Studies show that email marketing is40x more effectiveat reeling in new customers than social media. Email marketing makes it easy to nurture long-term relationships and stay aligned with the customers that drive your profits.
But to work properly, you must design your email marketing campaigns just right.
As an email marketer, one of the worst experiences is sending out what you think is a top-notch campaign – only to watch it flop.
From a dearth of opens to no clicks on your CTA, it’s tough when customers don’t engage with your brand. (Not to mention the impact a failed campaign has on your bottom line.)
Many marketers’ struggles boil down to a single factor: poor email design. If your emails don’t balance a vibrant vibe with a clean look, it’s difficult to drive conversions, let alone opens.
That’s where expertly-designed email marketing templates come in!
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What is an Email Marketing Template?
An email marketing template is what it sounds like: an email template designed for email marketing campaigns.
By tapping into professionally-designed emails, you can produce the same gorgeous emails as the Big Guys without trashing your budget. Plus, you don’t have to spend hours sweating your own campaign visuals or stressing about that plain-text campaign.
Effective email marketing templates split the difference by supplying you with all the designs, styles, and colors you need. All you have to do is change the colors, add your logo, and insert your message.
Best of all, email templates come in a huge variety, so you can select and edit the perfect template to:
Welcome new customers to the family
Send promotional emails and special deals
Offer loyalty rewards to returning customers
Provide purchase, shipping, and delivery confirmations
Request feedback to better your brand and engage your customers
Then, all that’s left is to hit “send” and watch your efforts pay off.
Why Do You Need Email Marketing Templates?
Novices and professionals alike may turn to email marketing templates for several reasons. We’ll explore a few of them here.
A Lack of Ideas
When you’re fresh out of ideas, email templates can provide the answer or at least inspiration. Even if you don’t use the whole design, it’s important to bring new ideas to the table occasionally.
Tested Layouts
Sometimes, your marketing team needs a reminder of what works, especially as trends change. Email marketing templates often come field-tested or professionally designed. (Read: they’re proven to work.)
Quick, Easy, and Cheap to Use
Email templates do half the work for you. All you have to do is download the template, plug in your branding and message, and send the campaign.
Save Time
Why spend more time and money stressing than you have to?
With email templates, all you have to do is pick the right template, drop in compelling copy, and add images. If need be, you can also customize existing design elements to fit your brand and stay on message.
And since many modern templates are no-code, you don’t need expert coding skills to produce expertly-designed, engaging emails.
Consistency
One beauty of email templates is that they construct the layout, design, and quality for you. Anyone on your team, from interns to freelancers to career marketers, can write a well-performing email in minutes.
Plus, you can design custom templates for your own team to tweak and personalize later, building consistency from the inside out.
Seamless Personalization
Modern marketing email templates tend to be highly customizable.
Even if you start with a cut-and-paste job, your personal touches can create a unique, conversion-driving email.
Any or all of these make great reasons to incorporate email templates into your strategy. But frankly, you only need one: because you want to.
Where to Find the Best Email Marketing Templates
Literally, dozens of websites provide free email templates that you can download at a whim.
While these can be effective, often, it’s better to sign up with a dedicated service that has a built-in template library.
Of course, there’s no harm in combining strategies and enjoying the best of both worlds.
So, we’ve helpfully rounded up a list of both free email templates and paid template sites for your perusal.
All you have to do is find the templates you like, sign up with the site, and get customizing!
ReallyGoodEmails
Really Good Emails (RGE for short) aims to be “the best showcase of email design” available. The website boasts an impressive 10,000+ email templates and an inspirational collection library.
RGE sources actual email content and templates from an active user community to help you fulfill your marketing dreams. That means that new emails pop up all the time for you to customize or get inspired by.
You can start with a free account and curate up to three collections, or go Pro for just $9 a month.
HubSpot
HubSpot is a huge name in digital marketing, so it makes sense that they have a few marketing tools lying around.
Users can access around five dozen email marketing templates completely free. HubSpot also boasts a free email marketing template maker in-house, so you can design and save your own templates for future use.
Canva
Canva is an online graphic design tool that helps users create social media posts, videos, logos, presentations, and more.
Aside from its hundreds of thousands of templates for every purpose, its stock photo library is truly massive. (While Canva doesn’t split the numbers, it’s safe to assume they have at least a few thousand email templates.)
You can access about 250,000 of their total templates and a hefty portion of their stock images with their free plan. Or you can access 610,000 premium templates and the full image library for just $120 per person, per year.
Cakemail
Cakemail provides another source for free newsletters and email templates to spruce up your email campaigns. All told, Cakemail offers around 55 templates and an easy-to-use platform.
Cakemail’s templates come in a variety of designs, so you can send everything from welcome emails to promotional offers. They also boast a few unique designs alongside more generic templates to give you plenty of choices.
Cakemail pricing is customized to each business, so you don’t have to worry about overpaying for services you don’t need.
ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign is a popular email marketing tool that provides a built-in CRM and over 500 automated workflows.
Oh, and their template library isn’t bad either, with about 250 customizable layouts available on all paid plans.
ActiveCampaign offers a free plan with limited abilities and a handful of layouts. Or you can jump in with a paid plan, which starts at just $9 a month for 500 contacts.
BEE Free
BEE Free is a newer email editor that lets users create responsive designs quickly. The site boasts over 1,200 (mostly) unique, highly vibrant templates for all occasions.
BEE Free’s templates live in a handy quick-search menu, so you can find what you need in a flash. From there, it’s all plug, play, and send.
Or if you’re not satisfied with the existing menu, you can submit template ideas to their design team.
BEE Free starts with a free, no-code email and page creation plan for up to 10 emails and pages. Upgrading to their Team plan costs just $30 a month for unlimited projects and content blocks.
Sendinblue
Sendinblue offers over 60 fully responsive email templates to all users.
Best of all, there’s no code required. The process is simple: pick a template, customize it with the drag-and-drop editor, and press send.
Advanced users can also take advantage of the WYSIWYG HTML email editor to code their own content from square one.
Sendinblue offers four plans: Free, Lite, Premium, and Enterprise. (The free plan also comes with prebuilt email templates.) The Lite plan starts at $25/month for basic features. Premium kicks it up a notch at $65/month for automation, landing pages, and Facebook ads.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp is a popular email marketing software renowned for its ease of use and predesigned template library.
Each design is fully customizable, from the layout to the color scheme and images. (Though free users will have Mailchimp’s branding on their designs.)
Mailchimp users can access a portion of its basic templates on the free plan to get a feel for the service.
If you like what you see, you can switch to the Essentials plan (starting at $11/month) to access all 100 Mailchimp templates.
Stripo
Stripo is an email design platform that offers over 1,050 fully responsive no-code HTML templates.
Stripo’s emails are built so you don’t need to customize to get a good-looking email – just drop in your message and go. Marketers can also access a library of premade interactive elements like GIFs, countdown timers, and animated buttons.
To enjoy Strip’s premium template options, you can expect to pay at least $15/month.
But bear in mind that unlike the other names on this list, you can’t send emails from Stripo directly. Instead, you can export your designs into the email marketing software of your choice.
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5 Email Marketing Template Examples
For those low on time, money, or ideas, email templates make short work of a crucial process. But if you’re still not sure how well a template can turn out, let’s look at a few examples of effective templates that could drive your ROI from 0 to 60 in a hot minute.
This abandoned cart email template from Cakemail is the perfect way to ask customers to return without being obnoxious. (Clicks and conversions, here we come.)
The muted color palette does the opposite of what you’d expect by not sparking a sense of excitement. It’s just busy enough to keep the eye without overwhelming, producing a calming effect that reassures customers clicking through is the right move.
Plus, with the CTA conveniently placed beneath the discount and above the upsells, the design pulls double-duty without trying too hard.
A little customer feedback goes a long way to helping businesses improve their brands – so what does mass-produced feedback get you?
That’s what this feedback email template aims to find out.
Unfortunately, feedback emails come with one big problem: customers really don’t like to click through multiple pages for a business benefit.
Fortunately, this email template solves that problem, too. By including a clickable feedback mechanism right in the email, you make your customers’ jobs quick and easy.
And even if the link redirects to a longer survey, your customers have already begun the process. Chances are, they’ll finish it.
Key Takeaways
Modern tools have slashed the effort needed substantially. It can’t get much simpler than plugging your content into an existing template and sending it off in your email campaigns.
Email marketing success isn’t just about the template – your ability to connect with your audience matters, too!
A/B testing and proper email timing play a crucial role in the success of your email marketing campaign.
Keep an eye out for changes in your email marketing metrics, and make sure to constantly improve your campaigns!
FAQ
How do I create an email marketing template?
There are a few things you’ll need to consider when creating an email marketing template:
1. The purpose of the email – what are you trying to achieve? Are you trying to promote a new product, announce a sale, or simply stay in touch with your customers?
2. The target audience – who will you be sending the email to? Make sure your template is designed with your target audience in mind.
3. The content – what will you include in the email? Will you be including text, images, or both?
4. The design – how will you lay out the content? Will you use a single-column or multi-column layout?
What are email marketing templates?
Email marketing templates are pre-designed email layouts that you can use to easily create and send marketing emails. Most email marketing platforms (such as Constant Contact, Mailchimp, or AWeber) offer a library of free and paid email templates that you can use to get started with your email campaigns.
Have you ever joined a brand’s email list after signing up for their newsletter, purchasing a product or downloading a content offer and received a cheery welcome message in your inbox?
It feels good, doesn’t it? That’s what welcome emails are for – feel-good recognition and a thank you for choosing to further your relationship with a brand. Most people expect to receive some form of a welcome email after taking the next step with your business.
The welcome email can end there, or it can move the new email subscriber into a campaign or workflow, such as onboarding after they sign up for your product or service.
Although they seem little in the grand scheme of marketing, that’s why these emails can be so important.
You’re building the like, know and trust factor, deepening your relationship, and providing your new subscribers with a chance to learn what to expect from you as a brand!
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What is a Welcome Email?
A welcome email is your first impression for a new client, subscriber, or visitor. It’s usually your very first communication with the new subscriber, which is why it’s especially important. In this email, you can say a friendly hello, begin the onboarding process, or even provide something of value, like a discount or offer.
Why you Should Send Welcome Emails to New Clients
The first, and main reason that you should be sending welcome emails to everyone who joins your list or purchases your product, is that they expect you to! 74% of new clients expect a welcome email as soon as they subscribe to your email list.
And, they open them! Welcome emails have much higher open rates than a lot of marketing sends – a 91.43% open rate, in fact!
They also have a 26.9% click-through rate, which means that they’re more likely to open your first email, read it, and click on the links that you provide.
It’s a huge opportunity to put your best foot forward as a brand, deepen the relationship and begin providing the value that will keep your subscribers coming back for more!
Types of Welcome Emails
Although the idea of welcoming your new subscriber is the same across all types of welcome emails, there are a few differences in presentation and purpose depending on who you are and what you do.
Here are some of the most common types!
Onboarding Welcome Emails
An onboarding welcome email is designed to greet your new clients and move them through a tutorial of everything they need to know to successfully use your product or service. This is especially popular with apps and software programs.
This could be a single welcome email, but more often than not, it’ll be a welcome email series, where you provide useful information over a period of time – not all at once – to introduce your new client to your product and how it works.
New Subscriber Emails
If you run a blog or platform where you provide consistent content for your audience, you might send them a single welcome email.
In this email, you’ll most likely be thanking them for subscribing to your email list, introducing yourself, and letting your new sign-up know how often you’ll be communicating, how you’ll be doing it, and what you’ll be communicating about.
Offer Welcome Emails
A popular way to incentivize people to join your email list is to have them exchange their email for a download, perk, offer or discount.
If you use this method, then you’ll send a welcome email saying hello, thank them for subscribing and provide a link to the offer or the discount code.
Pro Tip: If you provide a discount code, also include a catchy button to take them to your storefront, where they can shop to their heart’s content!
How to Write a Winning Welcome Email
Ready to write a welcome email that wows? We’ve got you covered.
There are a few things to keep in mind when crafting the perfect missive to your new subscriber. You’ll want to catch their attention with a great subject line, give a warm greeting, introduce yourself, and tell them what to do (or expect!) next.
How to Write Welcome Email Subject Lines
The subject line may be the shortest, sweetest part of your email, but it’s surprisingly hard to get it right because it IS so short.
Your subject line should be no longer than 5-7 words. Most people view emails on their phones, which means lengthy subject lines are cut off, and they’ll have to click to read all of what you were trying to say.
So, to keep your subject line visible, readable, and click-worthy, limit it to 5-7 words, and consider using emojis. These tiny visuals will help your email stand out in a flooded inbox.
You can include the word Welcome in your subject line, and an even better trick to use here is the function that allows you to populate the first and last names of your subscriber on most email marketing platforms.
The more your new subscriber feels seen and recognized, the more likely they are to keep opening further emails from you. In fact, welcome emails can have as much as an 86% lift on open rates for brand emails!
Greeting Your New Email List Subscriber
What would a welcome email be without a welcome? The first thing you want to do in your email is to thank your new subscriber for joining your list. This goes a long way towards nurturing your relationship, especially if you use the personalization trick we mentioned earlier!
If you’re unsure what to say, include the elements of “welcome, thank you, and we’re so glad you’re here.” Feel free to get creative with your brand voice – this is a fantastic opportunity to give your email subscriber a chance to see your personality!
Introduce Your Brand
In your welcome email, you’ll want to reintroduce your brand and what you provide, and the ways that subscribers can get value out of your continued emails. If they know what to expect from you, and what need you’re filling for them, they’re more likely to keep opening further emails from your company!
Tell Them What to Do Next
Now that you’ve greeted your subscriber and told them all the ways you’re going to make their lives better or easier, it’s time to tell them what comes next!
This may look like providing a link to your website or storefront, directing them to a landing page where they can consume your latest content, or if your welcome email is part of an onboarding series, providing them with the next step in onboarding, as well as the frequency with which you’ll be sending next steps and tips to them over the coming weeks.
Now that you know what a welcome email is, what role it plays in your email marketing funnel, and the types of welcome emails that exist, let’s take a look at some of the best welcome emails out there.
You can use ideas from these great welcome email examples to craft your own message unique to your brand or business.
Let’s take a look!
1. Lyft
Ride-sharing app Lyft has a great branded welcome message that introduces its mission statement, and how Lyft is going above and beyond for its customers in difficult times for traveling.
2. Target
Target’s welcome email is branded with graphics and clear CTA buttons. Their subject line “Welcome! See how your new account makes shopping easy” is backed up by a clean, easy-to-navigate email.
3. Rise
This welcome email is a fast favorite. From the enthusiastic greeting to the embedded GIF of the founders, this welcome email is warm, personalized, and fun. It also details the next steps for set-up, and what you can expect from the community.
4. Movie Fan
Movie Fan congratulates new members on joining the program and reminds them what the benefits of joining their program are in a handy chart listing all of them. They also tip off the subscriber on what they’ll find in future emails!
5. Desygner
Desygner’s welcome email is full of details about the features new members can take advantage of. They also share their mission statement, and how their software solves a problem for the people who use it (no design background.)
6. Peacock
Peacock’s streaming service welcomes new signups to the flock and clearly states the value of the app. The welcome email also features suggested picks based on popular categories, and users can click on any of these to begin watching immediately (which is a heck of a CTA!)
7. Tailwind
Hey, we have one of these too! In our welcome emails, which are part of an onboarding series, we share the value we provide, and the features of our app, like Tailwind Create and our social media scheduling tool.
8. REI
REI’s Co-op program shares upfront what types of emails they send and encourages people to update their preferences to tune into the things they’re most interested in. Further on in the email, they provide a coupon code and ask what the next adventure is for the outdoor enthusiasts subscribing, taking them to categories of the store.
9. Clever Girl Finance
Clever Girl Finance immediately reaffirms the value that they add by mentioning their community. The personalized welcome email immediately explains how the program works and the next steps, with clear CTAs to log in and get started!
10. Firebase
And finally, Firebase clearly outlines the next steps for different goals and purposes for their software with easy-to-read graphics and CTAs.
How To Write A Great Welcome Email?
Now that you’ve seen some great examples of what a welcome email looks like, it is time to create one yourself.
You can use the examples above as inspiration or a welcome email template to get you started, but, of course, it goes without saying that you need to tailor it to your needs.
Here are some tips on how to write a great welcome email:
Have A Clear From Field
The first thing that recipients will see when they open your email is the “from” field. This plays a very important role in the email opening process as it establishes credibility and trustworthiness.
If you’re sending a welcome email from a personal account, make sure that your name is in the “from” field. If you’re sending it from a company account, use the company’s name. Either way, make sure it’s clear who the email is from.
You can go the extra mile and make it pop out a bit from fields like:
Steve Williams, Virtual Assistant
or Jenny Collins, PetShop Customer Support
It combines the personal approach yet at the same time gives the recipient an idea of what the email will be about.
Hook Your Audience with the First Sentence
Apart from the “from” field, the first thing that the reader will see is the initial sentence of your welcome email – they see it in their email preview. So make sure it’s eye-catching and irresistible to click.
You can go about this in a couple of ways:
Use an emoji in the opening sentence – but do not overuse it!
Start with a question – this engages the reader right away and makes them want to find out more by reading on.
Make a statement that will shock the reader, but be careful here, do not overdo it.
Your introduction sets the tone for the rest of the email, so make sure it is strong.
Clearly Formulate The Goal
When you start writing the body of the welcome email, make sure that you know its purpose. Pick any welcome email sample in this list, and you will notice that there is a goal that the writer had in mind.
What is yours?
Maybe you want to increase engagement with your brand, or you want to boost loyalty among customers.
It could be that you wish to introduce a new product line or service to your audience.
Whatever it is, make sure that you know why you are writing this welcome email, as this will help you to formulate a clear goal.
And if you are still unsure, think about what you would like your recipients to do after reading your email. Do you want them to make a purchase? To sign up for something? To download a white paper? Knowing the answer to this question will help you to create a punchy and actionable copy!
Do Not Fear The CTA
Many people are timid about their intentions. They do not want to appear too sales-y, and so they avoid using calls to action (CTAs) in their welcome emails.
But the truth is that a CTA can be one of the most effective tools in your arsenal! Just make sure that it is relevant to the interests of your recipients. For example, if you sell products for newborns, your CTA might be something like, “Shop our latest collection of organic baby clothes.”
On the other hand, if you offer a service like web design, your CTA could be, “Get a free quote for your next website project.”
While the main goal of a welcome email is to start building a relationship, it is also a marketing opportunity!
Create A Sense Of Urgency
Sure, this is not a part of your usual welcome email, but you can already start pitching those cross-sell opportunities! You’ve just got a new lead, which means they are interested in what you have to offer. You can use this opportunity to introduce them to your other products or services that might be of interest to them.
If you sell women’s clothing, you could include a link to your latest collection in the welcome email. Or, if you offer home cleaning services, you could include a special discount for first-time customers.
The key here is to create a sense of urgency – make your new lead feel like they need to take advantage of your offer right away!
Personalize The Email
Every email si better when it is a bit personalized! In your welcome email, be sure to address your new lead by their first name. This will make them feel special and appreciated, and it will start building a relationship with them from the very beginning.
If you have any other information about them – such as where they’re from or how they found you – be sure to include that in the welcome email as well!
You do not have to get into too many details, but a little personalization can go a long way.
Keep It Short
Keep your welcome emails short and to the point! You want to make a good impression, but you do not want to overwhelm your new lead with too much information.
A good rule of thumb is to keep your email under five sentences. If you can say what you need to say in fewer words, even better!
Your welcome email should be a quick read that leaves your lead feeling excited about your product or service and also feeling good that you reached out to them.
Keep it short and to the point. Let your contact know that you appreciate them and tell them what will happen next.
Be Friendly But Professional
Chances are that you are not bound by corporate rules (like Oracle or Amazon) so you can be a little bit more casual in your communication.
You are not writing a cover letter for a job application, but you still want to be professional. Make your email sound like it’s coming from a friend – so use contractions (e.g., can’t, didn’t, won’t)
And avoid sounding too stiff or sales-y.
Keep it tasteful. You want to establish a relationship, but at the same time, you don’t want to come across as too pushy or even creepy.
Don’t Overdo The Design
You want your welcome email to stand out, but do not make a design that’s so complicated that it takes away from the message.
But not only that, some email services will send your message into spam if the visuals in it are too big.
Some email campaigns go with a minimalist welcome email design, having just one large image or a video. Others use several images to tell a story. It’s really up to you. But just make sure you keep it simple and clean.
Avoid Spam-Triggering Keywords
If you think you will emphasize your point by saying that something if Free, Once In a Lifetime, Make You Rich – think again.
Most of these are so-called spam-triggering keywords. One spammy keyword here and there will not send your email into spam, but if you use too many of them – beware.
Your best bet is to stay away from these words altogether, or at least use them sparingly.
Key Takeaways
A/B Test everything. That is the only way to improve your campaigns!
Make sure your welcome email is personal and relatable.
Welcome emails should be sent soon after someone subscribes or makes a purchase.
Do not overuse images, and stay away from spammy keywords.
Be clear about your CTA, and do not be afraid of cross-selling.
How do I write a welcome email?
Focus on the event that triggers your welcome email. This could be signing up for a newsletter, purchasing a product, or expressing interest in your service. This will be the base for your email. Build around it by adding a little extra to make your email more personal (but not too much!)
How do you send a warm welcome email?
For a “warmer” email, be a bit more personal and relatable. You could tell a short story or anecdote that’s related to your product, or share a picture of yourself. The important thing is to make a connection with your reader.
What is a welcoming email?
A welcoming email is an email sent to new subscribers or customers, typically to introduce them to your brand. It’s a way of building goodwill and establishing a relationship with your audience from the get-go.
Email marketing is the bread and butter of modern growth tactics. It remains one of the best ways to attract customers, build your brand, and boost your bottom line!
With effective email marketing campaigns, you can drive consistent conversions and enjoy more personal relationships.
But if you employ weak email marketing strategies, you’ll never achieve your full potential.
To ensure you achieve the desired results, you’ll need to start with the right email marketing strategy for your brand!
Why Do You Need an Email Marketing Strategy?
Email marketing is one of the most influential (and affordable) digital marketing strategies. By reaching right into subscribers’ inboxes, you’ll enjoy a direct link to your customer base.
Not to mention all the other perks a successful email marketing campaign promotes – you can sell products, share the good news, and improve cart abandonment rates. Or, you can get more personal and take the time to share a story or re-engage with lost subscribers.
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How to Formulate Your Email Marketing Strategy
Before you run out and send emails willy-nilly, you need to prepare. Effective email marketing campaigns all start with a well-designed email marketing strategy.
Once you find your stride, the potential rewards can be huge.
Pick the Perfect Email Service Provider
Email service providers are a dime a dozen, but the right one can make or break your email marketing campaigns.
Choose an email service provider that balances cost against the email marketing tools you need to design and send emails that are beautifully on-brand.
Define Your Audience
You can’t target your audience if you don’t know who they are. The more information you gather about your customers (even if they don’t exist yet), the more success you’ll see.
Build Your Email List
Next, it’s time to build your email marketing list. Ideally, you’ll curate a list chock-full of engaged subscribers who choose to receive the valuable content you create.
Adding opt-in or subscription forms on your webpage
Designing standalone lead capture pages to promote offers like free webinars or eBooks
Offering lead magnets, like discounts or free shipping, in exchange for emails
Boosting your email marketing list on social media
Pick Your Design
Every email campaign will likely have a different flourish to set it apart. But first, you need to decide on the basics, such as your brand colors, ideal fonts, and email signature.
Planning ahead here ensures that no matter who actually composes your message, your emails hold to your high standards.
Plus, applying an identical color scheme and logo ensures brand familiarity with your audience.
Mobile-ize Your Infantry
Over 60% of emails are opened using a mobile device. Yet, 20% of all email marketing campaigns aren’t optimized for mobile.
That’s a big mistake – especially considering that mobile device customers are more likely to spend big than desktop customers.
Unoptimized emails lead to wonky, unreadable images and text and drive higher unsubscribe and delete rates.
Avoiding these mistakes can be as simple as inserting responsive email designs that are automatically optimized by the device.
Other tips include keeping the subject line short and minimizing the preheader’s length.
You should also make the call-to-action (CTA) big, bold, and beautiful to ensure it’s obvious on tiny screens.
Test in Different Clients and ISPs
Before you send emails for the first time, it’s crucial to test email clients and ISPs. The way clients handle data may alter how your designs look in a subscriber’s inbox.
Automate Your Campaigns
You should also consider automating your email campaigns. Trigger-based automation lets you send personalized messages and content based on:
User behaviors, like visiting your website, clicking a link, or purchasing a products
Demographic information like birthdays, holidays, and religious preferences
Time-sensitive actions, such as expired subscriptions, reorder reminders, and re-engagement opportunities
You can also send out the classics like a handy welcome email, transactional emails, and thank-you emails. And don’t underestimate the power of “surprise” emails for your most loyal customers. (25% off goes a long way to building loyalty!)
Data supports using automation, too.
Triggered emails nab higher open rates, click-through rates, and conversions. Trigger-based marketing has even been found to produce500% better resultsthan batch emails.
Leverage Social Media
Social media provides powerful tools to build your email list and further engagement. For instance, Facebook-boosted posts can increase traffic by nearly 50%.
You can use social media to build landing pages, share incentives, and premium content, and host webinars or digital get-togethers in real-time.
Remember: the more subscribers engage with your brand, the more memorable – and profitable – you’ll be.
Prepare to Measure Your Performance
It’s impossible to accurately predict how effective email marketing campaigns will be before you send them out.
But before you can measure their performance, you need to determine which metrics to gather.
Knowing which email metrics are most important for your campaigns before you send emails means you can segment your email strategy from the outset and optimize it as you gather more data.
How to Create an Email Marketing Campaign That Works
Once you’ve defined your email marketing strategy, it’s time to move into the meat of your success: actual email campaigns.
Set Goals
The first step in designing an effective email marketing campaign is deciding upon its goal. Your goal will determine the content, images, CTA, and segmentation you deem appropriate.
Many marketers swear by mid-week sends, while some target the weekend crowd!
Purge Your Subscriber List
Unfortunately, just because a subscriber joins your email list doesn’t mean they’ll stick around.
While a re-engagement campaign can reignite their passion, sometimes, your subscribers will relegate you to the spam folder or move emails without informing you.
Whatever the reason, purging these subscribers from your list ensures your content only goes to subscribers who will take (and give) the most value.
Segment Your Email List
Segmenting subscribers allows you to deliver the best value to customers.
Unique interests or characteristics, location, purchase history, and industry all comprise segmentable data.
You can even use segmenting to re-engage inactive subscribers.
Conversely, failing to segment your emails, or segmenting them poorly, risks pushing customers away by meeting them at the wrong stage of the customer journey. You’ll also miss out on benefits like increased deliverability and opens, better click-through rates, and more conversions.
Perfect Your Designs
In the modern world, appearances mean a lot – specifically, your brand appearance.
You should test and retest the presentation of every email within your larger campaigns. From content and templates to fonts, layouts, images, and even text sizes, no detail is too small to consider.
The last thing you want to do is design the perfect email for the wrong purpose.
Write Your Content
With the visual elements out of the way, it’s time to write your email message. Ask yourself what you want to say to your audience and what value you can offer them.
Sending purpose-driven emails will keep your subscribers engaged and your bottom line fat.
Run Re-Engagement Campaigns
We mentioned the need to purge your subscriber lists before sending out your major email campaigns to prevent wasting sends.
But sometimes, subscribers just lose interest – and it’s your goal to re-engage them.
Instead of removing them from your mailing list, spark a re-engagement campaign. Remind subscribers of the benefits of sticking with your brand and offer exclusive offers and discounts.
You can also use this opportunity to gain feedback through your emails or unsubscribe page.
6 Quick Email Marketing Tips to Optimize Your Strategy
Once you’ve built an effective email marketing strategy, you can start optimizing individual emails.
2. Use a Real Reply-to Email Address and Signature
When you use a “do not reply” email address or generic sign-off, that turns off the engagement and reduces the likelihood that customers will respond positively to your brand.
The key is building engagement and excitement through authenticity and credibility.
3. Personalize Your Message
Personalization is a small tactic but a powerful one.
By capitalizing on customer data, you can insert a little spice into your strategy.
You can insert names into email subject lines, send welcome emails to new customers, offer birthday wishes (and discounts!), and recommend products based on previous purchases.
Remember: email marketing isn’t just another marketing channel; it’s crucial to each customer’s experience of your brand. There’s almost no end to the ways you can use personalized messages to improve the customer experience.
Best of all, 70% of brands don’t personalize their email marketing strategy. That means a little personalization goes a long way to helping you stand out against the competition.
4. Optimize your CTA
Your call-to-action can dramatically impact the click-through rates of your email marketing campaigns. (And in turn, your conversion rates.)
An ill-placed or poorly-designed CTA translates to fewer clicks and visitors and a smaller bottom line.
To improve your CTA, experiment with factors like:
Buttons versus text
Text font and size
Colors (standing out is almost always better!)
Additionally, focus on the language you use in your CTAs. Tried-and-true tactics include starting with strong verbs (like buy and download), evoking emotion, and giving a reason to convert.
5. A/B Split Testing
How do you know that your email is perfectly optimized?
You test it, of course.
But don’t just limit yourself to A/B testing your subject line. (Though that’s important, too.)
Your home page and landing pages, templates, colors, fonts, CTA, personalization opportunities, and even segmentation should all be tested too.
And don’t forget your signature, sender name, image usage, and placement…
You get the point. There’s a lot to A/B test.
As you test these factors, you can build a database of customer preferences and optimize every email from the get-go.
Over time, you can re-test to keep up with consumer trends and perfect your email marketing strategy long-term.
6. Link to Your Social Media Marketing Campaign
Linking your social media to your email marketing campaigns can generate more activity and bring customers into the customer experience.
When subscribers see customers enjoying your brand and products, they’re more likely to click through and convert.
Aside from capitalizing on existing customers, you can also include CTAs on your various social media in your marketing campaigns.
You may even want to share the content of your emails on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms. Don’t be afraid to spread the word!
Key Takeaways
Email marketing continues to be a popular, effective way to promote your brand and generate a higher ROI.
Through your email marketing, you can connect with your audience, drive sales, and rally a community around your brand.
Determine the best email marketing strategy by testing, optimizing, retesting, and reoptimizing. Running the paces ensures you don’t have to re-engage inactive subscribers later or hassle with high bounce rates.
Your marketing efforts will build successful campaign strategies to see you through to the brand you always dreamed of.
If writing marketing emails fills you with dread, then you are not alone.
Whether you’re not confident in your writing abilities, are afraid of hearing crickets, or simply don’t know what to say, email marketing is something that many brands struggle with.
As a result, many of the emails that wind up in our inboxes are dry, underwhelming, and uninspired. But it doesn’t have to be this way!
By using a few simple concepts and a little bit of practice, you can craft killer emails that will not only captivate your audience but build a connection that will grow over time.
What to Include in Email Marketing Content
Marketing email copy can generally be split into three different sections:
The subject line
The body copy
The call to action (CTA)
Let’s take a look at each element in turn and find out exactly what you need to create irresistible marketing emails.
Write Click-Worthy Email Subject Lines
When it comes to marketing, getting your emails opened is half the battle. That’s where the all-important subject line comes in.
We all get bombarded with emails and so you need to give your subscribers a reason to click. There are a few different ways you can achieve this, though which one works best will depend on both the type of business you have and your brand voice.
Provoke Curiosity
Some of the best email subject lines are those that give an implicit promise that the reader will learn something new or interesting. These subject lines don’t necessarily give away too much about the content of the email but tease just enough to make your subscribers want to click!
In other words, you simply cannot resist wanting to find out more. Laura Belgray at Talking Shrimp (who probably wrote the book on curiosity-inducing headlines) is the master of this technique.
How can you not want to know what’s contained in this email after seeing that language warning at the top?
Here are a few more (safe for work) real-life examples of curiosity-provoking subject lines:
The copywriting method that’s added millions to my bottom line
My patented freelancer recipe
The #1 way to bring a design from good to great
When your clients say “I don’t have the money…”
Write Like A Human
One way to stand out from the crowd is to simply write a subject line as if you were sending an email to a friend.
These days, we are inundated by emails from brands, and many of them follow the same predictable style. By simply looking and sounding as though it was sent from a person, your email will demand attention in even the most crowded inbox.
While this technique won’t work for more corporate businesses, it’s a great option if you are the face of your company (think course creators, bloggers, etc.)
Wait, Laura Belgray does this too! Can you tell we like, really love her newsletter?
Here are some great real-life examples of friendly, personal email subject lines:
I just spotted this opportunity!
My cheesy confession…
Trust me, you don’t need this
Have you taken a break today?
Create A Sense Of Urgency
FOMO is real, and that is particularly true in the digital space.
People don’t want to miss out, particularly on a good deal, and so providing some kind of deadline can be a really valuable tool.
Creating a sense of urgency is a great technique for brands that sell products or services online, particularly when you are running a sale or a limited-time offer, such as Black Friday sales.
Let’s take a look at some examples from real companies:
Last chance to save
Ends tonight! Go change your life…
Put yourself first. Ends tomorrow!
Psst…your discount ends today
Don’t Forget The Importance of Your Preheader
Your preheader, or “Johnson Box” is the text that is right next to (desktop) or below (mobile) your email’s subject line. It is the first glimpse of your email copy that your reader will get.
It can be a powerful second impression, right after your subject line, that helps a reader decide if they want to open your email and read further. Your preheader copy should stand out.
Our favorite preheaders include asking a question, adding emojis, and sounding as welcoming and humanizing as possible, similar to your subject line.
Email Content Writing: Embrace The Power Of Storytelling
Now that you know how to craft a captivating subject line, it’s time to tackle the body of your email.
One of the best things you can do to forge a connection with your audience is to tell a story through your copy. Storytelling is a fundamentally human experience that allows you to create a stronger relationship with your audience.
The stories you tell needn’t be the most exciting or monumental. You can simply take an everyday situation and relate it to your clients’ needs and desires.
Dive Right In
The key to success with storytelling emails is to get straight to it.
The first line of your story should hook the reader in and leave them wanting more. It’s your one chance to capture your reader’s attention and sets the tone for the entire email.
After reading the first line of Jasmine Star’s email, you just have to know who and what she’s talking about!
Some attention-grabbing openers could be:
Giving a glimpse into your personal life, through something that’s happened or somewhere you’ve been
Asking your readers a pertinent question
Introducing the hero of your story
Setting up the time, place, and tension that the rest of the story will follow
Spark The Imagination
Just because you’re writing an email doesn’t mean you can’t use literary devices.
The kind of language you use in your emails will make a big difference in how well they are received. It can make it easier for the reader to visualize your story and make it more interesting. Plus, it can help your emails stand out against formulaic company email newsletters.
Here are some tools that will help:
Add small details in place of generic information. Bonus points if this includes something to evoke the senses, like the way something smelled or tasted or the way something made you feel.
Keep your readers guessing with small curiosity gaps (for instance, “You won’t believe what happened next”). This helps to keep your subscribers engaged, making them more likely to read through to the end.
Use dialogue to draw your readers in. When done well, it can make them feel like they are right there watching the conversation unfold.
Keep a conversational, casual tone throughout. Try to write your story as if you were telling it in person. Veering away from formal language will stop your email from feeling too stiff, and people will relate much better if it’s in words they use on a day-to-day basis.
No one wants to be addressed as a loyal subscriber.
Using your reader’s first name is a great tool that helps to keep their attention and increase engagement (and in subject lines, it can be a great way to improve your open rates). Simply put, when an email contains your name, you notice.
The key here is not to go overboard. Using a subscriber’s name once or twice is great, but when peppered through the email, it can come off a little strange.
If you’re not sure where to use a first name, try reading your email out loud. This will give you a good idea of where a name might naturally come up in conversation.
Seamless, natural copywriting that grabs attention doesn’t happen overnight. The important thing is to not get discouraged. Try A/B testing in your email content writing to see what resonates with your readers more, and most importantly, keep writing! You will find the right balance and voice for your brand.
Add A Killer Call To Action
When your story comes to a close, it’s time to transition to the CTA.
A CTA, or call to action, takes away the guesswork by letting your subscribers know exactly what action to take next.
This could be something big, like signing up for your course or membership program, or something small, like reading a blog post or adding you on Instagram.
But your CTA copy can also be used to forge a better connection with your list by speaking to their pain points. It can show that you not only understand what they are looking for but that you have something that can help.
The Magic Formula for Email Marketing Copywriting
The perfect CTA copy strikes the perfect balance between describing the action and reinforcing value.
For example, say you were a vegan blogger, and the goal of your email was to sell your eBook of quick, healthy dinners. You might write something like “click here to buy your copy.” Simple, right?
But it’s not the act of buying the eBook that your subscribers care about. It’s what the result of buying the eBook will be. Instead, you could try something like “discover delicious vegan recipes made in 30 minutes or less”, or “start cooking mouthwatering vegan food at home”.
Not Ready To Sell? Start A Conversation
If you either don’t have anything to sell yet or it’s too early in the customer journey, you should still always include a CTA in your emails.
An easy and effective CTA is to invite a reply. It could be a response to a question, an opinion on a topic, or even a reply with a single word if they would like to find out more.
Inviting a reply sets a conversation in motion, helping to build familiarity and trust in your brand. If you can offer a personal response, even better. We are so used to automated emails from unmanned inboxes. Speaking to a real human makes a company all the more memorable.
Don’t Forget Your Competitor and Audience Research
You don’t have to do all the heavy lifting yourself when it comes to finding out what exactly to write about and what interests your audience.
Competitor research is also important for email marketing writing. See what kind of emails they are writing and how they are constructing their campaign. What subjects are they focusing on? How are they speaking to you, the reader? Are they trying to draw you in with deals or emojis or questions? You can use all of this information and more to draw inspiration for your own email content.
Don’t forget other third-party sites like Quora and Reddit that can be great sources for learning what your audience is talking about!
FAQ
What do I write in email marketing emails?
The actual content of your marketing emails should be varied yet always engaging. You want to avoid always writing, for example, a newsletter if you are a clothing brand. Having a good mix of topics like promotions, newsletters, and surveys in your content calendar is a great way to keep subscribers engaged with your brand!
What are the best uses for email marketing?
This will depend on the type of business you run. For example, if you run a non-profit, sending out stories of how you recently helped your community can be encouraging to your subscribers. You can also use emails to help solicit donations, especially around the holidays!
If you are a for-profit business, offering promotions and conducting surveys can be another great way to engage with your subscribers and encourage higher click-to-open rates.
With a little research, you will be able to find the best type of content for your email marketing content!
Can I use email marketing templates for my email writing?
Yes! Email marketing templates are a great time saver that can help you create a professional, personalized brand look while also making it easier to audit the best times to reach out to your email subscribers! Tailwind has an email marketing tool to help you craft the perfect campaigns!
Have you ever wondered when the best time to send marketing emails might be? It’s a key component of a successful email marketing campaign. Especially when email marketing is integral to your overall marketing strategy with a large email list ready to go, even a small increase in open rates creates more sales opportunities.
So, when is the best time of day to send email newsletters? Or what about the best time of the week to send marketing emails? Read on for data-driven answers to your most important time-based email marketing questions.
A study conducted by Experian Marketing Services indicates that Tuesday is the absolute best day of the week to send out marketing emails.
Mailchimp (a popular email software) corroborates that info, saying that Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday are the best days.
Wordstream‘s data, on the other hand, suggests that the best day to send emails is actually Thursday, with Tuesday and Wednesday mornings being the worst days and times to send emails.
Sendinblue analyzed their user data and discovered that Tuesday or Thursday is often the best day to send emails for most businesses, including E-commerce, SaaS, Professional Services, and NGOs.
The reason is most likely that people are too inundated with tasks on Mondays to really pay attention to additional email outreach.
However, this isn’t a hard and fast rule. Campaign Monitor found that Monday has the highest open rates, followed by Tuesday and Thursday. However, Tuesday’s emails have the highest click-through rate, and click-to-open rate, making Tuesday a better option if you want more than a quick browse.
By Friday, they’re more focused on the upcoming weekend than on your marketing email. And on the weekend, they’re too busy living life to pay much attention to work-based emails.
Overall, Tuesdays through Thursdays seem to have a 10-20% higher open rate from Mondays and Fridays, and about a 250% higher open rate compared to Saturdays and Sundays.
Email newsletters are slightly different from other marketing emails as they are designed to keep your audience up-to-date on the latest news, events, products, and sales from your company.
Similar to the broader category of overall marketing emails, newsletters get the best open rates Tuesdays through Thursdays.
However, if your company is a lifestyle brand, sports-based, or otherwise something related to downtime, Fridays and weekends may not be a bad choice. After all, people want to follow their favorite events, news, and hobbies when they’re away from work.
In any case, it’s best to send emails up to once per week, or as infrequently as once per month. More than that can turn people away, while less than that can cause your brand message to lose momentum with your audience. If you’re unsure which exact day is best for your brand, try sending emails on each day with the highest open rates, then tracking results to duplicate from there.
What time of day is best to send an email newsletter?
The times of day that are recommended to send an email newsletter depend on which day the e-newsletter is being sent. We say Tuesdays through Thursdays are the best days to send one. Of those days, here are the best times of day to send an email newsletter:
Tuesday between 9 AM and 10 AM,
Wednesday between 6 AM and 8 PM,
and Thursday between 8 AM and 9 AM.
Best Times to Send Marketing Emails
Of course, choosing which day to send your marketing emails and newsletters only gets you half of the way. You also need to figure out the best times of day to get your message across.
“The best-performing hours are usually somewhere in the early morning. The global results show that this can be as early as 4 a.m.”
Michael Leszcynski, Head of Content Marketing at GetResponse
It turns out that as a general rule, sending emails to people during transition times in their day gives you the greatest chance to optimize open rates. People often use their spare moments of transition to check their phones and messages.
If your email happens to show up right when they’re taking a break, getting to work, or heading out for the day, you have a good chance of piquing their curiosity.
To help you more specifically match your email marketing times to your choice of day, here are the best transition times to reach people, by day of the week.
Best Time to Send Marketing Emails on Monday
Mondays are a bit tricky since people often spend much of their morning simply going through all the tasks that piled up from the previous week (and even over the weekend) which require their immediate attention. However, you may be able to reach people right at 8 AM just before they get really moving on their priorities for the day. If they open an email first thing in the morning, even if they get really busy thereafter, they might start thinking about your email offer throughout the day.
Another great time to send your emails is Mondays at 11 AM, because people may need a mental break just before transitioning to lunch. And your email message could provide that mental break for your audience.
Best Time to Send Marketing Emails on Tuesday
The great thing about Tuesdays is that since it is the highest day for email marketing open rates – no matter which study you look at – it’s hard to go wrong with the time of day you choose. By Tuesdays, people are already through all their Monday rush work and have a bit more leisure to select which direction they’d like to go next with their workdays.
Data does indicate, however, that the optimal times to send emails on Tuesdays are 9 AM-10 AM, according to SendinBlue‘s data. Before and after work, people shift their focus to their home and hobbies, and email marketing loses some effect.
Best Time to Send Marketing Emails on Wednesday
Wednesday does appear to break the normal rule of sending emails for the best effect during normal business hours. The reason may be that by the middle of the week, people want a little mental break from work, and are therefore more likely to look into a new offer. In any case, Wednesday emails work well as early as 6 AM, all the way to 8 PM.
Best Time to Send Marketing Emails on Thursday
For Thursday, the best time of day to send is between 8 AM – 9 AM. This data is directly from Wordstream’s data collection. During Thursday mornings, their email open rate is almost at 25% (which is pretty decent for general marketing emails).
Best Time to Send Marketing Emails on Friday
If your company is a lifestyle brand, you could certainly see success with an email campaign right at 5 PM, as people are transitioning out of work into their weekend mode. If your company is not a lifestyle brand, you may consider trying to reach people right at the start of their day, or even earlier- between 4 AM to 7 AM.
Best Time to Send Marketing Emails on Saturdays and Sundays
Saturdays and Sundays are a lot like Fridays when it comes to email open rates and trends – but more so. People like to “check out” from work on these days, so business-related messages aren’t likely to get checked.
However, as with Fridays, if your company provides something people love to spend time with as a hobby, or event they follow, weekends can be the perfect time for your outreach.
The Overall Best Time and Day to Send Your Marketing Email
Ultimately, the best time to send email newsletters depends on your own research, data collection, and optimization. However, if you need a place to start, the absolute best day and time, statistically, is Tuesdays between 8 AM and 9 AM. At the very worst, you’ll be able to get a baseline open rate for your email marketing campaign, and something to compare future A/B testing against.
Discover Best Day and Time for Your Brand
Email marketing requires diligence and patience. It’s a form of marketing that heavily benefits from tracked results on open rates and click-throughs.
Whichever days and times you start with for your outreach emails, be sure to take notes on your results. That way you can look at trends over time, find opportunities for different days and times to try next, and optimize. Even a small increase in open rates can have a profound impact on your marketing results.
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FAQs
What is the best day of the week to send out an email promotion?
Statistically, the best day of the week to send an email promotion is on Tuesdays between 8 AM and 9 AM.
What is the best time of day to send a marketing email?
The best time of day to send a marketing email on Mondays through Thursdays is between 8 AM and 10 AM. On Fridays, Tailwind suggests scheduling to send your marketing email between 4 AM and 7 AM.
Whether you’re a marketer, entrepreneur, or business owner, email marketing remains an essential modern-day business skill.
But unless you can create and implement a successful email strategy, you’ll be hard-pressed to produce results.
One of the best ways to learn more about digital marketing is through email marketing courses. A good email marketing course will teach you to engage with customers, harness your brand, and increase sales through community building.
That’s why we’ve constructed this list of the best email marketing courses and certifications. No matter your budget, there’s an online course here that can help enhance your email campaign strategy!
HubSpot Academy designs free online courses aimed at digital marketing professionals. Offered through CRM guru HubSpot, the Academy provides a variety of free courses ranging from SEO to email marketing.
HubSpot’s free Email Marketing Certification Course teaches beginner- to intermediate-level digital marketers how to grow through email campaigns. The course contains three hours of content spread across 9 lessons and 28 videos.
Once you’ve completed the course and passed the exam, you can download your free certificate or embed the badge in your website, LinkedIn, or Upwork profile.
Digital marketers can look forward to learning email marketing fundamentals and strategies like:
Understanding email marketing from design to delivery
Developing customer relationships via lead nurturing
Creating a contact management and segmentation strategy
SendinBlue’s online email marketing courses teach beginners how to build a solid email marketing strategy from the ground up. The website advertises its free email marketing courses to beginners and experts alike.
The course covers major aspects of digital marketing to build a solid foundation. Then, it builds on that base to provide marketers with a comprehensive email strategy.
After completing the course, you’ll receive a personal expert certificate to embed online or download for your CV.
Some of the primary points SendinBlue touches on include:
Building lasting engagement and stronger client relationships
Growing and scaling your marketing team
Creating an effective email marketing strategy
Personalizing contact management and segmentation
Optimizing your campaign’s performance
Basic Details
Cost: Free
Certification: Yes, with the exam
Modules: 63 videos and 8 quizzes
Duration: 4 hours
3. ClickMinded Email Marketing Course (Paid)
ClickMinded offers a total of seven online courses, including email marketing, sales funnels, SEO, content marketing, and more. You can purchase each course individually or as a bundle at a steep discount.
While ClickMinded’s prices are steep, all packages include lifetime access and upgrades to keep up with evolving trends.
The ClickMinded email marketing course centers on best practices to successfully manage email marketing and automation. This comprehensive email marketing course is designed for intermediate to expert learners and medium to large businesses.
Taught by Airbnb email strategist Lucas Chevillard, it includes step-by-step instructions, high-level strategies, and in-depth tactical walkthroughs.
Among other skills, ClickMinded’s email marketing package teaches users:
Marketing automation fundamentals
Email copywriting and design basics
How to write better subject lines
Segmentation strategies
How to track crucial metrics
Basic Details
Cost: $997 for lifetime access to the email marketing course; $1,997 for lifetime access to all seven courses
Throughout the course, you’ll learn the basics of email marketing, complete free workbooks, and build a solid foundation.
From there, you can move on to more advanced courses or branch into creating landing pages and mastering marketing automation.
Wishpond’s free masterclass is an excellent place to start for email marketing beginners. This easily navigable website doesn’t bombard you with information, instead starting you off slow so you can learn at your own pace.
Some of the main topics Wishpond’s course covers include:
How to create email marketing funnels and campaigns
5. Email Marketing: Strategy and Optimization – LinkedIn Learning (Paid)
LinkedIn Learning is a membership-style learning library that offers annual or course-specific access. Digital marketers in search of intermediate-level instruction may consider the platform’s Email Marketing: Strategy and Optimization course.
Taught by a content strategist based at the University of California, this course is designed for individuals with a basic foundation who want to take the next step. The class takes an in-depth look at optimization, design, and delivery strategies.
By “graduation,” you should be able to diagnose and re-optimize potential issues in your existing strategy.
Upon course completion, you’ll receive an email marketing certification and a badge for your profile to help you stand out.
Among other topics, the LinkedIn course touches on:
Fitting emails into your broader marketing strategy
Optimizing your emails and campaigns from start to finish
Designing emails and newsletters that target your client base
6. Email Marketing Basics Google Digital Garage (Free)
Google Digital Garage is a nonprofit organization that offers a free online course library for all things digital marketing. You can use the platform to improve skills like email marketing, data analysis, and customer relationships.
Best of all, registering is as easy as logging into your Google account.
The Digital Garage course on email marketing is part of a larger module called “Promote a Business with Online Advertising.” The three-hour course is broken into several modules that cover various advertising topics, including web, Google, and email advertising.
By the end of the course, you’ll have a solid foundation for building a successful email marketing campaign, list segmenting, and using top email marketing tools.
And while there’s no instructor or certificate involved, you can use this free resource to kickstart your knowledge and strategy.
Modules included in the Email Marketing Basics section of the course include:
A basic understanding of email marketing
How to craft great marketing emails
Managing a successful email campaign
How to measure email marketing success
Basic Details
Cost: Free
Certification: No
Modules: 5 lessons
Duration: 30 minutes for email marketing; 3 hours for the full course
7. Reliablesoft Email Marketing Course (Paid)
Reliablesoft offers simple yet comprehensive online email marketing courses to walk you through email marketing from the beginning to end.
From how to avoid common mistakes to how and why email marketing works, Reliablesoft covers a little bit of everything. Due to the platform’s thorough topic coverage, you can receive consistent instruction throughout your email marketing journey.
Reliablesoft’s Email Marketing Courses come as part of the Digital Marketing Course Bundle, which includes ten courses in total. These modules walk you through the intricacies of digital marketing to illustrate how your digital strategies can work together.
Upon completing the course, you’ll receive a digital marketing certification that you can download or add to your online profiles.
The Email Marketing portion of Reliablesoft’s program covers topics like:
Why email is a crucial marketing channel
How to create and grow your subscriber list
Tips to increase email engagement and reduce costs
How to implement effective marketing automation
Basic Details
Cost: Normally $600, but currently $119 (80% off)
Certification: Yes, with the exam
Modules: 10 courses with 75 lessons
Duration: 20+ hours
8. YourPrimer Free Email Marketing Course (Free)
YourPrimer is a Google-owned platform that boasts a large library of app-only tech and marketing courses.
This beginner-friendly platform can help you grasp the basics of email marketing and build a solid foundation to build on later. Through its email marketing courses, you can learn everything from how to avoid spam filters to retaining customers and increasing engagement.
Although YourPrimer doesn’t offer certificates, it’s still a great way to gain valuable (and free!) insights into growing your own business. But unlike many other modules, it doesn’t offer video content, making it less effective for highly visual learners.
YourPrimer learners can expect to glean insights like:
Crafting more effective emails
Using A/B email testing to optimize your content
Building an effective marketing team
Best practices to build your subscriber list
Basic Details
Cost: Free
Certification: No
Modules: 8 text-based lessons
Duration: Under 1 hour
9. Mailchimp Email Academy (Free or Paid Based on Mailchimp Plan)
Mailchimp Email Academy is one of the best email marketing courses for learning the basics of email marketing. The Mailchimp Academy is open to anyone with a Mailchimp account (even a free one!) and offers a full breakdown of everything you need to know about email marketing.
Each interactive course is designed to grow your marketing expertise, add a new certificate to your resume, and teach you how to use Mailchimp’s platform. You can earn multiple certificates and master essentials like automation, customer retention, and more.
Depending on the module you select, Mailchimp Academy can teach you:
How to use the Mailchimp platform
How to build websites and email campaigns
How to grow your marketing skills
Marketing best practices
Basic Details
Cost: Free if you’re a member of Mailchimp & Co.
Certification: Yes, with the exam
Modules: Varies based on the lesson you choose
Duration: Self-paced
10. Email List Building Blueprint – AWeber (Free)
AWeber is a popular email marketing software that provides plenty of help in their knowledge base.
AWeber’s online course is perfect for beginners, offering 6 video lessons under 10 minutes apiece. You can also complete homework and worksheet assignments to solidify and apply your knowledge.
Plus, you have access to lesson resources to provide clarity and help you branch into more advanced topics.
Among other finer points, this course teaches you how to:
Conduct audience and target demographic research
Select your sign-up forms
Pick the right email topics
Drive conversions through copy and design strategies
Basic Details
Cost: Free
Certification: No
Modules: 6 video lessons, worksheets, and lesson resources
Duration: 1 hour per lesson
11. Advanced Email Marketing Certification Training – SimpliLearn (Paid)
As the most advanced course on our list, it’s ideal for marketers with experience in the field who want to expand their horizons.
This online course covers advanced marketing strategies and guides users in creating effective ads, building brand awareness, developing long-term content strategies, and more.
Aside from videos and text content, the course offers hands-on projects, practice tests, quizzes, and workbooks.
The site also offers a certification, but unlike other sites, you have to earn it. To become certified, you must complete 85% of the course, score 60% on at least one simulation test, and complete three projects.
SimpliLearn’s email marketing course is also more expensive than any other course on our list. That said, it offers even more advanced options, and every package comes with lifetime access and account support.
This Email Marketing Certification Training includes lessons on:
Advanced email marketing strategies
Driving conversions through actionable subject lines, copy, and CTAs
Optimizing content and design
Automating your digital marketing strategies
Basic Details
Cost: $1,100 for lifetime access and 24/7 assistance
Certification: Yes with 85% course completion, 60% exam pass, and completing 3 projects
Modules: 10 lessons
Duration: 20-30 hours
Key Takeaways
Email marketing is a highly effective form of advertising, communication, and brand building.
From learning robust strategies and advanced techniques to capitalizing on business growth through new email marketing skills, online courses can provide the tools and information you need to excel.
By finding the best email marketing course for your needs and goals, you can better understand why and how email marketing campaigns work.
From there, you can build a comprehensive email marketing funnel that considers how to enhance the customer journey and massively increase sales.
How Do I Choose the Best Email Marketing Course for Me?
The best email marketing course for you depends on your price range, expertise, goals, and target audience. Doing your research before you dive in ensures you’ll select the right course to address your needs, knowledge gaps, and pain points.
With that being said, here are some of the criteria that we would advise considering.
Experience
As we explained in the details above, assess your email marketing skills and needs to help you choose the right course level.
Find a course and a syllable that will challenge what you know and make you learn new things!
Price
The best email marketing courses can vary in price. You can find some free courses, but they may not offer as much value as a paid course.
Free courses are often more general, with fewer actionable takeaways. On the other hand, paid courses usually come with valuable bonuses. Some even have a money-back guarantee!
Duration
Some courses can be completed in as little as 10 hours, while others may take up to 40 hours. The important thing is that you find a course that works with your schedule and that you will complete it!
Certification
If you are starting out and are looking for more credentials – certifications are a good way to solve it. Some advanced ones are also a great addition even to a more experienced resume.
In case you are going for credentials, make sure that you pick a reputable course that has that “ring” to its name.
Syllabus
While this will be tightly related to your experience level (as discussed above), make sure that the course actually teaches what you need to learn. Or at least the amount of less relevant things is smaller than those critically important.
Support
While this is a non-issue on free courses, with paid courses, you should make sure that the support is there to help you.
Ask them a few questions before submitting your credit card. Make sure the course is a good fit for you or ask them about money-back policies.
FAQs
What makes these the best email marketing courses?
The best email marketing courses and certificates are offered by reputable companies with expertise in the field. They offer diverse content, price transparency, and clear goals. They also provide actionable steps you can readily implement in your own strategies.
Is an Email Marketing Certification worth it?
Spending time, money, and effort to further your education and better your future is rarely “not” worth it. Since email marketing remains an effective sales channel, the knowledge behind the certificate is absolutely worth the effort.
Plus, you can present the certification to potential employers or clients to boost your expertise.
Who should take an email marketing course?
Email marketing has only become more essential in our increasingly digital world. Anyone who uses email marketing should consider whether online courses can enhance your strategy and marketing effectiveness.
Each year, marketers question the effectiveness of email marketing. So, is this marketing channel worthy of attention in 2022? We’ll give you a hint; email marketing is stronger than ever!
89% of marketers use it as the primary channel for generating leads, 29% of marketers rate email marketing as the most effective marketing channel, and 93% of B2B marketers use email channels for distributing content. On the other side of the spectrum, 52% of responders said that email is their main communication tool and 72% of customers prefer email for business communication, says Snovio Labs.
Today, it is vital to create a relationship and a connection with the audience and the people that your business benefits from in every industry. No matter what your business model is or what you are working on, you need to have a loyal audience that helps your brand rise and become better known.
Building that connection can happen in many ways, but email marketing is one of the best. Email marketing can create an engaging and growing relationship that provides excellent brand awareness and is profit-increasing.
The key to a great email marketing model is to learn how to use it effectively and make it as personalized as possible.
Sure, there are many benefits to email marketing. Here are just a few of the many we’ve identified as the most important – increase in sales, customer loyalty, and lower marketing costs.
To help you get started in email marketing, we’ve prepared a detailed guide that covers the basics of email marketing, how to get started, and some tips and tricks we’ve learned along the way.
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What Is Email Marketing and Why Is it Important?
First things first, let’s get more details about email marketing. You may think that this marketing method is all about sending a bunch of emails with promotion codes or advertisements that spam your mail, but it is so much more.
Email marketing is a digital marketing strategy, or more specifically, a form of communication between you and your customers. This type of advertising doesn’t only include sending promotional emails. It also builds and maintains a relationship with your most loyal customers and boosts your profits.
It first appeared in 1978, making it a newer form of business promotion. Gary Thuerk was the first to deliver this campaign. He was a marketing manager at Digital Equipment Corp., and his email marketing campaign reached hundreds of people and resulted in $13 million in sales. That’s how he created the most successful and highly used email marketing channel that has remained ever since! See, Thuerk grasped the benefits of email marketing. But how can you turn it to your advantage? How can email marketing help your brand? Let’s dig in.
Step #1: Establish Your Business Goals
Before starting the email marketing process, you should outline your goals. You need to know what you want to achieve with the email.
We recommend you start with your company’s marketing goals and then decide how much of the pie email marketing will need to contribute. We’ve found that to be an excellent benchmark for our email campaigns.
Once you establish your goals, targeting your audience and choosing the type of campaign you’ll deliver will be easier. You will also know which content to include and how to measure your success. At this point, it’s essential to decide what KPIs you will measure to decide whether you’ve been successful.
To really set smart, measurable goals, we recommend looking into the following metrics:
Unique opens – the number of subscribers who opened your email
Bounces – when an email can’t be delivered to the indicated email server, it’s called a bounce
Unopened emails – as the name implies, shows the number of subscribers who didn’t open your mail
Click-through-rate – how many email users who opened your email also clicked on the link
Unsubscribe rate – what percentage of the audience has unsubscribed from your email list
Spam complaints – subscribers who tagged your email as spam
Shares – subscribers who shared your campaign on social media or forwarded it to a friend
For instance, you could set goals on open rates, click-through rates, and shares if you are just beginning with email campaigns. Or, if you are already in the email marketing world, you can aim to reduce unopened emails, unsubscribes, and spam rates.
But the question is, how can you measure these open and click-through rates? More importantly, what are good open rates and CTR for email marketing?
You can calculate your email clickthrough rate (CTR) using a relatively simple formula. Essentially, it’s the number of users who have clicked on the link within the email divided by the number of emails delivered multiplied by 100 to get a percentage.
So, CTR = # of clicks / # of delivered emails.
Say you have sent 100 emails, out of which only five users have clicked the link or the CTA button. Your CTA, in this case, would be 5%. Sure, this is an overly simplistic example, but you get the point.
Keep in mind; that you should be using the number of emails delivered, not emails sent because of bounce rates. The bounce rates are the email marketers’ number one enemy, and due to this fact, emails have 100% deliverability only in the perfect world.
At this point, you can narrow your calculation even more by using CTOR instead of CTR. CTOR, or click-to-open rate, measures how many people who opened your email clicked on the link. So, in this case, you would divide by the number of emails opened, not the ones delivered (all subscribers).
So, CTOR = # of clicks / # of opened emails.
Therefore, CTOR measures the performance of your email content. It focuses on the degree of effectiveness of your content – does it convince people to click on a link? Furthermore, it eliminates the effect of unopened emails in your calculation, thus separating the strength of your email content from the impact of your email list “hygiene,” subject line, and other factors.
If, however, you want to measure the effectiveness of your subject line, you should calculate your email open rate. Referring to the previous example, if you send out 100 emails and 10 of them bounce, you would have 90 delivered emails. If out of these, 45 are opened, your open rate is 45/90 = 0.5. Multiplying that by 100 gives you an email open rate of 50%.
So, open rate = # of opened emails / # of delivered emails.
CTR falls somewhere in between. It works as a general metric, allowing for a high-level view of your emails’ performance. Still, if you strive toward a more detailed and actionable analysis, you should focus on open rate and CTOR.
Logically, a high CTR means that users find your content appealing and relevant. A high CTR can also contribute to your keyword’s expected CTR, which is a component of Ad Rank. Furthermore, the click-through rate can demonstrate which content works for you and which one you need to improve.
However, both CTR and CTOR vary based on your company size, industry, country, type of email, list hygiene, and so many more factors. Lots of information point out different numbers on what is considered a good or even average CTR. Still, a generally accepted average email CTR falls anywhere between 1% and 5%, while a good CTR is anything above 3%.
Naturally, the CTOR is much higher than the CTR. According to experts, you should aim for a CTOR of 20-30% for promotional campaigns.
As mentioned, your industry significantly affects these rates. If your business falls within the gambling, games, daily deals/e-coupons, media, and publishing, you can expect much higher CTR and CTOR. On the other hand, construction, real estate, restaurant, public relations, and politics perform much more poorly in this regard.
Next, a good CTR depends highly on what you’re advertising and which networks. More importantly, email types significantly affect click-through rates.
Triggered and autoresponder emails have the best open rates, CTR and CTOR. They are immediately relevant to the subscriber; thus, they have higher click-through and open rates. Newsletter emails and promotional blasts have the lowest open, CTR, and CTOR rates. You can spot big differences in email performance between these three types of emails.
The key to success in this regard is to set your own email marketing benchmarks. You don’t have to stress or focus on finding the average rate or achieving a good CTR. What’s good for one company or the overall industry might not work for you.
First, you need to outline where you are now and what you aim to achieve. Once you measure your current email campaign performance, you should start from there and try to improve.
You will need to track your average CTOR for each type of email separately, including autoresponders, triggered emails, promotional campaigns, newsletters, and abandoned cart emails.
Then, based on CTOR, CTR, deliverability, unsubscribe rate, and open rate, you would be able to identify the best and worst-performing email marketing campaigns. In turn, you will determine what are “good” rates for your business and improve these metrics.
It’s fairly easy to turn these goals into ROI (return on investment) goals. Once you’re gathering subscribers and getting good click-through rates, you can start seeing how many of them are making purchases and what their average purchase value is. Hopefully, this gives you some ideas for the types of goals you can set for your email campaigns.
Quick Tip – How to Reduce Your Email Campaign’s Bounce Rates
As an email marketer, you will face two types of bounces, soft and hard.
Soft bounces indicate a temporary problem with the email address or the recipient’s email server. For instance, if the recipient’s mailbox is full, your message could bounce, even if the email address is valid.
The more “serious” issue is the hard bounce. Hard bounces mean that the recipient’s mail server rejects your email, meaning that either the email address is invalid or the domain name doesn’t exist.
Many reasons can cause this issue for your email marketing campaign, but the two most common are that would-be subscribers gave you fake email addresses or have many unengaged contacts. The second primarily occurs if you haven’t cleaned your email list regularly.
Fortunately, you can use one of a few solutions to lower your bounce rate.
You can add a captcha to your forms to ensure that only real people give you their emails. Next, you can use a double opt-in, requiring new subscribers to verify their email address, thus preventing them from giving you a fake one. And finally, you can practice what’s known as good email hygiene, regularly deleting inactive email subscribers. With the third solution, you would keep your remaining list engaged with consistent, high-quality campaigns.
Step #2: Define Your Audience
The second step is to identify your ideal audience. Your target audience includes the individuals to whom the campaign is aimed; it is the target demographic for each marketing effort. Based on each targeted email campaign you send, these people are most likely to convert.
Nowadays, you can find all age groups and audiences on the internet. Because of this, you need to decide what kind of audience will be interested in what you’re providing. This step is essential because when you establish your goals and target your audience, you will know who is relevant to your campaign. It’s imperative to ensure each of your campaigns is directed toward the correct target audience.
If your brand is focused on maternity fashion, let’s say, your platform will probably be followed primarily by women between the ages of 21 and 40, so advertising to women in their 60s or young men may not be a good use of your email budget and time.
The thing is, your whole contact list will not be interested in all of the emails you want to send at all times. So, you must ensure targeted emails to the right audience, serving each subscriber’s needs and interests.
But the question is, how can you find the appropriate audience, or this segment of your list, including individuals who are pleased with the emails they’re receiving?
The success formula for defining your target audience is proper segmentation. And you can achieve this in more than one way.
First, you can begin with the list segments at signup, meaning you can sort new subscribers from the sole beginning using the data fields on your signup form.
For instance, you can segment your list by demographic, including gender, age, and location. Still, make sure you don’t turn off potential email subscribers from completing your form with lengthy forms or sensitive information. Next, you can build your segmented target audience using the subscribers’ type of industry, company size, or any other wide range of data.
The following two suggestions refer to businesses with existing email marketing campaigns.
Second, you can use engagement to segment your sending email list. You need to find the subscribers who interact most often with your effective emails. Essentially, these people boost your open rates, as explained earlier, and even tend to click on links, improving CTR and CTOR. Your active subscribers are incredibly handy when you aim to get customer feedback with a poll or survey or if you want to create a loyalty program.
However, you can also create and target the inactive subscribers’ segment. For instance, you can use a re-engagement campaign to bring these people back into the fold. Then, you would be able to clean the list, keeping only the active subscribers, which once again affects your email marketing campaign success.
Third, you can create a target audience segment using your customers’ purchase history, including their previously purchased goods or services. Then, you would be able to target that audience with an automated email campaign directed towards their interests.
Other methods you can use for segmenting your email list to maximize ROI include survey results, sending frequency, geolocation, weather patterns, purchase cycles, and so on.
Keep in mind; it isn’t only necessary to cover everyone’s interests when starting email marketing. Your company should also pay attention to the subscribed audience and try to keep them engaged. By targeting the right audience, you will easily attract more audiences, which will improve your sales, and at the same time, your whole email marketing process.
Step #3: Build Your Email List
After establishing and targeting the right audience, you can move on to the 3rd step, which is building your email marketing list. This is how you get all of those glorious customers and potential customer emails to start off your campaign!
There are a few methods for building your email marketing list, and the established goals determine each of these methods.
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Method 1: Import a List of Current Subscribers/Opted-in Customers
The first method of building your list is by importing a list of known contacts. This method can be used if you want to keep in touch with your already subscribed customers. When importing your list of known contacts, the most important thing is to ensure you have permission to email those subscribers.
This audience is best for sending referral codes, future purchase coupons, and new product lines.
Method 2: Build Your Email Marketing List from Scratch
The list of emails is the first thing you need as a marketer to start with your email marketing campaign. And as the name implies, this method focuses on collecting email addresses from an audience you’ve never communicated with before.
Usually, the list of emails consists of people who have permitted you to send them emails. However, these are usually the people who have subscribed. Therefore, many people refer to the email list as the subscribers’ list.
Nowadays, you can obtain an email list relevant to your brand in several authentic ways:
Forms – you can distribute forms to your customers, asking for information, including the email addresses
Ask For The Email Addresses – as straightforward as possible; you can ask people across forums or platforms to add them to your mailing list (to provide you their email addresses)
Lead Generation Offers – add a lead magnet, such as a CTA button on your website or social media page in the form of SUBSCRIBE NOW
Offer A Freebie In Return – you can offer followers/customers/visitors to sign up in exchange for a free good/service. However, be careful with the wording, as not to attract the wrong audience (different target or inactive subscribers)
Details From Contests – You can organize a competition or a giveaway and ask for the details of each competitor, including email addresses
Give Your Audience Free Bonus Content – you can get the attention of your viewers with creative and engaging content, motivating them to sign up or follow your content. Several good examples include live social media training, free infographics, blog content, eBooks and training, newsletters, etc.
A Signup Button To Your Business Page – a simple and easy button in the form of ‘click here to sign up’ will attract new followers or subscribers to your list.
Offer Subscriptions On Your Blog – you can ask each blog visitor to provide their email address as soon as they visit your blog page or include the option at the end of articles.
Feedback, Testimonials, Reviews – when you ask customers, and they get a say in the overall experience, they feel appreciated and are more than willing to provide you with their email addresses.
Create A Funnel – an email funnel will give you great insight into all potential customers and conversions. With this information on hand, you can easily pitch strategies to potential customers to turn them into loyal buyers. Your good reputation or word of mouth for your brand and product will ultimately increase your mailing list.
Create A Newsletter – you can design a creative newsletter for your brand, including an option to sign up or subscribe to all the people who read it to add to your mailing list.
Remember that you can use many more strategies in this regard. The worst thing you can do is buy the email list. You will invest a lot of money into something that would not benefit you, especially in the long term. Thus, acquiring this list authentically is always the better alternative.
Method 3: Generate Subscribers from Your Website or Social Profile
Nowadays, many businesses use their websites and social media profiles to generate subscribers. You already read several such suggestions in the previous section, and here’s a more detailed overview of the types of subscriptions you can add to your site.
The first type of subscription you’ll use can be a header bar. The header bar appears on the top of your website. It comes with a CTA that encourages people to join and a place where to put your email address. Those email addresses are directly added to your email marketing list.
Next, you can use a slider. The slider is a small box that literally slides into the bottom corner of your website. It comes with a CTA and a gap where the audience can put their email address. This type of subscription is also a simple way to create a new audience and send them your email campaigns.
The top of the sidebar can also be used for gaining an audience. If your website has a sidebar, then you have the perfect place to locate your CTA. The opt-in for your subscriber list should be above the fold of the sidebar, as it can have maximum visibility. The right-aligned sidebar was the most effective for the users who scan the content in the ‘F’ pattern, as it puts your CTA in the center of your site.
Another way to capture customers is to put your CTA at the end of some posts. The opt-ins at the end of the post are a great place to gain an audience as that means they’ve read the whole article and they enjoyed it. Brands rarely put CTA at the end of the article, so you’ll definitely see an improvement in gaining a new audience for your email marketing campaigns.
Going on, you can use popup notifications. Nowadays, email marketers use many different types of popup notifications, including lightbox popup, modal/dialogue box, slide-in popup, fullscreen welcome mat, floating bar, social proof notifications, and push notifications.
Lightboxes are pretty widespread. These are the pop-ups on the screens on some websites. As you might think they’re annoying, studies have shown effectiveness.
For the lightboxes to be effective, you need to have a strong CTA, the right value offer, and the right timing. The timing might be one of the most important things to take care of when it comes to lightboxes. The pop-up opt-ins that show after 3/5 of the article have been read or when the customer finishes reading are more effective than those who show up in the middle of reading. Don’t be afraid to experiment with the timing and the message of the lightboxes because you never know what will attract the most subscriptions.
Push notifications are also pretty unique. Unlike other popups that require users to be actively visiting your website, the push notifications might appear on your user’s desktop or mobile screen even if your users aren’t on your site. All you need is the user’s permission to send them push notifications. Then, you can send them these popup messages for all types of content, including promotional and transactional.
These clickable pop-up messages will appear on your users’ browsers regardless of their device or browser. So, the subscribers can be anywhere on the browser and still receive these messages as long as they’re online or have their browsers running on their devices.
Quick Tip – How to Get More Subscribers to Your Email List
Besides all the types of subscriptions, your email marketing should also provide incentives that draw people to join your email list. Depending on the goals your brand has, there are three different incentives.
Good Content
If your page provides compelling content, meaning you produce some kind of content on your page or have a blog, you’ll gain a lot of subscribers by sending your best page content via email.
Offer a Discount on 1st Order in Your Email
If you have an online store and sell some goods, then offering a discount on the first order will capture your customer’s attention and collect new subscribers. This incentive also encourages people to make a purchase.
Offer Free Shipping to Subscribers
Lastly, by offering free shipping, lots of customers will want to subscribe to your emails, and they will most likely make a purchase.
By keeping in mind all these tips and methods of subscription, you should be able to create a simple and accessible offer that will result in gaining a new audience for your email marketing!
Step #4: Decide What Type of Email Campaign to Use
There are many different types of email campaigns, and now that you have your goals and your audience, you can set the type of campaigns very easily! Let’s get into all of the different types and break them down.
Newsletters
The newsletter is a frequent email campaign that can take a printed or electronic form. It’s a report that contains your activities, and you can send it to your members, customers, employees, or other subscribers to keep in touch or remind them of your business/brand. Email newsletters usually address a single main topic of interest to their recipients.
The newsletter promotes a product or service and creates an individual touchpoint with your email subscribers. You can use this email campaign to achieve different objectives, such as improving your open and click-through rates, gaining new subscribers, or creating your best email yet in terms of conversions.
Big brands like Trello send these newsletters regularly. This type of campaign is sent monthly, and it usually consists of stories and photographs. As we mentioned, the newsletters maintain your relationship with your customers and constantly remind them of what your business offers.
Marketing Offers
A marketing offer’s goal is a particular response. It generally offers different promotions or discounts.
Promotion campaigns are usually focused on one product that the customers can buy at a special price, and it has a direct call to make a purchase.
The marketing offer is much more general. Think Black Friday sales or special promos for email subscribers. It’s a great way to generate sales site-wide.
Announcements
Announcements are a type of email campaign that keeps the customers up to date with their latest services, features, or products.
If you want to have a successful email marketing campaign, it is crucial to have a well-organized schedule. To achieve this, you have to find the perfect time of the day to send your emails to your customers. The best time is the transition period of the day, such as before you go to bed, after you come home, when you go to work, etc. However, we’ll get more in-depth into this step.
Many studies show that Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday are the best days to send marketing emails. You might wonder why exactly these days. People on Monday are too focused on their tasks and rarely pay attention to their emails. On Friday, everyone is looking forward to the weekend, and when the weekend comes, they live their own lives and don’t pay that much attention to their work-based emails.
GetResponse’s study has also shown that the open rate from Tuesdays to Thursdays is higher by 10-20% compared to Monday and Friday, and even about 250% higher than on the weekends. However, this doesn’t mean that you can’t send your email marketing emails during the other days of the week.
Now, most email marketers agree that the weekends are the worst time of the week to send out emails. However, if you look at things from another perspective, the opposite might be true. You will face less competition in the inbox during weekends because fewer emails are sent on Friday and weekends. So, you will have better chances of your email being opened and seen. Another thing is if you send emails on Friday, you can pick them up at home and use at the weekend too. Still, this would be at least a bit offset by lower open rates suggesting that people are perhaps less engaged at the weekend.
Keep in mind that the best day of the week to send out emails highly depends on the audience you are serving. For instance, if you are within the beauty, fashion, or social-focused brands industries, weekends might be the better alternative for you, after all.
The available research on the best day to send emails seems to be centered around three primary audiences, determining your “best day” for email campaigns:
Entrepreneurs/workaholics check their emails during weekends. The weekends may yield higher open and click-through rates than other days of the week.
Normal people (working 9-5, not frequently checking email at home) produce the highest open and click-through rates mid-week (Tuesday and Thursday).
Consumers (people who don’t compulsively check their email or sit in front of a computer Mon-Fri) mostly engage with emails on Saturday, followed by Tuesday.
Still, as with other statistics, these are generalizations derived from the data. There are segments within each segment, causing individual behavior to vary.
Furthermore, if you decide to send an email on Monday, Friday, or during the weekend, you should pay attention to the time of the day. We’re trying to say that, as we mentioned earlier, you should send your email during the transition period of the day.
In our guide, we’ll stick to the overall best day to send an email, which is Tuesday. Due to many types of research and statistics, Tuesday seems like the perfect day to get the audience’s attention. But, it doesn’t mean that you’ll notice a significant audience gain if you send your marketing email at any time of the day. Although Tuesday is the optimum day, there is also a time range that shows as the most compatible. Remember that you should do that between 8 AM and 9 AM if you send your emails on Tuesday.
Having the perfect schedule is pretty important as you start off your email campaign. You may find that you want to test out other times or days, and we recommend it! Just be sure to keep track of performance and see if one day or time works best for you and your brand. Even the most minor changes in the open rates can significantly impact your email marketing process.
The email marketing process is definitely a process of learning. After establishing your goals, selecting the type of campaign you want to send, gaining some audience, and setting up your schedule, the next step is to actually build your campaign.
First of all, your campaign should be easy to read. It is proven that adults have an attention span of eight seconds. In these eight seconds, it’s impossible to read the whole article thoroughly, so that’s why you should structure your emails to guide people to your CTA.
So, if you believe that people will read your campaign word for word, you are probably wrong. They are more likely to quickly scan over them, so you must deliberately structure your campaigns to draw in these scanning readers and focus their attention on the key elements of your campaign.
One such frequently used method is the inverted pyramid model. It can help you achieve this objective. The inverted pyramid is a framework for structuring the elements of your email campaigns, including headers, imagery, buttons, etc. In turn, these elements will work together to draw people in, deliver the key messages of your campaign, and get them to click through.
If you were to implement the inverted pyramid model, you need to start your email with a succinct headline that highlights the key message of the campaign, known as the value proposition. Then, you can present supporting information and imagery to help convince readers of the benefits of clicking-through. You can wrap up the email with a prominent call-to-action button that makes it crystal clear what they should do next.
Tailwind actually makes this part easy! You can build out hundreds of images for your social campaigns that can be reused in emails with just a few clicks. Try it out for free!
Remember that marketing emails don’t need to be formal. You can freely write some phrases as you’re writing to your friend. This technique captures the reader’s attention. It’s also a great opportunity to really show your brand voice in the tone and formality of your writing. Test out creating a branding document so that all of your emails sound like the same person wrote them. Start off with an attention-grabbing subject line and go from there.
We’ve come to the final step in this long journey about how to start email marketing. Once you send your email and it has been opened, you can track the campaign’s success. We recommend tracking with an email marketing tool or website analytics tool.
By measuring the campaign results, you can see what goes wrong (or right) and improve and iterate. Measuring provides more key metrics. If you recall the key metrics we shared above (see establishing goals). Now you can take that info and turn it into the next steps.
If you have a high open-rate but a low CTR, consider improving the content and making the CTA more exciting. Vice versa; if you have a high CTR and a low open rate, you might need to spice up the subject line. These are the types of metrics to consider as you reiterate your strategy.
Once you’ve measured your campaigns, you can make more informed decisions moving forward on how to optimize them for the best ROI.
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Email Marketing Tips
The email marketing process can definitely become draining, especially if you are new to it. This process takes a lot of time and great organization so that you can provide powerful campaigns to your customers. To help you out, here are five simple but very essential tips that will help you improve your campaign performance.
Make Your Emails Easy to Read
Your customers are busy, and they get hundreds of emails every day. That’s why your emails need to be structured in a simple way to be read and processed quickly. We recommend reading your emails and sharing them with colleagues. Ask yourself, “would this make me stop and click”? “Is there something here that I’d find valuable”?
Make it More Visually Appealing With Images and Graphics
We talked about this earlier, but when creating your email marketing campaign, it is important to put more images and visual effects into it, as they capture the readers’ attention and stay in their minds much longer than text.
This is especially relevant if you are a business that sells goods like clothing or jewelry, or if you are a recipe blogger. We all love to see images from a new product line or delicious images of your newest recipe!
Personalize Your Campaign
No one wants to be addressed as a ‘loyal customer.’ Due to this, it would help if you wrote your customer’s name a few times through the mail. You can also feature products that you know they’ve clicked on or put in their carts to show them some personalization.
Reuse What You Already Have
You likely already have established social media campaigns with excellent content. That is great! You can easily repurpose your social media content in email campaigns. That is a great way to kickstart your first email campaign. We recommend you start with repurposing social content that’s performed well in the past, as that will likely be the best content to start with.
Wrapping it Up
We started off our guide by explaining what email marketing is and why it is essential. We also explained the benefits of email marketing, such as improving sales, generating traffic, increasing leads, and saving money. Hopefully, this helps you see the value of email marketing to your business marketing strategy.
The second part of our guide is about starting email marketing, its seven steps, and the four crucial tips to success. The first thing you need to do to start your email marketing is to establish your goals. Next, define your audience, build your email list, and decide what type of email campaign you’ll use. The fifth step is to make a schedule; followed by creating your own campaign and measuring your results.
These seven steps will help you start with email marketing, and by following that process and our tips, you are on track to build out a great email marketing strategy. If you doubt whether to start email marketing, we recommend it. Our guide will help you through your journey!
How do I build a long-term email marketing strategy?
When you are looking to make email marketing a part of your long-term marketing and business goals there are a few things to keep in mind to build that long-term success.
1. Be consistent. Most of your audience will not want to be constantly bombarded with emails. However, keeping a consistent schedule of when your emails will go out will help to build that long-term success you want. Your subscribers will learn to expect your valuable content and new subscribers can be delighted with welcome emails and offers.
2. Have a plan, but be flexible! As we discussed earlier it is important to spend a lot of time upfront on creating a marketing plan for your emails. However, remember that everything will not always go as planned. If you aren’t growing your list the way you want, it may be time to go back and rework segments of your strategy. If you’re experiencing a technical error (they happen to the best of us!) Being able to act quickly and not panic is key to resolving the issue.
3. Use email marketing in harmony with your other marketing plans. Most businesses need to be visible across multiple platforms in order to be successful and reach their target audience. Use your email marketing in a harmonious way with your other channels. This can look like making sure messaging is consistent with branding, including links, images, and references to social media, deals, or more.
Where can I find potential clients for email marketing?
Potential subscribers to your email list can come from many sources. This is why it is important to keep your email marketing consistent alongside your other channels, such as social media. Potential areas your subscribers can come from include:
– New sales on your site or new visitors looking to receive a deal, like free shipping. – Links from your other channels. Navigating potential subscribers from your social media is a great way to entice them to sign up.
Can I earn sales through email marketing?
Definitely! Email marketing is one of the best bang-for-your-buck strategies available in digital marketing! If you have an effective email marketing strategy, it is one of the best ways to get new sales from a special offer, and repeat customers with a new promotion!
Is Email Marketing still effective?
Yes! Email marketing is one of the best tools in your marketing tool belt when it comes to maintaining an authentic relationship with your audience, offering value, and creating new sales for your business!
Have you sent 100 emails, and the response is total silence? The problem might not be just the offer – you may be going right into the spam folder!
If you’re noticing that your emails are getting caught in spam filters more often than not, this post is exactly what you need!
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What Are Spam Filters?
Every email message you send to somebody is reviewed by a spam filter, and the email (along with the sender) receives an email spam score.
This filter checks the email against a set of known spam characteristics, and if it meets several criteria and the spam score is high, it is marked as spam and moved into the junk folder.
We can put spam filters into two main groups:
Server-side filters – those installed on your hosting, for example, spam messages filter on Outlook.
Client-side filters – filters that are right in your email client like Gmail, Yahoo mail, etc.
But no matter which type of filter your recipient is using, the way how they analyze and deal with incoming emails is pretty much the same.
So, in order for our prospects to receive our emails in their inboxes, we need to focus on so-called email deliverability.
What Is Email Deliverability?
Email deliverability is a term used to describe how many of your emails are actually delivered to the recipient and not trashed and moved to the junk folder.
Established domains will have a high level of deliverability and vice-versa. For example, emails that we in Tailwind send are likely to have nearly 100% deliverability. But to get to that point, we had to optimize!
On the other hand, low authority domains, when they start blasting emails like there is no tomorrow – will soon see all their messages being moved to the spam folder.
Email deliverability may increase or decline with time. Here are some of the few signals that will either help or kill your deliverability.
Positive signals
The recipient opens your emails.
The recipient is saving your emails into folders.
The recipient whitelists your address.
Negative signals
The email was deleted without reading.
The email was marked as spam (duh!)
There are several ways to improve the chances of your emails going right into the recipient’s inbox each and every time – Let’s have a look at them!
Content Tips For Avoiding Spam Filters
First, let’s focus on the actual text that is used in the email. This is when we will see most of the mistakes happening.
These mistakes compound over time and can push your domain into the “spam zone”. We need to make sure that you do not do them.
Spam Keywords
You can send your email straight to the spam folder just by using the wrong keywords.
“Gambling,” “Casino,” and “$$$” are quite obvious spam triggers. But what about “cents on the dollar,” “one hundred percent free,” or “pure profit” – we guess that you would use those with no hesitations.
Spam keywords are not the deciding factor in email deliverability, but it is one of the main ones, particularly when the email is full of them.
Hubspot had created a list of over 300 spam keywords. As you can see, there are many that we would use in our normal communication.
So if you feel that you are hitting too many junk folders, consider checking your copy against this list.
Too Many Links
Keep the number of hyperlinks in your email to a minimum. If possible – don’t use any.
But, you need to get that CTA in somehow, right? Well, at least try to keep the link count under 3.
Having many links in the body of your message will make it look more like a spam email, and you want to avoid that.
Also, track email opens but try to avoid tracking link clicks. While this is not a major concern, spam filters do not like link redirects – and that is exactly what click tracking is. Rather use a refID to track the engagement on your campaigns.
Too Many Images
Keep the email minimalistic. Some email clients will block images in emails by default. This can present a big problem if your email relies on visuals to get its message across (we see you, infographic lovers).
Emails with images are also bigger (in terms of kb size), which is another concern for spam filters.
When you are a big brand, you can’t get away with a two-sentence email. Still, shorter and less flashy emails are less likely to be caught in spam filters.
Wall Of Text
If you send an email that looks like a giant wall of text, chances are it will get caught in the spam filter or increase your spam score.
To avoid this problem, break up your text into smaller paragraphs with 2-3 sentences each. This will improve the user experience and also increase your chances of getting into the Inbox, so a user can actually have a chance to read your message.
Heavy Attachments
Another “no-no” is sending emails with attachments, and heavy attachments are out of the question completely.
Many viruses and trojans are spread by sending attachments that are infected. Spam filters are trying to prevent this, so sometimes, even the *.pdf can get caught.
Zip files are also a high non-delivery risk. The thing is that various perpetrators are trying to hide infected files in a zip archive, hoping that the firewall and email spam filter will not find them. To ensure that no harm is done, a spam filter will kill it.
Need to send a presentation? Upload it to cloud storage and link to it in your email.
Unfamiliar “From” Name
If you’re emailing from a new address or an address that’s not well-known, your message is more likely to get blocked.
But not only that. If the recipient is used to “From: Steven” and suddenly there is “From: DigitalCorp” they will not open the email – which is another signal for the spam filter to decrease your domain reputation.
Spammy Subject Line
A spammy subject line is one that looks like it’s trying to sell something or get you to click on a link.
Phrases like “Get rich quick!” or “Open to win a free iPad!” are examples of spammy subject lines and have a high probability of not reaching the subscribers’ inboxes.
To avoid having your email marked as a spam message, keep your email subject line short, clean of spammy phrases, and closely related to the content.
Domain Authority Tips To Avoid Spam Filters
We had a look at the best in-message practices. Now let’s see what you can do on the technical level to make sure that your domain authority remains high!
Warm Up The Domain
If your domain is brand new, do not blast 50 emails in one day. You will get blacklisted. Start with a low volume, like ten emails/day, and then scale up the number gradually.
Moreover, make sure that you do not have sudden spikes in outgoing email volume – this is usually a sign of malicious behavior to spam filters.
After roughly a month of 10-20 emails per day, you can increase weekly by five emails a day.
Try not to go over 40 emails per day if you are doing cold outreach, particularly if your domain is still quite new.
Consider Using a Subdomain
To prevent any damage to your main domain, consider using a subdomain for your emails. If your emails get blacklisted, only the subdomain will be affected.
For example, you could use something like “newsletter.example.com” or “email.example.com” as your subdomain.
Use a Good Email Service Provider (ESP)
A good email marketing service will have built-in features to help you avoid being marked as spam, including:
A good IP address reputation.
IP warming (the process of gradually increasing the volume of email sent from a new IP address).
Automatic removal of bounced addresses.
The ability to clean your email list from potential spam traps and bad emails.
So in case you are not planning to run your own email servers, just pick one of the popular email marketing platforms, and you are good to go!
For example, our product team spent months rigorously researching the CAN-SPAM Act and building its guidelines directly into our Tailwind email marketing tool, so our users don’t have to worry about looking up and memorizing federal guidelines, and can instead focus on writing fantastic email content!
Keep A Schedule
Make your email campaigns predictable. Do not send a lot of emails in a short period of time and then go dark for months. This will make it harder for ISPs to trust you. So, establish a schedule and stick to it.
Sure, you can send an unexpected email here and there. But keep your email campaigns structured and send at the best times for the highest open rates and engagements.
Do not “Spam”
What we mean is – do not send too many emails! Being too hasty and aggressive with your email marketing campaigns can lead to two problems.
The first one is user experience. One email every 3-5 days can be ok (depending on the way how your emal list was built), but anything more frequent than that will get on your recipient’s nerves, and they will unsubscribe, delete or just mark all your messages as spam emails.
That adds to the second problem, which is deliverability. When you start emailing too frequently, some ESPs (email service providers) might think that your behavior looks like a bot and could block or suspend your account.
Combined with negative signals from the recipients, your domain will be spam-marked in no time, and the overall email deliverability will decrease.
Keep Your Bounce Rate Low
Your bounce rate is one of the most important factors of a successful email campaign.
A high bounce rate means that your messages are not delivered to the recipients, that their inboxes are full, or (the worst of them all) that the email address does not exist. The last reason is also referred to as hard-bounce.
If you get too many hard-bounced emails, you are sure to quickly lose your authority, and it could potentially lead to your IP address being blacklisted.
Sending many emails to addresses that do not exist is an email spam bot behavior. Here is how to avoid that:
Ensure you are working with quality leads and not a bought email list that may have a spam trap in it.
Consider deleting inactive leads if they did not engage for a longer period of time (or segment them into a list that you will reach out to just every now and then).
If you built a list in any other way than through opt-ins on your site, use a list cleaner – to make sure that there are only real emails.
Segment Your Lists
Group your leads based on the way you acquired them and their behavior.
Prospects who joined the list through a lead magnet should be treated differently than those who you scraped from LinkedIn profiles.
Next, segmentation should happen based on the behavior. If you have a list of subscribers and some of them never open your emails, you can segment those into a “low engagement” group.
You can then send different types of content or even stop emailing the low-engagement group altogether.
Catering to the needs of each individual group will increase engagement and lower the risks of any negative signals. As a result, adding a bit more towards your domain reputation.
User Experience Tips To Avoid Spam Filter
With the tech matters behind us, let’s focus on the UX that you should apply in your email campaigns.
Make Unsubscribing Easy
You do not want prospects who are not interested in your email to stay on your list. That will only hurt your deliverability.
Make it easy for them to unsubscribe. The process should be a matter of one click and the unsubscribe button should be clearly visible.
If the recipient wants to get out and can’t quickly find the unsubscribe link – the chances of them sending the email into spam increase significantly.
Don’t Use a Noreply Email Address
A “no-reply” email address is an email address that does not accept incoming messages.
It’s used by companies as a way to send out automated emails without having to worry about replies (hence the name).
The problem is that many email providers will see an email coming from a no-reply address as suspicious. It looks like you’re trying to hide something and that raises a red flag.
To avoid this, use a regular email address that recipients can reply to if they want.
Include Contact Information
In the signature of your email, include your name, contact information, and physical mailing address.
It makes your email feel more personal and gives the recipient a way to get in touch with you if they want to.
Also, it is in line with CAN-SPAM ACT requirements.
Key Takeaways and FAQ
You have to build your email reputation.
If you are working with a new domain, warm it up by sending just a few emails per day for a period of 1-2 months.
Keep your emails short, and clean, and use natural language.
Segment your list based on the origin of the emails and their engagement.
Clean your list to retain high engagement rates and decrease soft and hard bounces.
What is sender accreditation?
Sender accreditation is a process by which an email sender can demonstrate to ISPs that they are a legitimate sender of an email. This is usually done through an SPF record or DKIM signature.
How do I stop hitting spam filters?
Focus on the content of your email, domain authority, and user experience (as advised in this guide!) It may take a bit of testing, but you will see improvements!
What triggers spam filters?
Particular keywords, too many emails sent in a short period of time, attachments, a lot of links, and a few other factors are the most common triggers for spam filters.
Why are my email campaigns going to spam?
There could be a number of reasons. Use of spam filter-triggering keywords, sending too many emails and a bad sender reputation are just a few of them!
How can I improve my email deliverability?
Focus on the content of your email. That is an area where we see email marketers make the most mistakes- and this guide from Tailwind can help!
What email has the best spam filter?
Hard to choose just one, but we would have to go with Gmail. The filter and sorting are great, but once in a while, it spam marks even a normal email. This is fairly rare, though!
Do emails without a subject go to spam?
If it is a white-listed email that the recipient trusts – no. In other cases, it may increase the spam score, so it is better to have something in the subject line.
What is ISP?
ISP stands for Internet Service Providers. These are the companies you pay for your Internet connection.
What are spam traps?
Spam traps are email addresses that are created to catch spammers. If you scrape email from the internet without any filters or list cleaning, you may get a “spam trap hit.” This is when the email reputation services know that you are blanket-sending to every email.
What is a blacklist?
A blacklist is a list of ISP addresses and/or domain names that have been identified as sources of spam.
What is CAN-SPAM Act?
The CAN-SPAM act is a set of anti-spam laws that sets the rules for commercial messages, establishes limitations for unsolicited commercial emails, gives customers the right to have you stop emailing them, and spells out tough penalties for violations.
Email marketing is one of the best marketing channels which allows you to build an authentic connection and relationship with the people who keep your business alive and thriving. AKA your most loyal audience. Email marketing has been one of the most effective results-producing campaign methods since the beginning of modern digital marketing.
If used correctly, email marketing can bridge the gap between an engaging, growing relationship and an increase in profit that surpasses any other type of marketing. And as a bonus, it’s one of the most cost-effective forms of direct marketing!
While some companies may be hesitant to try email advertising for fear of deterring sales, it can actually increase your customer loyalty! The key is to figure out how to use it effectively and with a purpose while giving value to your customers and making it personalized.
The perks of email marketing may range from an increase in sales and loyalty. Still, those are just part of why email marketing is beneficial and crucial to a successful marketing strategy.
Interested in learning more? Keep reading and find out exactly what email marketing is, the specific benefits it brings to businesses in your industry, how to get started, and how much value it can bring.
Basically, prepare to be converted to the most effective *cough* cult, err, I mean form of email marketing.
So, What is Email Marketing?
Email marketing isn’t just sending a massive amount of emails with coupon codes. It’s about establishing a relationship and maintaining the 80/20 rule (which we’ll get into later).
Email marketing is essentially sending promotional emails, testing how beneficial they are, and maintaining that business-customer relationship by continually providing value to your customers.
But, what IS email marketing exactly?
Well, friends, to answer your question, it’s a direct form of marketing similar to snail mail. However, it’s more efficient, much cheaper, and paperless! Email marketing or email advertising is a form of communication your customers opt-in to receive your advertisements and promotional material. Your customers give you their email addresses which get added to a list that allows you to contact them directly and remain at the front of their minds.
Email marketing gives a slight air of exclusivity to your most loyal customers, and it’s the perfect place to reward that loyalty and maintain it while also boosting sales.
Now, let’s talk about how email marketing got started
While the history of email is one thing, the creation of email marketing is another. The first email campaign was sent out by Gary Thuerk, the “Father of Spam” in 1978. Thuerk was the Marketing Manager at Digital Equipment Corp, and his mass email, which went out to a few hundred people promoting their DEC machine, made $13 million in sales!
And thus, email marketing was born, marking it as a highly successful and lucrative marketing channel.
And that’s only part of it. Just wait until you read about the benefits of email marketing below! You’ll be wondering why you didn’t start this marketing channel yesterday.
What Are the Benefits of Email Marketing for Your Business?
Email marketing is fast, efficient, and cost-effective. It allows you to continually reach out to potential and existing customers while nurturing those relationships and leads.
It also encourages your customers to visit your website and make purchases. Can you say “it’s a win-win”?!
Email marketing is best at doing what good marketing intends to do by converting interest and leads into sales. Need more convincing? Just in case you’re still on the fence, let’s go over the specific benefits and see if we can get you fully on board.
While social media marketing is essential for maintaining a customer-based relationship, it’s also geared toward cold reaching out to prospective customers and trying to find new people. And it’s not nearly as exclusive.
If someone follows you on social media, they may have put their foot in the door, but if they subscribe to your emails, they’re sitting on your couch waiting for you to entertain them.
Meaning the people on your email list are warm leads. They already went to your website (probably already made a purchase), they found value, and they want to hear from you and buy (more of) your products.
And that’s why email marketing is so effective because you’re sending messages to an audience that opted-in to hear from you directly, and they want more of your products. Email marketing allows you to stay in their minds by encouraging them to visit your website and make purchases. And thus, we’ve arrived at our next point.
2.Email Marketing Generates Traffic to your Website
When an email campaign has a CTA (call to action) that allows readers to click directly to your website, you’re generating more traffic to your site. And more traffic means keeping your audience engaged with your website, which improves your SEO and Google ranking. And improving your website ranking means showing up in more searches and generating even more sales!
3. Email Marketing Increases Leads
Email marketing not only increases sales but also brings in additional leads. Email campaigns can nurture leads by giving them more value before they take the plunge and make a purchase or investment.
Email marketing is a large part of the puzzle that can convert your business from outbound marketing (cold calling, email blasts to purchased lists), which is like finding a needle in a haystack, to inbound marketing. Inbound marketing focuses on SEO, blogging, email campaigns, and social media as ways to attract the people who are already out looking for you and what you have to offer.
Outbound marketing takes lots of time and effort for a few (to sometimes no) leads. In comparison, inbound marketing allows you to engage with your direct and intended audience by essentially drawing your clients to you instead of running around chasing them. And email marketing does a particularly swell job at nurturing leads while guiding them to make purchases.
4. Email Marketing is Cost-Effective
Traditional campaigns required photoshoots, printers, mailing, and paying several different people for many separate jobs. Whereas an email campaign can be put together and sent out within a day by one person, saving you time and money. And this is why email campaigns are one of the most cost-effective and timely marketing channels.
5. Email Provides Added Value to your Customers
When you provide value to your audience, they keep coming back. And email marketing is a great way to continually give back to your most loyal customers, even if they don’t go through with your CTA each time.
The more value you provide, the more your audience will pay attention to you and continue to purchase your products.
6. An Email List Gives You Something to Own
Did you know you don’t own your content on social media? Instagram, for example, has stated once you post on their app they have the right to do pretty much whatever they want with your content.
It’s uneasy to think an app could suddenly shut down, and those followers and all of that content could be gone forever. While you have no control over an app’s success, you have complete control over your email list. We recommend using a good email provider, but you can interact with the people on that list regardless.
You may wonder if these benefits extend to your industry, and the short answer is YES. No matter what type of business you own, you can find your niche, draw them to you, and nail inbound marketing to increase your sales! Next, let’s go over how effective email marketing is in each industry.
Whether you’re eCommerce, you’re a business selling to businesses, or a business selling to consumers, email marketing can and will enrich your marketing strategy. Let’s review some stats that will show you just how effective email campaigns can be for your industry.
eCommerce
The definition of eCommerce is the buying and selling of goods or services on the internet. 86% of eCommerce consumers say they’d like to receive at least one promotional email a month from their favorite brands.
That means, if you’re selling goods and services online, then email marketing campaigns could increase your income by over 50%!!
B2B (Businesses to Business)
B2B is a subcategory of eCommerce defined as a business selling to another business, usually involving a manufacturer and wholesaler or a wholesaler and retailer. Without all the business lingo, B2B simply emphasizes a sale between companies.
And email marketing is especially effective for this type of business transaction. Email campaigns have a 47% higher clickthrough rate than B2C email advertisements. Making this already prosperous form of marketing even MORE successful for B2B companies!
The highest opening rate is a welcome email to new customers, which has an 8 out of 10 chance of getting opened and clicked through. Those who subscribe to your emails are also 3x more likely to share your content, showing they’re your most loyal customers!
No matter what type of goods you’re selling or who you’re selling to, email marketing is sure to bring a sharp increase in sales and prove to be a highly cost-effective form of marketing.
But, how do you pull off a successful email campaign? And what even makes a good email campaign with a high open and click rate? Well, friends, let’s dive into that in the next section.
How To Get Started In Email Marketing
So, how do you send emails and make sure they’re opened and driving sales? And let’s not forget to ensure they provide enough value so your loyal customers aren’t unsubscribing.
Between offering enough value, using something to draw them in, and a strong CTA to drive home the sale, making the right email campaign is a skill. And there are 6 crucial steps in pulling off a successful and lucrative email marketing campaign, which we’ll get into right meow.
Step 1: Make a goal
Before taking the plunge and sending your first email, the most important step is figuring out your purpose. What do you want to achieve from this email? What are you targeting? What content will you include, and why? How will you measure the success of your campaign? Further down, we’ll discuss which type of campaigns are best for specific goals.
Pro tip: try to align your campaign goals with your company goals. Is it to drive sales of new products? Obtaining new leads for your sales team? More tickets sold for your event? What goal is your company working towards that an email campaign can directly support?
Step 2: Build a list
Now that you have a goal, it’s time to build your list. There are a couple of different ways you can make your list. The first is by importing the email addresses of existing customers. However, before sending someone an email campaign, legally, you need permission from them. One way to do so is to have a place for them to check or uncheck a box while making a purchase that asks if they’d like to receive promotional emails.
Another way is to market your email list on social media channels and have a pop-up on your website encouraging your audience to sign up for your email list. You can even give a little preview, teasing coupon codes or new products, and exclusive content.
The easier you make it for people to subscribe, the more likely they will… giving you a big ol’ thick list with lots of sales.
Step 3: Choose a platform to send your email
When looking for automated email services, look for one that will track your analytics, is desktop and mobile-friendly, and has minimal glitches when potentially sending out hundreds or thousands of emails. Different platforms also track different analytics, so look for one that aligns with whatever you’re most interested in tracking.
If you were unaware, Tailwind is a social media and email management platform combined into one! The email features of Tailwind are there for you when you need to auto-send, schedule, and even template your emails. The platform easily flows with its social media features as it seamlessly combines both social and email analytics into one!
Is the information useful? Does it follow the 80/20 rule where 80% of the content adds value and only 20% is promotional with the intent to drive sales?
Is there an engaging subject line that draws people in? Is the body read like a sales pitch, or is plenty of additional content also being given? And is there a strong call to action at the end?
Having a good email is the key to preventing your audience from unsubscribing or moving it to their junk folder.
Step 5: Optimize email campaign send times
The time of day you send the email is huge in determining its chance of getting opened, making it a crucial part of having a successful email campaign.
Overall, the best time to send it is during a transition period of the day. For example, when someone gets to work, during their lunch break, right after they get home, or right before they go to bed. The best time to send is when the highest number of people will be checking their email.
Step 6: Measure your results
Once you’ve sent out your first email, you should start tracking the analytics to see how many people opened it. When looking for an email campaign platform, look for one that tracks some, if not all, of these analytics:
Number of unique opens
Number of bounces (how many weren’t delivered)
Number of emails not opened
The open rate
Click-through rate
Unsubscribe rate
Spam complaints
Shares
These analytics will tell how your audience is interacting with your campaign and how successful it was. You can also compare your campaigns to pinpoint what’s working and what could work better.
You can additionally use Google Analytics or your website’s page tracking analytics to see how many people clicked on your website from the email. Tracking your email campaigns is a big factor in improving your campaigns and getting better results.
Now, as promised, which type of campaign is best used for specific business goals?
What Are the Different Types of Email Marketing?
There are several types of email campaigns that each attribute to a different kind of goal. You may find your audience responds best to a specific type of campaign or a variety of them all. Just keep an eye on the analytics and adjust accordingly.
Now, let’s get into the different types of email marketing campaigns!
Newsletter
As one of the most common email campaigns companies produce, an email newsletter is a regularly distributed email (generally) about one specific topic. The newsletter could feature blog posts, monthly insights, a preview of what to look forward to next month, tips, or a story.
Newsletters are a great and successful way to keep in touch with your audience and let them know what’s going on. Setting up a weekly or monthly newsletter can keep you at the top of your customer’s minds and drive them back to your website.
Marketing offers are a type of email campaign meant to drive a direct sale. This type of campaign is geared towards a discount or promotional offer for one of your products or services.
The email is made of a body convincing your audience why they need this product or service, what value it brings, and then ends with a strong call-to-action with a link to make a purchase.
Marketing offers are generally limited and give the feeling of urgency, telling consumers to act fast before the deal expires.
This type of campaign can be highly effective if it’s not overused and the promotion does feel like a great deal. An excellent way to gauge the success of this type of campaign is by seeing how many sales it brought.
Announcement
This campaign is exactly what it sounds like, an announcement your business is making intending to share information.
It can be a new product or service, a favorite product returning for a limited time, or changes to your business that your audience may care about, like expanding or relocating. It’s an effort to tell your audience to keep their eyes out for something and keep them in the know, so they’re the first ones to hear about this exciting change.
Announcements are great at keeping your audience engaged and interested in you and your company by giving them an exclusive first look with the added benefit of getting them back to your website or store to check it out.
Event Invitation
Have a special event coming up? Maybe you’ll be featured on an online event, you’re a podcast hosting a live show, or you’ll be attending a local farmers market to sell your products. Whatever the event is, you can use an email campaign to advertise it and try to promote your audience by showing up and supporting you.
The primary goal is to encourage your customers to attend this event. You can tease what you’ll be talking about or what will be happening, even give a discount code that’s exclusively for your audience.
The type of email campaign you use will be entirely based on your intended goal. However, each type is sure to remind your customers you’re there, encourage them to visit your website, and increase your SEO. Overall, the best campaigns for driving direct sales will be marketing offers and announcements. While the best way to maintain relationships and keep customers up-to-date will be through a regular newsletter. But for best results, having a mix of different marketing campaigns is the way to go!
Email Marketing Regulations to Remember
What are Email marketing regulations? In short, they are laws and regulations created for consumers in order to protect their information and right to privacy. Following the regulations of your business’ country is vital to building a trusting relationship with your customers, as well as having an effective email marketing campaign.
What Email Marketing Regulations May Affect Your Business?
There are several different laws and regulations to be aware of, no matter if you are in the USA, Canada, Europe, or elsewhere. A common list of regulations includes:
Avoid SPAM headers or deceptive information.
Companies that send marketing communications must keep clear records of each user’s verified consent.
Revoking direct marketing consent must be as easy and accessible as giving consent.
And so on. You will need to be aware of and compliant with all necessary regulations in your area, plus have a game plan to implement them before you begin.
Is Email Marketing Worth It?
The short answer, it ABSOLUTELY is! As long as you treat your audience like humans, provide value, and don’t oversell. With those key factors, you’ll be avoiding unsubscribers, increasing traffic to your website, driving sales, providing value, and nurturing leads.
Your subscribers want to hear from you, which is why they gave you their email address and permission to send them messages in the first place! Just try to be genuine, not too sales-ey, and you’ll be able to maintain your audience AND grow your list.
Email marketing has a greater return and farther reach than any other marketing channel, and it is a powerful driver in sales and revenue for all businesses.
Tailwind’s social media and email management platform brings all your social media and email marketing management needs into one place. Tailwind’s email marketing features are there to support your email marketing initiatives through templated emails, automated sending, and scheduling emails in advance. The analytics provide the insights you need to know what’s working and what’s not in your email marketing strategy, so you know when and where to pivot next!
So why not get started with Tailwind FOR FREE today?
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FAQ
What is email marketing and its benefits?
Email marketing is a form of marketing that uses email in order to advance the sales of a business’s product or services. It simply requires an email contact list of prospective customers, written and visual content that converts readers to purchase, and scheduling strategic timing to send out the emails.
The 8 benefits of email marketing that it… -Improves sales. -Generates website traffic. -Increases leads. -Is cost-effective. -Adds value for your customers. -And, email contacts can’t be taken from you (like how social followers can).
Why would I want to use emails for marketing or services?
Email marketing is an extremely cost-effective form of marketing that yields a high monetary ROI. According to CampaignMonitor, marketers who use email campaigns have noticed up to a 760% increase in revenue. Expenses for email marketing are incredibly low in the sense that all it may cost you is a monthly fee for an email management software.
Email marketing is an essential part of any business’s digital marketing strategy. People are more likely to sign up for your emails than to visit your website, which means that email can be a great way to drive traffic and generate revenue.
However, there are many different tools on the market today that offer email services – some free and others paid.
How do you choose which one is right for you? In this blog post, we will review some of the best platforms out there so that you can find the one that fits your needs.
EmailOctopus makes end-to-end email marketing easy with dozens of tools for growing and maintaining your email marketing list. With EmailOctopus, you can import your existing subscribers from other platforms, add customizable forms for quick signup on your website and even create landing pages.
The email template editor also works like a dream, allowing you to start from a template and customize to your heart’s content, or import your existing HTML templates for a seamless switch.
Managing your sends is easy with automated campaigns with simple editing for rules and segments, and you can use the robust insights and data to update and maintain your email marketing for peak efficiency.
EmailOctopus is free until your list reaches 2500 subscribers or you send over 10,000 emails a month ( ). The EmailOctopus Pro plan comes in at $24 a month for up to 5,000 subscribers, and increases depending on your list size.
MailChimp is a powerful email marketing service that allows you to create emails and newsletters. They allow you to create email templates, and you can easily add your logo to the templates. MailChimp has various tools that make it easy to create automated campaigns – including form-building features, RSS integrations, goal tracking, A/B testing, and more.
MailChimp offers templates in various sizes for smartphones as well as desktops. You’ll also have access to over 600 different fonts. Some third-party integrations are available, but not as many as you will find with other services that cost more money.
MailChimp is free until your list reaches a specific size or if your send an email campaign out too frequently – after which point there are paid plans available starting at $20 per month.
MailChimp offers a powerful email marketing solution that is easy to use and has many integrations available – making it great for beginners. It also integrates with most major CRMs, including Salesforce, SugarCRM, Microsoft Dynamics, Pipedrive, Zoho CRM, Nimble CRM, CapsuleCRM, Autopilot, and more.
MailChimp is best for businesses just getting started with email marketing campaigns or who want to keep their monthly costs low. It’s also a good option if you have a small list – as the free plan allows up to 2000 subscribers before your account becomes limited on sending out emails too frequently.
Drip is a powerful email automation application that allows you to create automated email campaigns. You can use Drip’s drag-and-drop editor to easily add different types of content, including text and images – making it easy for beginners who are just getting started with creating emails.
Drip has over 100 prebuilt automation available so that you can use them as-is or customize them to fit your business’s needs. You’ll also have access to over 600 different fonts, and it integrates with many popular CRMs – including Salesforce, Zoho CRM, Nimble CRM, CapsuleCRM, Autopilot, Insightly, Pipedrive, Hubspot Marketing, and more.
Drip offers a free plan that allows you to have up to 2000 subscribers or send out an email campaign once every 24 hours – whichever comes first. Drip’s paid plans start at $19 per month, with professional and business plans available for higher budgets.
Drip is best for businesses that are just getting started with email marketing or automating a lot of their email campaigns.
AWeber is a powerful email marketing tool that allows you to design and send out email campaigns, track open rates and click-throughs – as well as form submissions.
With AWeber’s drag-and-drop editor, it’s easy for beginners to create emails without any advanced knowledge of HTML or coding languages. It integrates with major CRMs like Salesforce, Zoho CRM, Insightly, CapsuleCRM, and more.
AWeber has a free plan that allows you to manage up to 500 subscribers, but this number is also limited when sending emails. AWeber’s paid plans start at $19 per month for managing up to 1000 subscribers or 100 email campaigns per month.
AWeber is best for businesses growing quickly and want to scale their email marketing efforts or have a more extensive list but don’t need additional features like drip campaigns, social media integration, etc.
Sendinblue is a powerful email marketing tool that’s free if you have up to 2000 subscribers. You’ll also receive access to over 800 fonts, and it integrates with major CRMs like Salesforce, Zoho CRM, Insightly, and more.
It has some third-party integrations, including Facebook Custom Audiences, Google Analytics, Zapier, and more.
With Sendinblue’s drag-and-drop editor, you can easily create your email campaigns without any advanced knowledge of HTML or coding languages – just like AWeber. It also has a free plan that allows you to manage up to 2000 subscribers.
Sendinblue is best for businesses looking for a free tool that can help them with their email marketing efforts or who need to scale quickly.
GetResponse is a powerful email marketing tool that integrates with over 30 of the most popular CRMs, including Salesforce, Zoho CRM, Insightly and more.
It has some third-party integrations, including Facebook Custom Audiences, Google Analytics, Zapier, ActiveCampaign, and more.
You can easily create your email campaigns with GetResponse’s drag-and-drop editor, similar to AWeber and Sendinblue.
GetResponse has a free plan that allows you to manage up to 1000 subscribers, but this number is also limited when sending emails. It also offers a 30 day trial for its paid plans starting at $15 per month.
GetResponse is best for businesses that want to integrate their email marketing with other tools and need a drag-and-drop editor or looking for an affordable option.
And, with HubSpot’s integration, you can also see how many times each email has been opened within the platform.
Hubspot is best for businesses looking to use their CRM as an integrated part of their marketing efforts and want a free tool to help them manage their emails.
Paid versions start at $50 per month for 500 contacts.
HubSpot is best for businesses looking to use their CRM as an integrated part of their marketing efforts and want a free tool to help them manage their emails – or those who need more advanced features like workflows, email templates, etc.
Finally, you can see your open rate over time, which helps understand how your audience responds to certain types of content.
And you can also track clicks on individual links within the email – which are helpful if there’s a specific part that should be emphasized throughout different stages of an onboarding process or customer journey.
In conclusion, there are many great email marketing tools and platforms to choose from, so you need to narrow down your needs and find the best option that will help achieve your business goals. There are also several free options available – but with those, you’ll be limited by the number of subscribers or emails sent per month, depending on which one you use.