Do you think email marketing is dead? Absolutely not! It is the only way to directly reach out to your customers. You don’t need to rely on a single platform in email marketing. It’s one of the most efficient marketing channels to connect with your audience. Let’s understand it step by step.

What Is Email Marketing?

Anytime a particular company sends out an email to its customers apart from the basic order confirmation or send a direct response to customer questions, it could be considered a form of email marketing. Email marketing is just one segment of internet marketing that encompasses online marketing done via websites, social media, blogs, and much more.

Email marketing can include things like newsletters with updates about the company for promotions of sales and exclusive deals for their subscribers. Marketing emails may also try to share a general message on the behalf of the company, such as in the phase of a natural disaster or company scandal.

At its best, email marketing allows businesses to keep their customers well informed and customise their marketing messages to the audience. In the worst-case scenario, this kind of marketing can drive customers away if the emails are consistent and they become annoying.

How Email Marketing really works?

You can add a newsletter signup option to your existing website and grow your email subscriber base. It will be a direct way to communicate with your audience without any barriers.

The two biggest perks of email marketing are price and ease. If compared to other types of marketing, you will see that emailing is a very cost-efficient way to advertise a company and its products or services.

A regular newsletter is a very simple yet effective way to send updates about a company, its upcoming events and special offers. Email software also makes it very easy to schedule automatic promotional emails for customers who have not purchased anything recently from your company.

Email marketing gives you the freedom to target particular groups of customers or even specific individuals. Offering individual customers special deals for their birthdays on Merchandise or services is one way to do this effectively.

For instance, a restaurant might send an email to customers on their birthdays offering 50% off on the total bill. This type of personalization helps a business develop and maintain a relationship with all their customers – and this can lead to increased sales and customer loyalty.

Is Email Marketing Still Relevant?

In the new age of social media, it is very tempting to write an email. However, there is evidence that it remains a very important aspect of marketing efforts. For instance:

• Experts working in the email marketing company Litmus estimate that email marketing returns an average of 42 dollars (INR 3,140.73) for every dollar (INR 74.78) spent.
• One survey found that around 15% of respondents were highly influenced by email when it came to purchasing decisions
• A study of more than 1 billion shopping sessions in the year 2019 found that email marketing has a conversion rate of around 2.3 % compared to one person for social media.

A very big advantage of email over social media is that customers are more likely to see an email than social media. Just posting something randomly on social media does not mean that everyone you want to see your message will be able to see it. However, an email will sit in their inbox until it is read or deleted.

Ideally, email marketing should go hand in hand with social media. Adding social media ‘like’ and ‘share’ buttons to your marketing emails gives you another way for customers to connect with your company. Snippets of positive reviews from social media fans can also be included in emails to show the validity and social media posts can drive customers to your e-mail newsletters. This is how both email marketing and social media marketing can work in your company’s favour.

Now let’s talk about email marketing strategies so that even you can use them in favour of your company.

Email Marketing Strategies:

Effective email marketing can take a lot of effort. Here are a few strategies for making it a bit easier for you to make the most out of your email marketing campaigns.

1.  Build your List:

All you are going to do by send emails that aren’t asked for. Whether you do it for your website, in your store or at an event, make it clear when customers are opting to receive emails.

2.  Follow the Law:

Email marketers must follow all the rules of the CAN-SPAM Act.  these roles include having a non-deceptive subject line and providing a very clear way to subscribe and including your name and address at the end of the emails.

3. Mix up your Messages:

Don’t just send out promotional messages and ads to buy all the time. It can become very annoying for customers after which they are most likely to unsubscribe from your newsletter. Try to use your emails to build a rapport with customers by sharing expertise or that of others around you giving them tips and inside that can be valuable for them. Share information that lets them know more about you and your brand.

4. Respect your subscribers:

Treat your subscribers well. Remember that the people with whom you are communicating have trusted you with their information so that is why they deserve your respect. If you want a chance to convert them from customers to fans or even evangelists for your brand, then make sure you make them feel special.

5. Follow a set schedule:

Stick to a set schedule if you are doing a newsletter. Sending out emails to your prospective customers on the same day or days every week will help your subscribers know what to expect from you and at what time.

6. Optimise for mobile: 

Studies done by some marketing analysts experts working with the company Litmus have consistently found that just under half of all emails are opened on a mobile device rather than other devices like laptops and computers. This means that if your email does not display correctly on mobile platforms and half of your audience is going to think that you don’t know how to properly craft an email.