What comes to mind when you think of email? Most of us rely on it to some extent in both our personal and professional lives, yet some of us may not realise the sheer, utter potential of this trusty ol’ communication channel when it comes to marketing and growing our businesses!
In this age of TikTok, Instagram Reels, social ads and webinars, it would be easy to disregard email as an outdated mode of marketing, yet nothing could be further from the truth. While it’s absolutely true that these newer mediums are banging tools for getting your message out there, they in no way minimise the benefits and potential ROI that come with email marketing.
Email is an extremely effective tool for building relationships with your subscribers and leads. Providing your people with relevant, informative updates and information (at intervals determined by you and appropriate to your business goals) will help keep your brand foremost in your subscribers’ minds AND help them take a desired action — whether that be read a blog post, sign up for a service, or buy a product.
Let’s take a look now at some more of the benefits, and types, of email marketing.
Benefits of email marketing for small and medium (and LARGE!) business
Your recipients WANT to hear from you
All marketing emails sent from companies now are “opt-in”, meaning that your recipient has signed up, or requested, to receive emails from you. This is great news, as it means you effectively have an audience who are primed and interested in what you have to say and offer!
It can be one of the most effective channels to SELL
Particularly true with lead nurturing emails (more on this below). These are the perfect solution for building relationships, and growing revenue.
It is one of the LEAST EXPENSIVE forms of communication
When compared to the cost of some other forms of advertising — such as a newspaper advertisement or direct mail piece — email marketing is relatively cheap.
YOU have control over your list
A lot of us have a following (either modest or large) on various social media platforms. While this is great, we don’t have much (read: any) say or control over what happens on these platforms. If all of your following is limited to a social media platform/s and that platform/s suddenly shuts down, or implements a major algorithm change, you will be potentially left with nada — no followers. Imagine the impact this would have on your business. Conversely, YOU own your subscriber list. You have a list of names and email addresses that were willingly given to you (via opt-in) — no algorithm can stuff that up!
There are many variables to test and track
An email has many elements — subject line, sender name and call-to-action, to name a few. All of these variables can be tracked and tested to ascertain what’s working, and what’s not. This allows you to tweak/change your emails where necessary to make them more effective.
What are the different types of email marketing?
There are several types of email marketing. Here are four common types:
Welcome Emails
A welcome email is the email your subscriber receives (or should receive!) immediately on signing up to your list. This email is vitally important for a number of reasons. First, it is your subscriber’s first impression of your company. And we all know that first impressions count.
Second, statistics show that welcome emails have the highest open and click rates of any type of marketing email. This makes sense when you consider that immediately after signing up — opting in — your subscriber is most primed to hear from you. They’ve signed up, and they wanna see what you’ve got! This is especially true if you’ve offered a freebie (eg. an eBook or a discount code) as an incentive for signing up.
This email should be friendly and informative, and it should let your subscriber know what to expect from your business. It should NOT be salesy — that can come later!
Lead Nurturing Emails
A nurture email sequence will lead your potential customers through a series of emails (a “funnel”), taking them from awareness of your brand, product or service at the beginning of the funnel, to action (or purchase) at the end of the funnel.
By way of their design, lead nurturing emails are more effective in gaining a person’s trust, and willingness to buy, than a stand-alone email. This is because most people need time to explore and make considered decisions about a brand, product or service before they are ready to commit to the purchase.
The email sequence will effectively guide the potential customer through the sales cycle. It will convey the value of the product or service, help overcome purchase objections, and most importantly help build trust in the brand.
Email sequences are run on auto-pilot, and can be evergreen (ie. used to turn new subscribers into customers), or launch-based (used to promote a new product or service). They can be simple — consisting of five or so emails — or quite complex, depending on the purpose of the sequence.
Email Newsletters
Sending newsletters on a regular, consistent basis (daily, weekly or monthly) to your subscribers is a great way to keep in touch, and keep your brand foremost in your peoples’ minds. A loyal subscriber will come to look forward to receiving each newsletter, and may forward the newsletter to other people, which may result in more subscribers for you!
Newsletters generally contain a mix of content including blog posts, news/updates about your business, special offers or promotions, and any other tidbits of interesting and relevant information.
The great thing about newsletters is that they allow you to repurpose existing content, such as a previously published blog post or news item. They can include an array of content to keep your readers continually engaged, as opposed to a stand-alone email or email sequence, which usually has a single product, goal or focus in mind.
Stand-alone emails
A stand-alone email is exactly that — a single email that is sent out to your subscriber list to advertise a single offer. This may be an upcoming event or a new product release.
Stand-alone emails are used when the offer at hand is too important or exciting to just be included in a regular email newsletter, but that perhaps doesn’t warrant a whole series of emails (or email sequence).
As with all email types, there are certain scenarios where a stand-alone email will be a good fit for the goal at hand, and other scenarios where another email type would better suit the need.
No doubt about it, a good email marketing strategy truly can supercharge your business’ growth. And by engaging the services of a professional email copywriter, your biz will be on the way to a delicious ROI in no time at all.
Need some help with your email marketing efforts? CONTACT ME to schedule a free chat!