If you’re interested in building a responsive client base, there is little that beats email marketing. Many people consider email marketing to be past its time, but actually, so long as the internet continues to exist, its significance should never die.
By bringing relevant information about your business directly into your customers’ inboxes, email marketing allows you to communicate with them in the most personal way possible. And there’s a big audience to reach out to, too: in 2017 alone, 3.7 internet users were said to own email accounts, with this figure expected to increase to 4.3 billion by 2022.
How can Email Marketing be Used?
Email marketing usually involves creating an email-based campaign with the purpose of bringing in new leads. Normally, this will mean sending out multiple related emails over a certain period of time, which offer the reader something of value. Helpfully, email marketing allows you to track your recipients’ response levels and document which emails did well and which weren’t so successful.
Email marketing is one of the most cost-effective means of promoting your business, and, should your content provide useful information to your recipients, there’s no reason why you can’t build and maintain a dedicated following.
How Much Does Email Marketing Cost?
Email marketing yields an impressively high ROI, and is an easy way for you to boost your yearly revenue. This makes the costs of creating an email campaign more than worth it.
As a small-to-medium sized business, you can expect to spend between $50 and $750 per month on your email marketing if you manage your campaigns yourself. The costs are so broad because they completely depend on the number of email recipients you’re targeting your campaign at, how big the campaign is, and what the components of the campaign are. Through an agency, this price will generally be higher, around $250 to $650 per month.
Examples of Companies Using Email Marketing Right
The power of persuasion is one of the most important factors of email marketing. An email must firstly have enough persuasive power in the subject line for a user to open it, and then to follow any calls to action inside the email itself. Some businesses manage to do this very successfully, personalising their campaigns to appeal to the subscriber directly.
BuzzFeed is a fantastic example of a business that knows how to market itself over email campaigns. When you sign up to its email newsletters, you can select the ones that appeal to you the most, from quizzes and recipes to shopping, home and wellness updates. Giving the user the option to choose which emails they receive enables the updates to be more personal and of interest when they arrive in the user’s email inbox.
Best Email Marketing Tools to Use
If you choose to manage your email marketing yourself, you will need to find a platform that suits you the most to send your emails through.
· For small businesses, Constant Contact is one of the best email marketing solutions for connecting with your customer base. There’s a free 60-day trial and its user-friendly design is suitable for users of all levels.
· Perhaps the most popular email marketing tools of all time is MailChimp, with users of the service sending over 1 billion emails per day. MailChimp is never the same for long, with the platform rolling out new features on a regular basis.
· With a user base of over 350,000, GetResponse acts as an all-in-one marketing platform to help businesses to grow. It uses a drag-and-drop feature to create emails, and offers advanced features for the most professional design layouts.
· One of the largest email marketing tools, ActiveCampaign, is an automation service for small-to-mid-sized businesses looking to grow their customer base. The platform offers a free 14-day trial and features for email marketing, lead scoring and web analytics.
· Another one for small business management is Convert Kit, a relatively new email service provider that gives users automation capabilities on low-cost plans. Convert Kit has a user base of around 25,000 bloggers, podcasters, and other small businesses looking to grow.
My Top Tips for Killing It with Email Marketing
Email marketing isn’t about having something to say all the time – it’s about knowing the value you can provide to your subscribers, and communicating it frequently. Take a look at my top tips for killing it with email:
1. Don’t get too fancy with the design. Studies have found that the average user prefers a simple email layout.
2. Practice your persuasion. Your goal is to entice your subscribers to first read your email, then follow your calls to action.
3. Encourage email subscription on your website and social channels. Try to draw in your email audience from wherever users may find you online.
4. Don’t send straight-out ads. Your subscribers are unlikely to even click on an email in their inbox if it’s an obvious promotion with little other value to them.
5. Avoid spamming at all costs. One valuable email per month is better than two invaluable ones per week.
The Top Email Marketing Blogs to Follow
1. Campaign Monitor
Campaign Monitor’s blog offers an abundance of helpful resources, including free tutorials and templates, tips on what’s trending, and inspiring examples of email marketing done right.
2. Mailchimp
Whether you’re a Mailchimp user or not, as there’s plenty in the way of useful advice on its blog if you’re looking to learn the basics of email marketing in general.
3. VerticalResponse
Promising to help you leverage the power of its platform with “insights, examples and practical advice from email marketing experts”, the VerticalResponse blog is awash with relevant advice and strategies for all number of email marketing campaigns.
Email marketing is ever-changing, and there’s always room for new discussion in the area. Take a look at my full list of top email marketing blogs to follow to never miss a piece of news.
Conclusion
If conversion to sales is even the slightest bit important for your business, email marketing is a must-do. Ultimately, if you’re not offering personal communication about your business to your subscribers, you’re missing out on a highly effective digital marketing technique which may cause you to fall behind your competitors.
