distract you. Start small. Just collect email addresses, and send out your first message after collecting 100 or 500. Get familiar with the tools and your crowd.

Email marketing is a process that never ends. And the best moment to start this process is right now.

 

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Reach New Heights Through These Email Marketing Tips

Everyone wants to have a business which is both profitable and respectable, and email marketing is a great part of building your company towards your goals. Using the right techniques will ensure that you keep the customers you already have and bring in new ones as well. Read on to find some advice you can't market without!

Develop a consistent format and schedule for your marketing emails. By doing this, your customers will learn when and what to expect. Find a professional template that suits your business and used it every time. Alert your customers to the most relevant information at the beginning of the email.

When sending a email as part of your marketing campaign, do not use a casual font. You want customers to take your product or business seriously, and they probably will not do that with an uncommon font. Pick out a font that is well known, such as Times Roman Numeral, Arial or Verdana.

While online promotion is essential, don't overlook the opportunity to promote your mailing list offline. To build both new subscribers and potential clients, look for any opportunity possible to get the word out. Some great opportunities to build your business can be found at networking events, trade shows, conferences and local gatherings.

Test your email layouts. Include the information that is most important, as well as new offers, at the very beginning of your emails. Try different formats in order to see which elicits the most responses. After you've found a format that works, implement it in all your emails. Your customers will know what's expected from both ends, as well as where to look when seeking out more information.

You should try and build an email list the best that you can from networking in person as well as on the Internet. You should not buy or rent lists of names that you will email to drum up business. There is no guarantee that any of the people you contact will be interested and you may even end up getting reported to your email service provider.

You need to make sure that you are using a persistent strategy. Persistence is a good thing in general, but it is best when it is exercised on a receptive audience. Continuing to target the wrong group of potential clients simply creates ill will and is not a good use of resources.

Don't use images for important information in email marketing. A lot of email clients will block images right away.  

 Your emails can seem unreadable and unattractive if they rely too much on pictures. Use clear, plain text to convey the most important information, and use descriptive alt tags for any images that you include.

Everyone knows that email filters are getting more and more strict. Graphics and other things included in emails are blocked out, so a reader might not even see what you are trying to say. Therefore, a good piece of advice is to use plain text with a hyperlink to your site.

When you are going through the process of opting in, you should make it a point to get the names of your customers. This allows you to address each customer individually in the email, personalizing your message. This personal connection helps recipients feel visible rather than just one of the crowd of people who are receiving a bulk email. This will make them more interested in your emails.

Let customers know what to expect from the get-go. When a new subscriber opts in, send an immediate confirmation email that details what the customer can expect to receive from you and how often you will send emails. Filling customers in upfront can prevent future opt-outs and complaints and keep subscribers active.

The emails you send out as part of your marketing campaign should start out with a welcoming, personalized tone. Include the name of the recipient in the subject line and the opening of the message. This will make your customers feel more receptive to your message and be more likely to patronize your business.

If you are new to email marketing, get in the habit of proofreading your emails before sending them. Emails can be written quickly and neglecting to proofread happens often. You're merely sending an email, right? Wrong! Your email marketing campaigns are an important component of your business, and they should be executed professionally and attractively.

Offer incentives. People might be hesitant to give their consent to receive e-mails.  

 Try offering some sort of incentive as a bonus for receiving e-mails from you. Offer coupons or exclusive promo codes. Make sure that there is content in these e-mails that they will find both worthwhile and useful.

There is nothing wrong with composing your marketing emails in HTML, but you may find it rewarding to give it a break from time to time. A simple message composed in plain text will be taken as a little more intimate and a little less formal by your subscribers. If you exercise moderation, sending plain text emails can encourage loyalty and draw your readers closer to you.

Ask for permission before you email potential customers. When you email your customers without asking them, they may think you are a spammer and not read them. Your customers could opt out of your mailing list, but an even worse scenario is if they report you as a spammer and you end up blacklisted.

Be sure it's easy for your subscribers to update their email address on your list. If a customer changes their address but still wants to receive your mailings, you don't want to lose them. Provide an easy link within your marketing emails where they can update their email address, and you will retain more customers.

All the tips in this article have made other companies successful online. So use them to their fullest to bring yourself closer to your goals. The amount of effort you put into your campaign will directly correlate with the increase you see in traffic and profits. So work hard to get great results.

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