Power Channels

Email marketing – planting seeds in the right customers heads

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2019-05-22
Reading time: 15 minutes

Email marketing has become an integral part of marketing portfolios. An extremely exciting channel for your well segmented target group.

In this article you will read how you use email marketing as a power channel for your target group and which mistakes you should avoid.

What is email marketing and why do I need it?

We’ve all received these annoying email newsletters before. Then we asked ourselves how it can be that the senders earn money with it. On the other hand, we have all received a personal letter or email that has inspired us, that has informed us about events or products that we thought were great.

When we look at our own product or service, we often look at questioning faces because our counterpart doesn’t understand us. The product or service is simply not self-explanatory.

But that’s exactly what we want. Pick up our customers, whom we understand and for whose needs we can offer a solution, unobtrusively and very personally at the right place. We want to accompany them from the moment they themselves have never heard of us. 2.9 billion people worldwide use an email account. Still the channel that marketers appreciate because the customer takes a regular look inside.

That's what email marketing is all about

It all starts with building an email list, typically one of the strengths of online marketing. Collect the addresses of potential customers over time in the right places. For example with so-called lead magnets.

These are smaller or larger tools such as checklists, tips and tricks, which you make available to potential customers as added value to make their daily lives easier, more pleasant or simply better. It is important to observe the rules of the DSGVO and data protection. You will see, it will bring you something, no matter if you stay with this channel later or if your activities in other channels are preferred.

Then it’s time to send the emails to your mailing list. This can range from a widely known informative newsletter to an auto-responder or an email nurturing. The latter is a set of automated emails that are best customized to how people have interacted with your product or your previous emails.

It is always important that you personalize the emails. At least as far as possible and depending on how much personal data you have requested at the beginning. Thus the email becomes your information, communication and also sales instrument.

Figures, data and facts about emails

According to Statista, almost one in two people worldwide uses email today.

Compared to existing social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, emails convert better by far.

With mobile use, almost three-quarters of purchase decisions are influenced by previously received emails.

4 Mistakes You Should Avoid in Email Marketing

Lack of added value

Nobody subscribes to an email list or a newsletter for no reason. So you should create a value right from the start and thus a reason why someone should sign up for your list. That in itself is the answer to Call-to-Action (CTA). In many badly done email marketing elements it is mostly only about the sender. That sounds then in approximately the same way: We can do this best, our solution promises this grandiose added value, and without us you couldn’t survive anyway. Self-promotion is not added value. Your addressees will either unsubscribe or put the unread mails in the trash.

Wrong dispatch time

Do you also send the mails when it suits YOU? Then you are giving away precious potential, because the time should be optimal when your subscribers also read mails. If you don’t do that, the following will happen: Your mail will appear somewhere at the bottom and will not receive any attention from the people you are targeting. Here it applies to recognize that there are strategically better and worse periods of sending, which you can test against each other.

Too often or too rarely

Marketers often proceed according to the proverb “a lot helps a lot”. This means that in periods when email marketing once again attracts attention, it is given full throttle and lies fallow in other periods. This leads to your loyal subscribers not being able to adjust to any continuity and then especially in full throttle phases the subscription rate increases extremely.

Missing segmentation

Segmenting recipients in your email list is one of the most important tools in email marketing. However, only 38% of advertisers segment their campaigns based on customer interests. Every customer has different points of contact with your company, is interested in other products or services. Therefore you should also use the possibilities of segmentation for a more individual approach.

Email Marketing is just the beginning

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Classification of email marketing in the marketing context

Email-Marketing in the funnel

All the activities that you implement within your email marketing strategy sit between the middle and the deeper part of the marketing funnel.

The main emphasis is to be put on the measures that are targeted on building trust with your customers, which will promote a better understanding from both sides. In the later phase, the conversion will lead not only to purchases but also to building a strong community of customers who adore your product and your attitude.

Immediate effect vs sustainability

If compared with the activities that are related to direct sales, email marketing usually does not generate a fast effect on your potential customers.

Instead, we are talking here about a step-by-step building of long-term customer relationships. At this stage, you provide your customers with information in the right moments and in the most cheerful and unobtrusive manner possible.

Categorization in channel portfolio

When you compile your portfolio of channels and promotions, email marketing will typically have the function of sowing a seed in the minds of your potential or future customers in the long run.

This channel works best in combination with the short and medium term channels.

4 often underrated tips and hacks in Email-Marketing

Professional vs. Common spelling

The text of your emails can have varied styles. You should know your customer really well to understand what style they prefer and deem readable. So, it is true to say that e-mail-marketing is rather a trial and error path is, and you will have to test things. Try using a bit different tonalities in a few e-mails, to see which forms are not appealing to the recipients.

Subject lines

This is a true mixture of science and arts. AS it often happens, the best way to see what works and what doesn’t is A-B Test. At the end of the day, no one cares how awesome the content in your letter is, if the letter doesn’t get opened for the subject is lame. As simple as that. Make sure that your subject line sells the content of the mail — not a total fallacy because it doesn’t take your potential customers long to stop reading.

Sender: a company name or a personal name?

Which name to choose for the „from:“ field has an enormous impact on the open rate. And again, you can go around with A-B Test here with a small part of your target group, to check and find out what is best for you – to use your company name, your personal name or try combining them.

Personal or alias-e-mail addresses

It is possible to send your email marketing campaign from an alias “support@yourcompany.com”. It bears an enormous potential to increase the open rate of your emails where you use the personalized address under specific names, as, for instance, “lisa@yourcompany.com”. This way you can also test what form of appeal suits your customers more.

Key indicators of email marketing you should pay attention to

Open Rate

Open Rate (OR) what percentage of the emails sent were actually opened by the recipients. Formula: the total of the opened emails/total of e-mails sent * 100

Example: 40 emails opened / 2000 sent e-mails * 100=20 % OR

Average value
Mailchimp: 21,8 %
Smartinsights: 24,79 %

Bounce Rate

Die Bounce Rate (BR) shows the potential number of email recipients, whom your newsletter may not reach.

Formula: Gesamtzahl Bounced E-Mails / Gesamtzahl verschickter E-Mails * 100

Example: 10 Bounced E-Mails / 2000 sent E-Mails * 100 = 0,5 % BR

Average value
Mailchimp: 0,64 %

Click Through Rate

Click-Through-Rate (CTR) reflects the potential number of email recipients, who have clicked on at least one web link in your email.

Formula: the total of clicks/total of sent e-mails * 100

Example: 100 clicks / 2000 sent e-mails * 100 = 5 % CTR

Average value
Mailchimp: 2,62 %
Smartinsights: 4,19 %

The detailed benchmarks for email marketing statistics can be found here for Mailchimp and here for Smartinsights.

Get going

Well, it is no way denying that email marketing is a truly exciting channel. The core of your success is a properly built and segmented list of recipients which you will continuously use to grow your community and reach out to potential customers. At a later stage marketing through emails functions as a long-term converting sales instrument.

Also, as you have already seen, its position in the entire marketing funnel is leaning to the deeper circle, and it cannot function as a sole channel. For a stronger short-term effect on the customers, it is necessary to build a complementary portfolio.

And now: Go on drawing up your list and be open to communicate to your subscribers and supply some really value-added style of content.