With the new digital era and everyone getting on the digital marketing bandwagon, people tend to forget about the first type of digital marketing – Email Marketing.
What is email marketing
The very first email was sent in 1971 with the first bulk email sent in 1978. Four hundred people received it and it resulted in sales of over $13 million. Then in 1996, Hotmail launched a free web-based email service. Marketers saw the potential.
Email marketing is a tool to promote your business’s brand and its products or services to a list of recipients. You can use this for different strategies and target consumers at each stage of the consumer decision process. The type of content you send out will differ. But it can include product offerings, discounts or sales, loyalty programs, or industry-related news. Just make sure that whatever you send out, it resonates with your recipient.
Why is email marketing essential for your digital marketing strategy?
Email marketing needs to form part of your holistic marketing strategy. Here are some benefits of having a good email marketing strategy in place:
- The consumer has to act on the email, they can’t scroll past like when viewing a Facebook ad
- It is a cost-effective way to reach your audience
- Build relationships with your customers
- Drive traffic to your website
- Segment your audience
- A/B test to identify best performing strategy
- Mail automations
Using Mailchimp allows you to automate your email marketing. And target people at each stage of the consumer journey. Increasing your chances of conversions and producing returning consumers.
Examples are; sending welcome messages when your consumers sign up, sending thank you emails when they make a purchase, sharing similar product recommendations after a user has bought from your site. And reminders and discount coupons for abandoned carts.
Reach the consumer at the right time. Nurture your leads. Drive sales. And keep existing customers coming back.
So how is email automation possible? With google analytics! When linking your email platform to your analytics account, you can send data to the system. You can then use this data for personalisation. By targeting people based on their behaviour. This includes their preferences, previous engagement and purchases from your website. When a specific trigger goes off, such as a specific date, event, or a contact activity, the system will send the relevant message to that person. You set the triggers and messages yourself.
Triggers will include:
Welcome Messages
When you get a new subscriber, you need to give them a warm welcome.
Cart Reminders
Remind your customer when they have left something in the cart and not checked out.
Product Alerts
Let your customers know when a product related to their interest on your website goes on sale. Or when an upgraded product is available based on their previous purchases. Give your customers relevant, personalized product recommendations.
Make sure that you track how the customer reacts to your email. Did they open it? Click through to your website? Use the offer? Do they browse other similar products? Use this data to create the next email strategy. And target your customers with personalised messaging.
The power of personalisation
Consumers love personalisation. People find it more appealing when you speak to them directly. And about the things that interest them. Most people will only respond to email messages that target their interests. Email is the best tool for personalisation messages. Send the right content at the right time.
Other benefits of email marketing automation
Productivity
Think about the time that it would have taken you to send out emails manually. And then to reach out to individuals based on each of their behaviours. Automation leads to productivity.
Customer satisfaction and retention
Is it better to sell to an existing customer or try to get a new one? With email automation, you can improve customer retention in a cost-effective way and stay in touch with your consumers regularly and easily. Send out emails to your loyal customers to give them special discount codes. Let them know about new products or services first. And get their feedback on new brand initiatives and customer surveys. Remind them that their opinion matters!
Scalability
Email systems allow you to send out emails to big audiences on a scalable payment system.
Spam Emails
In 2015, about 2.6 billion people used email services. But most perceived them as spam. Consumers perceived 92.6% of total email traffic as spam in 2008. This is why it is so necessary to personalise your email marketing campaigns. Your email should be valuable to users. They should receive the correct message, at the right time.
Unsubscriptions
When launching your campaign, unsubscriptions are unavoidable. Reasons include:
- Consumers receive too many emails a day
- The email might lack relevance
- The person received too many emails from the recipient
Reporting
Reporting is very important for optimising your email marketing campaign. And to get the best results out of it. With Mailchimp, you can see important stats to help you understand your audience and their behaviours. Reporting data includes:
- Audience details
- Subject of email
- Successful deliveries
- Amount of emails opened
- Amount of bounced emails
- Number of unsubscriptions
- Number of recipients who reported your email as spam
- Amount of times the campaign was forwarded and how many times those were opened
- The average click rate
- Number of orders made from your campaign
- Geolocations to see where the recipients opened the campaign
- 24-hour performance with social performance overview
Sign up to Mailchimp here.
POPI Act
Everyone has heard about the new POPI Act, but what does this mean to marketers? When it comes to data, the POPI Act is there to ensure businesses process client information according to the act. An email address falls under the POPI Act. Meaning that you will have to make sure you comply before sending out emails to your list. This includes making sure your list of clients opts-in to receive your email. The consumer needs to give consent. You also need to ensure the consumer can easily unsubscribe from your email list.
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