What is Email Marketing?

Email marketing is using e-mail as a means of promoting your products or

services. This can be direct one to one e-mails but typically it relates to sending e-
mails to a group of people that have subscribed to a mailing list.

Email marketing is a digital marketing channel that engages prospects at various

stages of the funnel, engaging and maintaining their interest. Because of its
versatile nature, email is a vital tool for online retailers who want to stay top of
mind with consumers. Email marketing is a good and cheaper alternative to
sending direct mail (via the post).

For example some people may subscribe to receive a regular newsletter from you.
In general the term “Email marketing” is used to refer to:

➢ Sending promotional e-mails in order to acquire new customers or convincing

current customers to purchase something immediately.

➢ Sending emails specifically designed to enhance relationships with current or

previous customers, to encourage customer loyalty and repeat business.

➢ Adding advertisements to others companies’ e-mails (on a partnership basis) to

gain exposure within a new market.

Email Marketing Campaign Process:

Here are seven steps to creating and launching a successful E-Mail Marketing
Campaign.

1. Choose the Right E-mail Marketing Software System CRM systems can
range from simple database models to more complex systems that include sales
force management, shopping carts, affiliate programs and e-mail behavior
campaigns. Infusionsoft offers complete CRM capabilities, which include not only
database and campaign management but also offer information on interest,
preference and purchase behaviors so that you can tailor your message and
campaigns. Other systems, such as Mail Chimp , Constant Contact and AWeber
offer more basic e-mail database and campaign management services. Decide what
capabilities you want and use a checklist to compare systems. Most e-mail
programs have training and free support to guide you through the learning process.

2. Build a List

Even if you only have 10 e-mail addresses, you need to start somewhere. Add
those to your database. Once you have your list started, make sure that you launch
a campaign to keep in touch and in front of your contacts without overwhelming
their inbox. I suggest two e-mails per month maximum. It's not about e-mail
quantity; it's about quality.

3. Set up Contact Information Capture Forms

It's easy to add forms to your website or blog to allow visitors to give you their
contact information, such as e-mail address, name and phone number.

4. Decide What You Want to Accomplish

Before you launch your first campaign, you need to decide what it is that you want
to accomplish. Do you want to deepen the quality of relationships, take your list
through the sales cycle, educate them? Why are you sending your e-mails? Set
clear goals before you send your first e-mail, and build your messages and
campaign around those goals.

5. Set up Auto-respond E-mails

Set up at least six e-mails that will automatically release on the dates and times you
choose to send out to your list. Keep them short, simple and to the point. Do not
make them "sales pitchy"; use auto-respond e-mails to educate and build
relationships, and the rest will follow. Make sure that each auto-respond e-mail has
several links for more information; this is how you will gauge their interest and
determine how to keep marketing to them.

6. Add Triggers to E-mails

Here's an example of a trigger: Your client clicks on a link in one of the e-mails
you sent her about your product or service. As soon as she clicks on that link, it
automatically triggers the release of a message sending her information about a
similar product or service based on the original link. Triggers are used to send
clients into a new sales cycle based on topic.

7. Monitor Results

Once per month, look at reporting (metrics) to see which e-mails are more
effective and have a higher rate of opening as well as click-through. Use the
lessons learned to build your next campaign. It's important to know how your list is
responding to the e-mails that you send. If you aren't getting a good click-through
response, the problem is either the quality of your message or the topic. Test a few
e-mails with your top customers to see what they respond to and what they don't
respond to (one common test is to send the same message with several different
subject lines to see what your list favors). Offer recipients a discount on services
for their time.

Advantages of Email Marketing:

Email marketing can be used for many different purposes.

➢ Promotion — you can use emails to promote a special offer, or a new product or
service to a list of existing or potential customers. The main aim of a promotional
email is to get the reader to take some type of action, such as, book a room, buy a
gift card, or reserve a table. If your readers have specifically subscribed to your
mailing list to receive special offers and promotions then that’s fine, but if they
have subscribed to a list to be kept upto-date on news and events then if you are
constantly bombarding them with promotional emails you stand the risk of
alienating them and forcing them to unsubscribe.

➢ Retention — these are emails aimed at building a relationship between you and
your readers. These generally take the form of newsletters where you are providing
your readers with information and stories that they may find interesting. A
newsletter can of course also include promotional messages or advertisements but
these should not be their main aim. Your customers can forget about you very
quickly so keeping in contact with them on a regular basis is a good way to keep
them aware of you and your business.
 ➢ Communication — these types of emails are generally short emails designed to
communicate some important information to your readers. For example, invitation
to an event in your hotel, a traveller tip for your area, details of a news article about
your hotel. Email marketing allows you to reach millions of customers with a click
of a button. Like any marketing medium, it has its advantages and disadvantages.
Use it correctly, and you'll make more money, but use it incorrectly and you could
lose your business. Weigh these pros and cons before you start an email campaign.

➢ Other Benefits of Using Email marketing - There are many good reasons to use
e-mail marketing because even with the growth of social media, e-mail marketing
can still be very effective

▪ Cost — Communicating via email has many of the advantages of traditional

direct mail but with much lower costs.

▪ Speed — if you need to, you can get a message out to your entire list very fast.

▪ Easy to create — with the many email tools out here, such as, MailChimp and
Constant Contact, it has become extremely easy to send out professional looking
emails and track their performance through reports. Most of these tools provide
standard templates and layouts for all different types of emails, such as newsletters,
invitations, special offers and many more.

▪ Personalized — the more information you collect, the more messages can be
tailored and personalized.

▪ Tracking — you can track how well your email campaign is doing, such as, how
many emails were opened, what links did they click, and so on. With this
information you can then adjust your next campaign and improve performance.
 Email marketing plan
An email marketing plan is a set of tactics used to build structured, effective,
and mutually beneficial communication with your subscribers.

Why are the email marketing plans necessary?

• Resource optimization
• Understand your audience
• Personalize the customer experience
• Consistent buyer journey
Here are the goals that a well thought out marketing plan will help you achieve:

• Resource optimization. Having a plan helps you run your email marketing
more accurately, spend less time and money on guesswork, and build
relationships with the right, precisely targeted audience.
• Understand your audience. No planning is possible without data. To
develop a strategy, you need to learn a lot about your audience, their tastes,
preferences, and behavior. Developing a plan will motivate you to gain fresh
insights about your subscribers.
• Personalize the customer experience. The results of previous campaigns
will help you learn when your subscribers are most likely to read your
emails. To determine the best time to send an email, you need to gather a lot
of behavioral data based on how users respond to your emails. With this
data, you can produce high-quality content and use personalized offers.
• Consistent buyer journey. With an email marketing plan, you can guide
subscribers, from the very first touchpoint, to make a purchase — and even
further! You don’t need to push them towards your goals, but to help them
solve their problems, that’s the essence of the buyer’s journey.
So, in general, planning helps better organize your email marketing efforts and
produce more concise content. Getting in the habit of planning effectively will
make you a more sophisticated email marketer.