Email Marketing
What exactly is email marketing? Email marketing is a digital marketing strategy relying on…you guessed it, growing your email lists. Digital marketers have been using the power of email to spread information about products and services since the internet began. Effective and strategic marketing campaigns include gathering user email data and analytics. No matter how dedicated a digital marketer is to creating ads, all efforts are lost if there is no email list.
Building an email list
An email list is arguably the most important aspect of this facet of digital marketing. An email list is literally a list of email addresses, which marketers will send advertising efforts, news and information regarding businesses, products or services, and use to spread online awareness for websites and blogs. Every good email list should include, in addition to potential customers, possible advertisers, fellow digital marketers, and other authoritative website hosts or bloggers. Hopefully, after receiving newsletters and other forms of advertisement, users on your email list will share whatever information you’ve provided them. This will increase the authority of your business on the internet and essentially grow your own personal brand of products and services.
How To Build An Email List
Building a strong and effective email list can be challenging. Choosing the right users to send your routine marketing efforts to is all part of a strategic marketing campaign. Try to include dedicated advertisers, bloggers in your niche, and run-of-the-mill consumers to help get the word out about your business or website. Great recipients for your email list can be found on a variety of social media platforms, including Reddit, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Become active in the groups and communities ran on these sites, in order to get to know your clientele and customer base better. Knowing what potential customers personally desire is vital to building an effective email list.
What To Put In Your Emails
Emails used in marketing should include news, information, entertaining content, and advertisements for a specific brand, business, product or service. Some marketing efforts will be flagged as spam or trash, so carefully choose which content you send. Try not to include excessive ad placement or backlinks. Events, deals and invitations to like and share your business should be in every email you send to your list.
Important Tips
Marketing through email is full of pitfalls and difficulties, however, following a few simple tricks will make campaign efforts infinitely more effective. These tips will empower and enrich your emails and marketing campaigns.
Relationships
Marketing is all about building relationships online. Receiving periodic emails from a particular business or website will help make customers feel like they’re part of something bigger than themselves. Email marketing should promote a sense of community between companies and consumers online. Make sure the content of your emails is conversational and friendly. Try not to come across as a salesman or, again, your marketing efforts might be considered spam. Inviting members of your list to participate in various events and activities will likely make them want to share their experience with others. They will do this either through their own email lists or on their personal social media accounts.
Forwarding
Suggest, to your audience, the option of forwarding your emails. With more routes of communication and modes of exposure, your brand awareness will grow ten-fold. Forwarding emails is an easy way for potential consumers to help promote your business’s products and services. On the internet, the sharing of information is, in itself, its own form of currency.
Refresh Your List
Your list of email recipients should be updated and refreshed to keep it current. Keep up with alternate user emails as well as those of their friends and family. Use recipients of your emails to find even more recipients, in a courteous and respectful manner. Offer emailers incentives for sharing your links and newsletters amongst their peers and inner circles. Build on the relationships you’ve established with your current list, and market to an even broader base of potential customers.
Generate Leads
Deliver shareable content, also called lead magnets through your emails. Content that can be easily shared online will generate more leads to use in your efforts. Try creating a free ebook related to your business niche. Host relevant videos or image galleries. All of these forms of quality content can help generate leads and gain interest for your company.
Subscription Services
Offer visitors of your site or blog the option to subscribe to receive emails. Learn to use website pop-ups effectively, and landing pages to push your subscription services. A dedicated landing page, where users can sign up, will help your marketing campaign. This leads to our next point: email automation.
Email Automation
Automating emails is the future of digital marketing. Automation takes out all of the hard work in establishing a successful email campaign. Tools like Mailchimp make sending massive amounts as easy as clicking a button. Email automation is the process of relying on computer technology to handle your emailing practices. With this technology you can focus on other parts of your overall marketing campaign. Automation is virtually risk-free and beneficial, as software, with the right direction, can accomplish more.
Conclusion
Emails are effective means of digitally marketing businesses, products, and services. Digital marketers should expect emailing technology to take over as a leading marketing practice on the internet, today. In addition to common Search Engine Optimization, social media and content marketing practices, emailing helps establish an entire online community dedicated to a specific brand. Compare emailing to spreading brand awareness through word of mouth, except on a much larger scale (try every location in the world with an internet connection).
Emailing is a very intimate aspect of marketing. Use care and be respectful of your customers inbox. Don’t trash up anyone’s email with low-quality content or spammy links. Take the high road and invite consumers to your company’s community. Promote likeable, shareable and entertaining content, in addition to targeted ads and options for sharing.
