The Ultimate Guide to Email Marketing: How to Run a Successful Campaign?

Despite the rise of social media, viral marketing, pay-per-click, and other kinds of digital marketing, email remains a useful tool for businesses. Some company owners may be skeptical of email's effectiveness since it has a lower open rate than SMS. Yet, when used appropriately, email can be a valuable partner for both new and existing firms.

The Email Marketing Process: What is it all about?

Most individuals believe that sending and receiving emails is a thing of the past. What they don't know is that email is still an important tool for staying afloat in today's digital world. This article is quite useful if you want to learn more about email marketing best practices.

With this extensive  email marketing guide, we'll teach you how to run a successful email marketing campaign, go over some email marketing basics, and see how you may benefit from it. Make sure to read on until the end!

To start off, let’s define what email marketing is.

What is Email Marketing?

Email marketing refers to any strategy that includes optimizing emails in order to promote brand exposure, improve customer engagement, or increase lead and sales rates.

When your click-through rates significantly improve, you know you've come up with an effective email marketing strategy. If you don't observe any noticeable increases in your conversion rate, something is wrong with your existing email marketing plan.

Email Marketing Goals

While sending emails provides a myriad of ways to boost your marketing efforts, it is also an excellent contributor in identifying and overcoming various challenges and pain points related to poorly executed business-customer approaches. Here, we’ve narrowed down the most noteworthy ones to guarantee successful email marketing strategies. Knowing the following helps you understand why you should maximize email marketing.

• Improve Lead Generation — Use emails to get new clients to join your email list. Offer valuable assets and resources in exchange for their personal information.
• Establish Better Customer Relationship — Emails can be used to provide more personalized and more tailored B2B and B2C engagements.
• Build Brand Awareness — With emails, you ensure that your products and services will constantly be at the forefront of your prospects' minds till they are ready to avail of or connect with your brand.
• Amplify Your Content Visibility — Emails can be used to share your niche-relevant blogs with your prospective individuals.
• Promote Your Brand — Email marketing is a cost-effective way to promote your products and services.
• Encourage Customer Loyalty — With the customized touch that emails can provide, consumers feel more at ease utilizing your brand, thereby increasing total customer loyalty.

Email Marketing Benefits

Generate More Traffic to Your Website

Email marketing is an effective strategy to increase traffic to your website. You may publish excerpts from your most recent articles and direct interested readers to your blog to read the complete versions. Moreover, if you are incorporating video marketing into your marketing approach, you could embed video teasers of your upcoming videos productions. Alternatively, to ensure more effective email marketing campaigns, include calls-to-action in your promotional emails. These CTAs prompt subscribers to your landing pages and sales pages where they can discover more about your latest promotions.

Allows You to Cultivate B2C Relations

Emails can help you and your customers communicate more effectively. You can also develop your long-term relationship with your target audience because email allows you to indulge them with bits and pieces of information that meet their demands and expectations.

Enables Healthy and Consistent Engagement

When it comes to maintaining long-term contact with your clientele, using emails unlocks your creativity. You can send numerous email content styles and formats. Highlighting novelty in content keeps clients engaged and curious about everything else the brand has up its sleeve. Prospects will remember your business because of its favorable interest.

Cost-Effective Marketing Approach 

A stark contrast to other marketing approaches, there are little to no costs for advertising or publishing using email. Email marketing is a substantially less expensive alternative to engage with your clients, provide product updates, and promote your brand as a whole.

Build Personalized Interaction with Clients

In terms of design, emails are quite adaptable. You can quickly stay aligned with your email list's preferences. With nearly infinite possibilities for templates, styles, and other design components, you can clearly communicate what your brand stands for, making every consumer connection more unique, personalized, and authentic. You may also tailor your emails based on different demographics and their distinct actions.

Extend Your Business Reach

Email marketing allows you to reach a broader range of target demographics because it is driven by the internet and is very scalable. It also provides you with a competitive advantage in the worldwide market.

Drives More Sales and Revenue

Sending emails makes it easier and more convenient to market your products and services. It helps your items become top-of-mind for your customers when they're ready to connect with your brand. It also allows you to try out different promotional methods to improve your conversion rates. Offer advantages and incentives to entice them to buy. Emails considerably enhance your average order rate by allowing you to upsell and cross-sell your items.

Gain Valuable Insights and Data

Emails prove instrumental in collecting client data and learning more about their buying preferences and behaviors. Use tracking analytics (which is usually associated with click-throughs, but more on this later) or send surveys and feedback forms. The collated data will teach you how to create effective email campaigns that show an understanding and adherence to your customers' expectations and standards.

Maximizing automated procedures helps you keep relevant and emphasize timeliness. As soon as their contact information gets collected by your system, it opens a window where you can respond to customer-related events and holidays. It also helps you understand customers' preferences better. Aside from being one of the easy steps to successful email marketing, it also serves as a true sign that your efforts are bearing fruit.

Effective Email Marketing Strategy

Email marketing requires a few simple procedures to guarantee that businesses make a strong first impression on their target clients and get a solid start with product advertising. Each of these processes is required to guarantee that you are creating an email marketing strategy that corresponds to your clientele's norms and criteria while also being effective in all scenarios. It also ensures that your services are marketed in a systematic manner and that the relevant clients are targeted for emails.

Similarly, these processes may be tailored to meet the company's identity and branding plan. Here are quick and easy steps on how to write an effective email campaign:

1. Identify the Target Audience

Knowing the demography that defines a brand's target audience is paramount. It determines the tone, speed, and approach of a company's marketing campaign. Also, it will be simpler to build an email management plan that supports both the service's fundamental goals along with the customer's expectations if a business owner knows who to target and whose demands to respond to.

2. Get Target Audience’s Permission

Once the target audience has been established, the next crucial step is to obtain a green light from the target consumers, allowing company owners to begin sending email promotions. Customers that subscribe to a brand's email campaigns are frequently emailed product updates, exclusive offers, and limited discounts.

Permission-based email marketing is more effective. It is also more suitable for long-term marketing initiatives. Businesses that do not emphasize on audience consent before sending emails risk having their communications blocked or labeled as spam.

One of the most typical strategies to gain audience acceptance is to provide newsletters, product and service updates, or freebies. Sign-up forms can also be put up on the company's website and social media channels.

Here are some creative samples of sign-up forms:

Also, whitelisting is another method for marketers to gain access to their target audience's inbox. Having your IP address whitelisted helps you avoid being blacklisted by major ISPs or being sent to the spam box.

3. Create and Segment an Email List

An email list can be segmented into more specific or targeted groups. Grouping recipients that comprise a contact list can be based on the following:

• Age group
• Buying behavior
• Signup sources of individuals comprising the business’ contact list
• New contacts, existing contacts, and potential leads
• The type of content each target group demands or the updates they prefer to receive (e.g. sales, exclusive promos, product updates, etc.)

Contact segmentation makes a brand’s email marketing strategies more customer-centric in a way that the communication becomes more targeted. It likewise makes monitoring and following up on messages more seamless.

4. Know Which Type of Content & Approach to Use

How to start an email marketing campaign? First, you must have an in-depth familiarity with the strengths and weaknesses of every email approach. Email marketing comes in many forms, and that includes welcome emails, newsletters, product updates, and event invitations. Each type has its own merits and the types of content to be used must coincide with the frequency of the campaigns to be sent.

Welcome emails are used to demonstrate a brand’s distinct personality while giving customers additional information on the products and services offered. Newsletters work well for businesses that maintain a blog page for marketing their services. Event invitations can be used to entice target customers to attend upcoming events and product promotions.

Additionally, emails may be used to convince site visitors and specific groups of customers to join your email list. A good example is the use of gated content. You may present them with exclusive offers in exchange for their membership. Gated material can take the form of free exclusive eBooks, whitepapers, free blueprints, instructions, or even quizzes.

5. Add a Specific Call to Action

Once customers agree to subscribe to a brand's email promos, a clear call to action will successfully manage their expectations. Strong calls to action are more likely to result in consistency and increased expectations. As a result, it's best to avoid distributing blind bids.

There are businesses that offer discounts and relevant service-related topics to help guide customers on how they can maximize the use of the products they are availing. Specifying the frequency at which the target audience will receive emails, along with providing registration forms to let recipients choose whether to subscribe to a promo or service boosts customer satisfaction.

6. Work on the Email’s Content

Content determines how to write a good customer service email. It helps decide how much interaction a brand's email marketing will receive from the target demographic. It's where companies introduce themselves, provide additional information about their products and services, and explain what they want to provide to clients. The content should reflect the company as a whole and clearly depict what the message stands for and hopes to accomplish through email marketing.

Did you know that the effectiveness of one’s email marketing is gauged by the very first follow-up email? The more customers engage with your email promotions, the better brand recognition and ROI you get. 

Key factors such as source materials, recipient timetable, sending frequency, straightforward and relevant subject lines are all instrumental in developing systematic email dissemination strategy.

7. Gauge the Strategy’s Effectiveness

Check the activity and reaction of target contacts regularly to gauge the effectiveness of an email marketing strategy. Click-through rates (CTRs), the number of memberships and unsubscriptions, and open rates for each email received are viable data that provide significant metrics for each email campaign.

It will be easy to trace which of the campaigns employed helped to drive more visitors to the brand's website from those that failed to meet the brand's fundamental goals.

Email Marketing and Legal Compliance

If you know how to write an effective email campaign, you should be able to comply with different anti-cybercrime legislation, such as Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (CAN-SPAM Act). The CAN-SPAM act is a legal framework that aids marketers in using legal and proper email marketing strategies. Knowing the dos and don’ts about email marketing greatly improves your online credibility and helps you project your branding to your target clientele more aptly.

Here are some pointers to guarantee that your email marketing content complies with the email marketing laws and regulations:

1. CAN-SPAM Act

• Your company name, address, and contact info are included in all email marketing materials.
• You have responsive and visible unsubscribe calls-to-action embedded in your emails.
• Make sure all email addresses are genuine and not dummies.
• Subject lines are relevant to the actual email content.

2. GDPR Compliance

• Only collect data relevant to your niche’s target.
• Ensure that all collected information are archived in secured cloud-based storage.
• A trusty backup system is in place for addressing loss-of-data scenarios.
• Gives clients the freedom and authority to clear and delete data per request.
• Provide concise terms of agreement when requesting personal and sensitive information.

Why Should You Segment Your Email List? How to Do It?

Sure, you've already followed the best practices for email marketing and adhered to regulatory requirements. However, the main problem is, not everyone on your email list is interested in receiving the same email content and promotions regularly. If you observe a big decrease in your click-through rates, it's a sign that your email marketing strategy isn't working. Marketers must understand the importance of segmenting and tailoring their email lists to specific client groups.

What is Email Segmentation and How Does It Work?

Simply, email segmentation is the process of classifying your subscribers' list based on their age, demographic, region, job title, and other background details to provide niche-focused, on-trend, and relevant information. Using dynamic and adaptable content is an efficient technique to bridge the gap between your business and specific target audiences.

To ensure that you’re delivering the right content, you may classify them using the following criteria:

• Nature of Job — Operating a multifunctional business simply means that your clientele is more dynamic. If you are catering companies or individuals from different industries, you can customize your content that will suit their jobs and industry best. Say, if you are catering to businesses in the IT industry, then your content should focus on everything related to technology.
• Job Functions — You may adjust your information to conform to their work duties, just as you can categorize them based on the nature of their employment. For instance, how you create content for individuals in the healthcare sector is different (but not inferior) from the content your brand produces for people in the retail industry.
• Geographic Location — Consider your subscriber's geographic location if you want to send custom-built and more accurate email content. Say, you want to organize a location-specific webinar or promotion, categorizing your email list by geographic area helps you pinpoint to who you should be sending your emails. 
• Company Size — It is critical to understand that small firms do not engage with customers in the same way that the industry's big dogs do. Business criteria, financial standards, expectations, and source materials differ depending on the size of the company. Segment your email messages based on the size of your company to make campaigns and email dissemination more scalable and manageable.
• Browsing Patterns — You may also categorize your email segments depending on people's browsing habits or activity. You may get a sense of what sort of material they'll be interested in by gathering data on which landing pages they commonly visit.
• Buying History — The success of your email content is strongly influenced by having a background of your prospects' purchasing preferences, as it helps you to send emails that are tailored to their shopping habits.

To assure success, add a more personalized touch to your email advertising and promotion. As you learn more about more advanced email marketing methods, you'll have a better understanding of how to create niche-specific email content.

Email Marketing Analysis

Finally, you've completed half of our tutorial! You are most likely attempting to employ the suggestions and solutions we've provided. That's fantastic! You may, however, need to take things a bit easier. At the end of the day, if you can't measure your success, all of your efforts to optimize your emails for better outcomes will be for naught. So, before you send those well-crafted emails, you need to know whether you're on track to meet your objectives. 

Sit with your team and discuss the following guide questions:

What is the aim of these emails?

Are the email campaigns designed to boost conversion? 

Is it designed for the purpose of customer retention? 

Does the company aim to gain a loyal fan base?

Regardless of your company or team’s objectives, it is critical to know which email marketing metrics to analyze. Doing so allows you to determine whether the email marketing campaign is off to a good start. Remember, tracking these metrics shouldn’t feel like rocket science. 

Below are a few KPIs you should keep a close eye on:

• Deliverability — This is the difference between the total number of emails sent to recipients' inboxes and the actual number of emails sent. Keep in mind that the data you collect here will be greatly influenced by the sender's reputation and domain authority.
• Click-Through Rate — This refers to the number of people that clicked on the links in your email.
• Open Rate — This pertains to how many people really read your emails. To attract your subscribers to read your emails, establish an engaging subject line.
• Bounce Rate — Bounce rate refers to the number of emails that have not been delivered. It has two types: soft and hard bounce rates. A hard bounce indicates that the domain or email address has been invalidated. A soft bounce indicates that the email was not sent due to a temporary issue such as a full inbox or server downtime.
• Conversion Rate — Simply, this indicates the overall number of recipients converted to actual paying customers.
• Opt-out Rate — This refers to the number of people who unsubscribed to your newsletter or email list.

**Note: The average unsubscribe rate is 0.05%. If your unsubscribe rate exceeds this level, you may want to reconsider your email sending strategy. Try revising the frequency at which emails are disseminated along with the email length and overall content quality.

Another email marketing KPI worth discussing is called A/B testing.

What is A/B Testing?

Following the context of email, A/B testing is the practice of sending two different versions of emails to two different subsets of your email list to know which version builds better engagement.

Depending on the size of their email list, email marketers might run different A/B testing. Some businesses may send emails with varied subject lines to see which ones get higher open rates. Alternatively, they can take the technical route and send a variety of email templates with entirely different versions while still containing similar concepts to see which one gets the most clicks and conversions. 

Here is a list of the factors to consider when conducting A/B testing:

• Subject Heads — Is it intriguing? Will it breed curiosity? Is it enticing?
• Email Length — Is it text-heavy? Make sure it is straight to the point. If it is short, make sure it is informative and comprehensive.
• Calls-to-Action — Ensure that your email CTAs are responsive and visible.
• Word Order — Text placements should be systematically arranged and not confusing to read.
• Content — The email’s content is relevant and able to serve as a valuable asset in reaching the business’s goals.
• Personalization — Will you address your recipients by their names or use a generalized greeting?
• Visuals — Check that the visual elements within the email suit the subject or the event and promos highlighted within the message. Graphics and multimedia content must also adhere to the standards and preferences of your segmented email list.

Once all the criteria listed above are verified, that’s when you can choose an email version that will help produce the best results.

Email Marketing Examples

Here are a few examples of email marketing to give a visualization of this amazing marketing strategy:

1. Take a look at Samsung’s Lunar New Year-themed promotional emails:

Subject Line: Buy now, save more on Samsung products this CNY!

What makes this an excellent email marketing content?

• The subject line is straightforward and shows relevance to the event/holiday.
• The color palette used is soft to the eyes, and it effectively makes the texts pop.
• CTAs are visible (and responsive, actually)
• There’s a comprehensive layout of the promotion mechanics.
• It’s timely. They are encouraging buyers to avail the discount during the holiday.

2. Another sample from Medium’s Daily Digest:

Subject Line: A Remote Product Manager’s Favorite Tools in 2022

What makes this an excellent email marketing content?

• The subject line breeds curiosity, enticing the readers to click and open the email.
• There are distinct personalizations in the texts within the email.
• They give you a retrospective approach by adding a segment for articles that recipients may have missed. It positively affects the loyalty of their supporters.
• The links and CTAs are working perfectly.
• There’s a section for more specific types of audience.

3. Here’s another Lunar New Year-themed email from Buzzfeed.

Subject line: Spread some luc

What makes this an excellent email marketing content?

• The email subject line is relevant to the occasion.
• Albeit short, the subject line hsa a touch of mystery which entices audiences to open the email.
• They provided high-quality images for maximum immersion.
• The call-to-action buttons are visible and clickable.

Long Live Email Marketing!

Some may argue that email marketing is no longer effective or relevant. Little do they know, email has provided the groundwork for a variety of enterprises to prosper in a dynamic marketing environment. 

Understanding how email marketing works is the initial step to get the most out of this successful branding tactic. Devise a workable plan for implementing a successful email marketing strategy. Next, define the boundaries and adhere to legal requirements to boost credibility. 

Take time to delve into the backgrounds and desires of your target subscribers. Once all that is set, that is when you begin creating customer-centric content that will help meet their needs and standards. Of course, you may become more technical by combining all of the required pieces to create the finest possible email. Email marketing may not be as innovative as its counterparts, but nothing beats the classics at the end of the day!

Still unsure of where to start?

Perhaps we can be of tremendous assistance! New Media Services’ email support services provide email management solutions with cutting-edge cloud-based internal reply center capabilities. NMS ensures that you have specialized agents available 24/7 with multilingual capabilities. We want you to be on your game at all times and stay one step ahead of the competition.

Do you want to learn more about our incredible business solutions? Contact us!