An Intro to Email Marketing

Email Marketing 101

Hello, hello! Are e-newsletters part of your marketing mix yet? All the big brands do it – so why not small businesses? If you don’t know where to start, lucky you! Read on for a high-level overview of everything you need to know about email marketing. 

First of all, why emails? 

Alright, we understand the annoyance that comes from inboxes cluttered with unopened newsletters (not to mention, they take up a sizable amount of our cloud storage too!). But with the right list and email, this channel can be a lucrative agent for your business. The average open rate of emails is 22.86%, and has a click-through rate (CTR) of 3.71%. Sure, these numbers don’t sound impressive as standalone metrics, but compare those numbers to the average engagement rate across the top 3 social media platforms of just 0.58%! The likelihood of standing out amongst the crowd rests in the inbox.

Email Marketing, in general, keeps your warm leads warmer. Consider the logic here – only people who are already interested in your business would sign up for your newsletters. After all, no one would wilfully sign up for more e-clutter if they didn’t want to keep tabs on your brand. With this in mind, treat your social media as the wide fishing net that you cast, and email marketing as the bait to really lock them in for the pull. 

4 types of emails

Remember, having a proper content mix is key! We must keep our content fresh to sustain our audience’s interest. To get you started, here are 4 popular emails that the biggest brands love using, each with their own sales and marketing objective in mind: 

• Email Newsletters
  Remember what the first rule of marketing is? Create value for your patrons. Newsletters are an easy and effective way for businesses of all sizes to keep their customers engaged with new tips, tricks, or reviews that align with their interests and your offerings. It can be as simple as sharing an article that your team enjoyed, promoting a recent blog post, or just a friendly check-in from one team to another! 

• Acquisition Emails
  Remember what we said about keeping your leads warm earlier? Acquisition emails do exactly that – their objective is to close the sale by offering attractive sales that any new customer would go for. 

• Retention Emails
  Now that you’ve secured the sale, it’s time to keep your new customers interested! It’s also an opportunity to strengthen your relationship with them. After each sale, send your new customers a friendly check-in to see how they’re enjoying your product! This is your chance to ask for a product review, gain high-quality feedback, and offer more product recommendations that they may like based on their past purchases. Build brand loyalty with exceptional customer service – email is a great, non-invasive way to do just that! 

• Promotional Emails
  Keep your followers in the loop with exclusive offers, straight to their inbox! Inform them of your newest arrivals (we all love a solid drop), alert them on new markdowns, or launch a countdown for a product launch! These also work well when you have seasonal campaigns going on – the author who penned this blog, for one, is a sucker for any spring e-newsletter with a cherry-blossom theme! Don’t be afraid to toot your own horn – let your audience know you’re the shit and keep them on their toes! 

Email Newsletter Platforms 

Now that you know how useful email newsletters are, let us introduce you to some of our favourite email newsletter platforms! 

1. Mailchimp
   Mailchimp is completely free for your first 2,000 contacts and allows you to send up to 10,000 newsletters per month without charge. This is the most well-rounded newsletter platform for businesses that are just starting out and developing their personal contact list. Also, as a pro-tip, grow that email list as soon as you can if you want successful paid ads on social media. You can target the same people who are already on your mailing list or lookalikes who share the same attributes as them for quick and easy high-quality leads! Remember, data is king – email lists are just one type of data! 

2. Drip

If you’re in e-commerce, go with Drip. According to their site, Drip “gathers and organizes customer data, then enables e-commerce retailers to use that data to make personalized omnichannel customer journeys at scale.” One of their key features is the ability to segment your email lists so you can tailor your message to different audience groups. A family-focused mama would buy different products than a young tween, so hyper-targeting is extremely useful when it comes to email marketing! 

1. TinyLetter

If email marketing simply isn’t in your budget, Tinyletter by Mailchimp is the way to go. This is the no-frills option for all the bootstrappers who want to get their name out there without all the bells and whistles! This is great for solopreneurs who provide services instead of products – the best part about this is that it will always stay free, no matter how big your list gets! 

Remember to join our mailing list to receive helpful blogs like these every month. And let us know if you want to learn how to write effective e-newsletters – we can totally whip up an easy-to-ready blog on that too!