Currently, using email to promote products or services is quite common. Email Marketing can help you introduce new products, offers or services to the customers on your email list.

When you want to develop your brand or sell goods, email marketing is one of the most popular and effective tools. The following article we will give you all about what  Email Marketing is as well as the benefits and how to do Email Marketing effectively.

1. What is Email Marketing?

Email Marketing ( email marketing ) is a form of direct marketing that uses email to promote products or services to help convey information about your brand to consumers as well as maintain relationships with customers. .

2. What are the benefits of Email Marketing?

Despite the increasing popularity of social media and spam emails, email marketing is still the most effective way to stay engaged with potential customers and strengthen customer loyalty to your brand.

You should make  Email Marketing  one of your top marketing priorities because of the following 3 reasons:

• Easy access to a large audience: at least 99% of consumers check their email daily.
• You have an email list of customers. On any social networking platform, accounts can be suspended or locked at any time if judged as spam accounts. However, when using Email Marketing; no one can take away those leads.
• Email marketing has a high conversion rate. Customers who receive email marketing spend 138% more than those who do not receive product information via email.
• Email marketing is the best way to sell online or launch an Online Marketing campaign.

3. How to do Email Marketing effectively?

If there is no strategy or how to do Email Marketing in the right direction. Then you will not get the expected results. Therefore, when implementing an email marketing plan; You need to note three important points as follows:

• Have a good email collection strategy

When implementing an email collection plan. You should offer special incentives for users to voluntarily sign up for your email. That shows they have some interest in your product or service. And when they receive emails, they don’t see them as spam emails.

• Use Email Marketing in the Right Niches

Not every industry can deploy  Email Marketing  because not everyone regularly uses email. They create emails simply to sign up for an account on a social media network.

• Have an email distribution strategy and make good content

Every week you only need to send 2-3 emails. Don’t send so much that users feel annoyed.

4. Two Types of  Email Marketing

Depending on the product and sales stage, you can use the right types of Email Marketing. But the ultimate goal is still to convert email recipients into actual customers.

There are 2 main types of Email Marketing:

• Follow up emails

Follow up emails are also known as autoresponder emails. These are emails that you can create, schedule in advance so they can send messages  in a predetermined sequence  to the people on your email list.

When the pre-set time comes, everyone who has signed up for the email will receive your message. Therefore, you do not need to send messages manually.

For example: After a user makes a purchase at the website, a pre-created follow up email will immediately send them an email confirming the user has successfully placed an order.

After 4 days, users will receive a survey email about product quality. Follow ups can be used to welcome new subscribers, guide them on a topic/lecture in a specific sequence, introduce a business, or maintain their awareness of your brand.

• Broadcast emails

Broadcast emails are emails that are sent in bulk to a list on  a pre-scheduled date and time . Unlike Follow up email, broadcast emails are not set up in sequence and spaced apart.

Instead, email broadcasts will be scheduled for a specific time (date/time). Because of the nature of sending at a specific time. Marketers often use Broadcast email to share the following information with users:

• News
• Recent blog posts
• Product update and release
• Limited time promotions and discounts
• Upcoming events
• Industry News
• Alternative ways to use your product or service
• Typical customers or testimonials

5. Four Email Marketing Campaigns You Need to Know in 2021:

Let’s learn about 4  important email marketing campaigns  . Which you should regularly send to your clients:

#first. Welcome Email Newsletter

The best type of Email Marketing that engages with users is the Welcome Email Newsletter.

That’s your best chance at starting a relationship with a client. Introduce brand and mission; your product or service.

The welcome email also helps you introduce information about the business as well as the main areas of activity and products. You are also not limited to sending a welcome Newsletter Email.

Mailchimp recently found that sending a series of welcome emails brings in 51% more revenue than sending a single email.

#2. Abandoned Cart Email Campaign

Figures show that up to 80% of the products in the shopping cart are empty. This means companies are losing significant revenue. But fortunately, abandoned cart email will help you overcome this situation.

It’s important to know that a neglected cart is not a complete abandonment. Because users have noticed those products but are wondering whether to buy or not.

Therefore, you can send emails with offers to remind them to complete the ordering and payment process.

#3. Product Promotion Email Campaign

Most customers won’t scroll through your website every day. If your business offers offers or promotions, customers won’t be able to keep up with those programs unless you contact them and refer them when your business runs Google Ads.

You can inform consumers about new products or offers that may be of interest to them. At the same time, increase their awareness of your brand.

Tracking the results of your product campaigns can help you understand the values ​​of your customers’ preferences and buying habits.

#4. Holiday Promotion Email Campaign

Email Promotions during the holidays are similar to regular product promotions.

But it’s used to boost sales of specific items around seasonal holidays. Because consumers tend to shop more during the holiday seasons.

So this type of  email marketing  plays an extremely important role in increasing sales.

6. Instructions on how to do Email Marketing for free, effectively from AZ

Stage 1: Grow your email list

What most marketers need to do when they want to get an email list is create an optin form on their website. But this strategy is not very effective because it does not really attract users to sign up.

To grow your email list, you need to attract people with more compelling offers. One way that I often use to get more leads is the Lead Magnet.

a) What is Lead?

Lead Magnet is a free gift used to encourage or persuade users to give you their email address.

These lead magnets can be PDF files, MP3 files, videos containing valuable content for users. Which you can create yourself for very little or no cost.

You can create whatever type of lead magnet you want, as long as it’s valuable to your potential audience. Some popular lead magnets today:

• Ebook
• White paper or research, market overview reports
• Webinar/ Seminar
• Free trial or template
• Free quotation or consultation
• Test
• Coupons

b) 5 factors that make up an excellent lead magnet with a high conversion rate:

You know, a lead magnet needs to provide free value to the user. But if you want a highly effective lead magnet, keep these five criteria in mind:

1. Short – easy to understand: lead magnets are only effective when users use them. So if you provide a 300-page article, users are definitely not interested in it.
2. Practically applicable: lead magnets need to provide tools; useful set of skills or information that can be performed by the user.
3. Make a significant improvement: Customers will continue to buy your products and services they feel they are really good. Your lead magnet will be successful if it is as valuable as your products and services.
4. Relevant: Create lead magnets that are relevant to your potential audience. You can base on factors: interests, behaviors, habits, needs, etc. to create content for lead magnets.
5. Send lead magnets to users instantly: No one wants to wait even 1 minute. So send the lead magnet as soon as the person has just submitted the form.

However, having a good lead magnet is not enough. You need an opt-in form to get users to leave information and get a lead magnet.

Right in the section on how to create Email Marketing below, I will give you tips to create an effective Opt-in form.

c) Tips for creating an effective Opt-in form

A high-converting opt-in form should have the following elements:

• Captivating headline: Make sure the headline clearly describes the great benefit of the lead magnet
• State the use/benefits of the lead magnet: Brief, clear and to the point description. Use bullet points to make it easier for the reader to skim the benefits they will receive.
• Attractive visuals: Include images of the lead magnet and photos on the optin form. Images are an important factor in increasing conversions.
• Simple form: The form just asks for name and email address. Filling in too much information will cause the user to bounce off the page.
• Attractive subscribe button: You should use a contrasting color for the subscribe button so that it really stands out on the page. Plus, use calls-to-action to get people to click right away.

Once you have created the optin form. You just need to install it on your website. There are 14 places where you can place your optin form to achieve high conversions:

• Splash-page (the first page users see when they are about to log in to WiFi)
• Welcome gate
• Floating bar
• Your website title
• Blog posts
• Sidebar
• In the time countdown popup
• Website Footer
• About page
• Designated registration page
• Exit-intent popup (Popup pops up when the user intends to leave the website)

It can be said that exit-intent popup is one of the effective opt-in ways. Because it shows up at the right time when visitors want to leave your website. It does not disrupt the user’s reading experience and is only activated when they intend to exit.

This is the best time to ask users to leave their email because they have read your content and found your website really useful.

Stage 2. Choosing the best Email Marketing software provider

Currently, there are 3   main Email Marketing tools in Vietnam: mailchimp, getRespone and Keap (Infusionsoft). We will provide you with an overview; as well as compare prices and outstanding features, integration capabilities of each type of Email Marketing service.

1. Mailchimp:

   Is a marketing automation platform that allows you to create, send, analyze email and advertising campaigns. Users receive comprehensive campaign reports; track emails, view success and click-through rates, generate custom reports; Manage subscribers and unregistered people.

   Email Marketing Software  – MailChimp allows you to create custom templates and also choose from one of the available templates and campaigns.

2. GetResponse:

   Maximize the effectiveness of your campaigns even after they’re done with GetResponse Email Intelligence.

   With this email marketing software, you can track, measure and analyze, compare followers, measure website conversions, categorize subscribers with one click, or see hourly fluctuations.

3. Keap (formerly Infusionsoft):

   Keap helps small businesses grow with three customizable plans. Keap Grow is for startups and growing small businesses.

   This plan makes it possible for you to do everything like auto-tracking and offering more profitable services. Keap Pro offers all-in-one CRM, sales, and marketing automation software.

   It is designed for service businesses. Keap Pro provides iterative sales processes and marketing campaigns that help your business grow.

Stage 3. Categorize your email list:

a) What is Email Marketing List Classification?

Email list segmentation is the process of dividing your subscribers into smaller groups. Based on specific criteria.

That way, you can send them emails that are relevant and relevant to each group. Instead of adding all the subscribers to your email list. Categorization helps you just send certain emails to subscribers who are really interested in your brand.

b) Why is it important to categorize email lists?

Categorizing email lists helps:

• Increase email view rate
• Increase CTR
• Reduce newsletter unsubscribe rate

Once you’ve divided subscribers into different groups. You can send autoresponders, or series of emails (based on certain conditions). It also means that you are engaged in  Marketing automation .

As a result, you can take better care of your potential customers and get new orders. Besides, email list segmentation makes it easier to create titles and messages that attract users to open emails.

The main goal of classification is to find out how users on your email list react from the moment they receive the first email. Have they bought any products yet? Visited a specific page? Which lead magnet to download?

There are many ways to help you categorize your list. Here are a few that I often use:

• New subscribers: send new subscribers a welcome email or welcome email series if they are not familiar with your site.
• Optional: someone who wants to be notified when there is a new blog and who just wants to know about discounts.
• Interests: people who like what is content marketing topic   and people who like Facebook Marketing topic 
• Location: notify people living in the area about upcoming events near where they live.
• Open rate: send a special offer code for people who have high engagement with your emails. Because they are the people most interested in your product.
• Inactive: send messages to people who have signed up but haven’t interacted for a long time (6 months for example) about the offers you want to give them
• Lead magnet: send emails based on the subject of Lead magnets that they have voluntarily opted in before.
• Cart Abandon: Remind subscribers who have placed an order in their cart but have not yet paid.

Stage 4. Improve email open rates

This part is extremely important in an Email Marketing campaign  . Because if you have worked hard to develop an email list, categorize them, but the user does not open the email after receiving it, everything becomes meaningless.

There are several factors that influence whether your email marketing is opened by users:

a) Email spam filter:

A lot of marketers have a problem with emails often ending up in their subscribers’ spam folders. Here are some helpful methods to keep your emails from falling into the spam folder:

• Make sure your subscribers actively subscribe to receive your newsletter. Never buy an email list from a third party and expect your email marketing campaign to be effective.
• Use a good IP address to send mail. That is the IP address that has never sent spam before.
• Send emails through verified domains.
• Send a “clean” email template. Don’t use too many flashy colors or flashing banner ads.
• Use merge tags (integrated tags) in the mail header. Merge tags allow you to personalize emails. By adding the subscriber’s name or personal information to the email.
• Ask users to add you to their White List.
• Avoid using too much “sales” language (spam-triggering words like “buy”, “liquid”, “discount” or “cash”).
• Don’t make users feel like they’re being lured by false headlines.
• Added an Unsubscribe option that allows users to unsubscribe at any time. This may sound absurd, but current spam filters place great emphasis on allowing users the freedom to unsubscribe to emails at any time.

b) Remove inactive users – subscribers who have been inactive for a long time

No matter how regularly you send emails, over time. Your email list will also “degrade” and no longer have the same quality as the beginning. Some people may change and use a different email. Or maybe not interested in your business anymore.

So to keep the email list always quality. You should periodically delete inactive subscribers. Inactive people mean they haven’t interacted with any of your emails within the past 6 months.

But before deleting their email; you should try sending another win-back email campaign with the message of wanting to reconnect with them.

Another thing you can do is check in with your subscribers from time to time to see if they still want updates and offers. To do this faster, with less time and effort, you should refer to using  email checking software that exists .

c) Choose an appropriate email delivery time:

Timing can greatly affect whether or not subscribers open an email. Therefore, you should consider the issue of email delivery time. Do A/B tests to determine which time frames are best. And apply those timeframes to future email marketing campaigns   .

Personally, I usually choose the start time of a new shift to send emails. Since users tend to have their email checked every time they open their computer, they will likely see and open your email! You can send emails in about 2 of the following time frames:

• 7:00am – 8:00am
• 13h00 – 14h00

d) Prominent, attractive title

When it comes to email open and click rates, the subject line plays a crucial role. Your job is to create the most outstanding headline possible. Here are a few tips for creating engaging and creative headlines:

• Attract curiosity, but don’t be too tactful. You should only make users curious enough to open and click on the email, but also don’t confuse and confuse users.
• Add numbers as well.
• Use a friendly and conversational tone.
• Use the same language and style as your subscribers are using, especially like when they’re talking to friends.

e) Optimize email on mobile interface

Email opened on mobile devices accounts for 67% of all email opened across devices. You have to make sure your email is compatible and loads quickly on mobile devices.

Some mobile devices with smaller screens will cause long email headers to be partially truncated when displayed. Here are some more tips to attract mobile users:

• Use a simple (single-column) format, less than 600px wide.
• Use a larger font. Users will find it difficult to read small fonts on mobile devices.
• Make sure that the image is always visible, even when the user is using the default settings.
• Use small size images to reduce loading time.
• Use a big call-to-action button
• Do not place two links next to or on top of each other to avoid users looking at them by mistake.

Email marketing  is an art and a science, so give yourself some space to experiment and find out which tactics work best for your business and subscribers.

Stage 5. Email Marketing Automation

This type of autoresponder is arguably the most powerful tool for online marketers to make sales. It helps you succeed in getting users to sign up for emails, build relationships, and turn leads into buyers.

a) What is an automated email sequence?

An autoresponder is a sequence of emails sent automatically to a group of people on your email list. This email series is usually triggered when the user performs a specific action, for example:

• Subscribe
• Visit a specific page on a website/watch a video, etc.
• Forgot items in the cart
• Download PDF file
• Buy a product.

The content of this email series will be pre-generated and scheduled to be sent at appropriate times with the help of Email Marketing software. Why should you send a series of autoresponder emails? Most businesses use email autoresponder series for two reasons:

• Lead nurturing:  use automated Email Marketing tools to provide relevant information to users, nurture relationships with potential customers.
• Convert leads to customers : Email series will help you build close relationships with customers and gradually move them through 3 stages of Know – Like – Trust before going to the final step of selling products. Then you can introduce your product in a more natural way.

There are four basic steps to creating a highly effective autoresponder series:

b) Step 1: Set goals for automated email series

The important goals of an autoresponder email sequence:

• Send new subscribers the welcome email series.  This is the message you send people right after they subscribe. It may contain
  • link to lead magnet
  • contains content to thank the user for subscribing
  • call to action see more popular blog posts on the website

Every email list needs a welcome email sequence. Therefore, take this opportunity to “attract” subscribers; new and turn them into loyal fans.

• Apply to lead magnet / free mini-course . You can use an autoresponder sequence; as a lead magnet to attract new subscribers to your email list. For example, send them a short course or a free challenge for a few days or weeks.
• Sales by automatic mode.  Creating sales funnels from email autoresponders is a strategy widely adopted by marketers. In addition, it can also be used by software companies, e-commerce businesses and service providers.
• Upsell/cross-sell products.  You can even set up an autoresponder sequence to send to customers; after they have used and are inclined to buy again. Depending on the product you sell; you can add or bundle related products.

c) Step 2: Outline the content plan

Before drafting your content plan, you need to determine how long the autoresponder sequence will be, how many emails will be sent, and within how many days.

There is no rule that dictates how many emails you need to use in your email sequence. But the email sequence should be long enough to help you accomplish your goal.

So the length of the email sequence depends on the subscriber’s purpose, segment, interests. Next, we need to determine how far apart the two emails should be sent. Usually you can:

• Email every 2 days for emails that provide valuable, educational information.
• 3-4 emails/day if you have a big promotion coming to an end.

You need to balance the number of emails that provide value and emails that sell.

Note:  Number of emails is not as important as sending emails that bring value to users; and don’t send too many sales emails.

To keep it simple, you can apply the 80/20 rule: 80% of emails have to be valuable and only 20% of emails make sales.

Here is a sample email series applied when launching content marketing writing services:

EMAIL 1:

Introduce your business and thank your users for subscribing

EMAIL 2:

Talking about the problem of unattractive website content can reduce conversion rates, lower sales, and briefly mention tips for solving.

EMAIL 3:

Explain in detail how to create engaging content. Briefly mention the upcoming launch of a content marketing writing service.

EMAIL 4:

Announcement of launching content writing service. Notify with the email list file that the service will be available for sale within the next few days and after this period will stop accepting service registration requests.

EMAIL 5:

Remind the user about the service. Share with them how many customers have signed a service contract so far and ask them what they think about the service.

EMAIL 6:

Last day before closing registration form (email 1). Tell subscribers that there are only 24 hours left before the registration form closes. Remind them of the additional benefits and support they will receive when using the service.

EMAIL 7:

Last day before closing registration form (email 2). Convert the message to focus on the little time left (or focus on the number of slots left), after this time you will close the registration form and not accept any more customers for this service.

EMAIL 8:

2 hours before closing the registration form. Closer to the deadline is when you focus on the results that the subscriber wants to achieve. Add a stronger call to action to push them to action.

EMAIL 9:

Close the registration form. Send an email explaining why the business is no longer accepting customers (for example, to ensure the quality of implementation). Share about the number of customers who have signed up for the service after finishing the launching program and don’t forget to thank the users!

d) Step 3: Write content to increase conversion rate for emails

Writing email content is considered the most difficult part. At this step, you should note the following points:

• Focus on helping users . You should write your emails to address the needs of your subscribers. Don’t just mention your product.
• Personalize . Personalize your email content to be relevant and provide value to your subscribers. Personalization is more than just attaching your subscriber’s name to an email. You need to tailor the content of the email to suit their needs.
• Use an engaging subject line.  If the subject line is not attractive, the subscribers will not be eager to open the email. So refine your subject line to make users curious about the content of the email. Besides, it also needs to be personal and relevant to the recipient.

Stage 6. Measure the effectiveness and optimize the campaign

In the final part of this Email Marketing how-to guide, I’ll bring you 4 popular KPIs to measure the effectiveness of your Email Marketing campaigns and how to optimize them. Let’s see!

a) 4 indicators to evaluate the effectiveness of Email Marketing advertising campaigns

• Deliverability: the ratio of the number of users receiving the email to the number of users you send the email to.
• Open rate: user’s email open rate
• Click-through-rate (CTR): is the percentage of people who clicked on your call-to-action.
• Unsubscribe rate: Unsubscribe rate measures the number of people who do not want to receive your email in the near future after they receive the current email.

b) Email optimization tips to increase efficiency

There are many factors that affect KPIs and you need to test your email for better results. Here are some tweaks you can make to improve your results: Deliverability :  Deliverability:

• Optimize your email so it passes the spam filter
• Remove inactive people from the email list. Only keep those who have interacted within the last 6 months.
• Check and delete emails that don’t exist.

Open rate – Open rate

• Use catchy headlines to entice people to click on your emails.
• Adjust email delivery times and dates to see when is best.

Click-through-rate – Click-through rate (CTR)

• Does your offer provide the right value for the user?
• Is the content easy to understand and do users know what they need to do?
• Test different call-to-actions.

Unsubscribe – Unsubscribe

• First, consider whether these unsubscribes are employees of a rival company?
• Assess whether the email you send is consistent with your brand image or not?
• Don’t hang the head of a goat selling dog meat. Make sure the content in the landing page delivers the user what you promised them in the email.
• Make sure your email is providing value to your audience before attempting to make a sale.

If you want an even more effective email marketing strategy, you should consult a marketing consultant in the industry.

Conclude

After you have understood the important knowledge about what  Email Marketing is and how to create Email Marketing, apply them to your upcoming campaigns to achieve high efficiency and increase sales!

Source: fiexmarketing.com