What is Email Marketing? How will it help merchants grow their business?

Have you ever tried to convey a message to your potential customers via email? Or have you tried to promote your products among your target group via emails? If yes, you have been using the effective email marketing strategy all this while. That’s right! Any email sent by a seller/ merchant/company to its existing customers or potential target group comes under email marketing. Let’s understand it better.

Email marketing is basically a part of digital marketing strategy that most of the companies and brands use so that they can boost their sales, improve their brand loyalty and deliver necessary information as well. Email marketing has been in use for a long time, all because of its effectiveness. We can say that the effective email marketing is actually a digital marketing strategy of sending emails in order to convert prospects into potential customers and for changing the one time buyers into loyal customers. Let’s understand how effective email marketing can level up your marketing game and how you can achieve success through it.

What is Email Marketing?

In the race to reach the top, companies often send too many emails talking about numerous offers and deals every now and then. Ideally, email marketing is known to be a part of digital marketing strategy that is used by businesses to inform their customers about something they(customers) may find useful, through a tailored message. Not to forget that effective email marketing is a direct and definitely one of the most effective method to increase your brand awareness and customer engagement. 

Despite the popularity and rise of social media platforms all across the globe, email still scores the position of the most effective digital marketing strategy to capture leads and turn them into customers. Also, email is the third most influential source of information for B2B audiences, second only to recommendations by colleagues and thought leaders.

What do numbers say about effective email marketing?

• 99% of consumers goes through their emails on a regular basis. Communication via email can be really beneficial.
• 3,800 percent is an average ROI that email marketing has. It means that the average return is $38 for every dollar invested. (Salesforce)
• In 2017, it was recorded that there were 3.7 billion global email users. It is predicted that this number will increase to 4.1 billion in 2021. (Statista)
• While communication for business purposes, 86% of business professionals prefer using email.
• Email Marketing has an ROI of 4400%. Ultimately, people who buy products via email marketing tends to spend 138% more than those who don’t receive emails. 

• It has been concluded by Martech Advisor that adding videos to an email can increase the click rates by 300 percent.
• Mobile email accounts for 20-75% of email opens, depending on the target audience. (emailmonday)
• If your email is not optimized for mobile, 80 percent of users will delete it. (Bluehornet)
• 72% of customers receive promotional content via email as compared to social media.
• 38% of people suggest that the top reason they subscribe to an email list is special offers.
• As many as 56 percent brands had a higher open rate when they used emoji in their email subject lines, according to a report by Experian.
• CTRs are 47% higher for B2B email campaigns as compared to B2C email campaigns.
• Tuesday is the best day of the week to send email (according to 10 email marketing studies).

Also Read: 4 Ways To Shorten Your Sales Cycle With Marketing Automation

How can effective email marketing help merchants?

Effective email marketing require efforts and consistency. By drafting and running an email marketing campaign, the ultimate goal of increasing sales and leads can be achieved. What you can do then? Simple. All you need to do is to apply the topmost influential email marketing strategies into your email marketing campaign. What next? Just see the results roaring! 

Although there are multiple strategies, here we have listed down the 5 crucial email marketing strategies on how can effective email marketing help merchants while being in the digital marketing world:

Personalized Content, Personalized Email:

Email marketing authorizes merchants the power to personalize the message that they are wishing to send their customers. In contrast with the bulk mails that businesses send to their customers, they can also send the personalized emails to the users. For example, a deal or offer can be sent to a customer if there is an occasion which is important for the customer like birthday, anniversary etc. Such personalized email creates an instill of bonding with the customers and helps a merchant to develop a long lasting relationship with the customer. Thus, personalized emails add more value to your email marketing campaign and as a result makes it more influential. 

Reaching Targeted Audiences:

Control. Yes, that’s the right word. A merchant running an email marketing campaign can have control over who sees its ads, offers, promotions etc and when? Unlike traditional digital marketing catalysts that businesses previously used, now they can target the customers and send the emails. On the basis of customers’ location, demography, lead status etc, the mail can be sent to them as per their needs.

On the basis of the segment, personalized email can be sent to get a higher conversion rate.

Brand Awareness:

With the help of well-planned email strategies, email marketing can turn into a tool that can be used by merchants to substantially increase their income. It will procure you better results in terms of brand building. Success in creating brand awareness makes a brand stand ahead in the digital marketing field and there are chances of your brand leading the market, as well. A good branding can turn leads into clients and clients into customers.

High Scale Distribution:

In the age of digital marketing, it becomes easy to expose your brand across the length and breadth of the digital world. How? Via email marketing, it takes just one click for the customer to share what you have shared with him/her. Result? Your deals, offers, promotions reach the third person without any effort from your side. It results in credibility and instills the sense of trust for your brand among the large group of people. What I’m trying to say here is that email marketing is that part of your digital marketing strategy that can help you reach out to a wide base of audience.

Use of Deeper Analytics:

With the help of a comprehensive insight on what actually happens when you send a mail, you can achieve what you desire. Through analytics, merchants can know the results of email marketing which include:

• Delivery Rates
• Open Rates
• Click-to-deliver rates
• Click through rates
• Retention Rates, and much more.

Using the information, you can also get to know the behavior of the customers and can take the action accordingly for a better email marketing campaign the next time.

Better ROI with Cost Effectiveness:

With no additional charges such as those used in print and social, email marketing uses a minimal cost resulting in better ROI.  According to direct marketing association, email marketing brings in $40 for every $1 spent, outperforming search, display, and social marketing.

Instant Impact and Result:

As compared to other means of digital marketing strategy, email marketing creates an instant impact on its customers. In traditional marketing methods, it becomes difficult for sellers to understand as to what was the factor behind the actions taken by the customers. However, with effective email marketing, merchants can send mail 24 hours before the campaign. This creates a sense of urgency and on the basis of the results, one can understand how well the email marketing strategies worked.

What Not Do While Running Your Email Marketing Campaign

Although an email marketing campaign ensures a better relationship and conversion rates for businesses, the potential threats that it can impose are there too. Let’s have a glance over them:

Spamming!

Untargeted mails can end up getting you marked as spam. That’s true, no customer likes irrelevant emails and spam is the place for such mails. A merchant needs to make sure that the marketing complies with the privacy and data protection rules.

Solution: Always make use of those email strategies that are well-targeted and customer centric. 

In case of non targeted email marketing, apart from spamming, click through rate is always lower.

Formatting Issues:

Use of some multimedia or other files in the email sometimes makes it inaccessible for the customers to see it. As a result, the email looks incomplete and doesn’t get displayed to the users  the way you would have thought. Also, some recipients from different platforms are not able to see such mails.

Solution: Using a good copy than visuals is more effective. Also, test your email on different platforms to check its visibility and accessibility.

Among the 18-24 year old, 72.9% use their mobile phones to check their email.

Undelivered Mails:

There are certain software that filter out the mails which contain spam words in the subject line or content. There are internet service providers too which take the same actions. In addition to it, if the email list is not updated, it will end up sending the mail either to a wrong address or in vain, if no such address exists.

Solution: Keep your customer email list updated while practicing email marketing. Avoid using words that are mostly considered as spam.

Size Issue:

If the size of files that a merchant is sending is too big, it can take too much time to be downloaded. As a result, customers either don’t open the mail or it makes them lose their interest in the content.

Solution : Use files that are small in size. If possible, use effective content and not much visual.

When a customer or prospect opens a mail on a mobile phone and then opens the same mail on some other device, they are more likely to click-through your site.

Also Check: What is spam filter in email marketing?

Lack of Resources and Skills:

If there is lack of data, updated email list or skilled resources, consider the situation alarming. Try to have a correct design, copy, and mail list.

Also Check: What is HubSpot eCommerce Bridge and how can it benefit store owners?

Email Marketing Software That Can Help In Enhancing Your Email Marketing Campaign 

There are certain email marketing software with which you can check your emails before sending. Such email marketing software notify you if there is any error that can lead to the spamming of your email. Some of those email marketing software are: Mailtester, HTMLEmailCheck, etc. 

These email marketing software check if there is any error in content, DNS server issue, font etc and help you in better and effective email marketing. In addition to it, the Mailtester checks the content and let’s you know if you’re blacklisted, if your DKIM signature is not valid, if your mail can be improved and many other details as shown in the image below:

Email Marketing Giants that can help your businesses thrive!

Email marketing – although being an easy digital marketing strategy – is not easy to be handled manually. You read that right. Email marketing is a process that needs automation to reach out to a huge customer base with utmost ease. But it is not difficult in this age of digitization to accomplish it. It would be remiss of us not to mention the formidable companies which are celebrated in the world of digital marketing to help merchants in email marketing. The best part about using email marketing software and automation tools is that it allows you to efficiently monitor your email marketing campaign. Email Marketing software can also be used for tracking analytics like open rates, click through rates, bounce rates and conversions. 

Some renowned email marketing companies or developers of software that help in inbound/email marketing are: HubSpot (HubSpot Email Plugin and HubSpot E-commerce Bridge Integration), InfusionSoft, MailChimp, Salesforce, and many others.

These companies not only help in sending the emails to customers and prospects but do a lot more. Personalized email, crucial data management, customer relationship management, web analytics, social media marketing, and content management are some of the vital services that these companies and software providers deliver. In order to provide your customers a better email experience, you can go for HubSpot Email plugin. 

Also Read: Are you fed up of cart abandonment? We have an easy solution for you! 

Tips Before Practising Email Marketing Strategies

Stick to the Rules of CAN-SPAM:

To avoid your brand to be seen in bad light, stick to the CAN-SPAM guidelines. It is a law that sets guidelines for email marketing. It includes non-deceptive headlines, unsubscribing methods, and your name with address.

Don’t Mail Just to SELL!

Don’t practice mailing just for the sake of selling. Understand the needs of your customers. Sending deceptive mails can help you once but can end up getting you marked as spam forever. 

Build and Don’t Buy The List:

It is one of the most important tips to remember. Always build your own list because buying list will not help you. Sending the unwanted mails to the recipients will not only mark you as spammed but will render you no profit

Be on Time:

In case of newsletters, be careful about time. Sending a properly scheduled mail to customers can make them rely on you in terms of what to expect from you and when. In such a case, they will not only open the mail but will wait for your mail the next time. Result? Better open rates, better results.

The preferred means of business communication is email for 73% of millennials, according to a survey.

Also Read: Benefits of Marketing Automation for eCommercce business?

Personalize:

It is always recommended to send personalized mails while practicing email marketing. Apart from the feeling of bond customers will have for you, a relationship will also be established.

Those consumers who buy products or services through emails, spend 138% more as compared to those who don’t receive email offers.

Conclusion

Email Marketing is a direct and efficient way to connect with your customers. Adding email marketing to your digital marketing strategy, is a must for the success of your business. Not just this, effective email marketing is both inexpensive and easily trackable. In comparison to other forms of traditional marketing, running an email marketing campaign is the most easy and beneficial way. 

With the above suggestions and points, you can draft a proper email marketing campaign and see your brand achieving great results! 

About CedCommerce

CedCommerce is a global web development agency and the Official Channel Integration Partner of marketplaces such as Walmart, Magento,  and many others. In our determination to help sellers all across the globe, we have assisted hundreds of retailers in integrating their stores to various marketplaces and we move forward every day, increasing our clients.

Get in Touch with us if you want to know more about email marketing software and tools! We are sure we can help you out in executing a great email marketing campaign!

We are now Hubspot Certified App Partners committed to delivering top-notch solutions that help you connect, expand and scale at lightning speed.