Information for this blog was sourced from Semrush, Copyblogger and Sprout Social. This blog was also stitched together with the help of ChatGPT to supplement and enhance this blog post.
Count with us: ‘One Mississippi’. That’s one second, right? In that second, roughly 3.13 million emails were sent. In fact, in 2022 it was reported there are over 4.26 billion email users worldwide (99firms). That’s a lot of notifications.
Gmail. Yahoo. Outlook. A lot of people have a love-hate relationship with electronic mail, but there is no doubting its effectiveness and versatility. Chances are, you have an email address. Chances are actually, you may have several.
So, if there’s something over 50% of the world actively has, wouldn’t it make sense to prioritize it in your marketing strategy? In this blog, we’ve melted together three leading marketing publications’ takes on how to make the most of your email subscriber base.
To justify your newfound focus on email subscriptions, let’s highlight 8 benefits of email marketing, courtesy of Sprout Social, Semrush, and Copyblogger.
Enhancing Brand Awareness through Lead Magnets
You can enhance brand awareness by sharing resources, news, offers, and more. Release a new product? There should be an email (or several) accompanying it.
The best way you can offer this is by providing a strong lead magnet. A lead magnet is a unique service you offer to a customer in exchange for their contact details (Copyblogger). To enhance conversion, you have to ensure your lead magnet is relevant to the reader. That is, it has to really resonate with the reader by confronting a pain point that they feel. Resources such as ChatGPT and Semrush can assist with identifying pain points with the customer. Along with being relevant, the content provided needs to be useful. It’s one thing to identify what a customer is looking for, and it is another to provide something of value. Tips, tricks, observations, best practices and tutorials are all examples of materials that can offer fast solutions to curious readers.
Direct Traffic
Along with the aforementioned resources, this can be used to direct website traffic to your site, with visibly placed CTAs in your emails.
Prioritize Quality Content
A well-written and visually aesthetic email can help drive sales and revenue, as you can send exclusive offers and discounts. This could be utilized with incentivized email subscriptions. An example of copy used could be:
“Subscribe to our email and receive a 10% discount off your first order”.
Alternatively, the offer could be loyalty-based.
“As a thank you for being a regular reader of our newsletters, enjoy 20% off sitewide on us”.
A huge advantage of email marketing is that it provides you with a captive audience. Since there is an opt-in process to be added to an email list (this can be verified with a follow-up email to filter out unwanted subscribers), there is a good chance they want to hear from you (Semrush).
Building a Network of Communication
Supercharge other marketing channels by using email to link them all together. Want to boost your Facebook page? Ask your customers to share a review. A new blog just came up on your website? Email and let your readers know. Launched a new ‘X’ handle? Don’t leave it up to chance. Keeping content refreshing and sharing genuinely interesting material helps your open and click-through rates stay healthy, and you have an excellent opportunity to use your email campaign to boost your other social media channels. Just make sure to include clear, user-friendly links to your accompanying social media platforms (Sprout Social).
Strengthening Customer Relationships
Keep your customers on their toes by staying creative and top of mind. Emails are a great opportunity to keep in your customer’s thoughts, partly due to the nature of emails. Emails are more likely to have notifications directly to a person’s smartphone, as opposed to ‘X’, LinkedIn, and Facebook. These platforms are crammed with content and with so much to sift through, there’s a good chance your message will be overlooked. Emails on the other hand are usually more infrequent and so long as you don’t end up in someone’s spam, your chances of being seen are higher.
Data Collection and Insights
Harvest data with your subscribers. Feedback forms, information sheets, and newsletters are great opportunities to build customer personas so you can provide them with more tailored content and enhance return on investment (ROI). Data collected from SproutSocial reported that the average ROI of email marketing in 2022 was $36 for every $1 spent. This was higher than SEO, Content Marketing, Live Events, and Social Media. In fact, research by Semrush found that 18% of companies achieved an ROI greater than $70 per $1 invested. Email marketing revenue was forecasted to peak at $18 billion in three years’ time (2027).
From our own experience, Lead Nurture Campaigns (LNCs) are a great way to semi-automate your email communications with subscribers. In the initial email, a CTA is inserted, and depending on the interaction with the initial email (open rate/click-through rate), a follow-up is automatically sent a week later based on their initial interaction with an altered message. A week later, a third email is sent, again based on the receiver’s interaction with the email. As the process is automated, this process is both time-efficient and data-informed. The LNC can be updated in real-time based on the results received.
Segmenting Your Audiences
There are several ways you can segment your email list:
Demographic Segmentation: Dividing subscribers based on demographic factors such as age, gender, location, income level, etc.
Behavioral Segmentation: Segmenting subscribers based on their past interactions with your emails, website, or products/services. This can include factors like purchase history, browsing behavior, email engagement, etc.
Psychographic Segmentation: Grouping subscribers based on their lifestyle, interests, values, personality traits, etc.
Firmographic Segmentation: Relevant for B2B marketers, this involves segmenting subscribers based on characteristics of their organization, such as industry, company size, revenue, etc.
Maintaining Consistency and Frequency
Consistency and frequency in your email marketing are like the steady rhythm of a drumbeat in a song. They keep your audience engaged, build trust, and ensure your brand stays top-of-mind. Here's why they matter and how to nail them in your email strategy:
Building Trust and Familiarity: Think of it as keeping in touch with a friend. When you consistently reach out, you strengthen your bond. The same goes for your subscribers. Regular emails build trust and familiarity with your brand, making them more likely to engage with your content.
Staying Top-of-Mind: Just like how your favorite song gets stuck in your head, regular emails keep your brand stuck in your subscribers' minds. Even if they're not ready to buy, frequent reminders of your brand increase the chances they'll think of you when they are.
Avoiding Spam Filters: Nobody likes being labeled as spam! Consistent emailing shows email providers that you're a legitimate sender, not a sneaky spammer. It helps keep your emails out of the dreaded spam folder and in your subscribers' inboxes where they belong.
Finding the Sweet Spot: It's like cooking a perfect dish—too much spice can ruin it. Sending too many emails overwhelms your subscribers, while sending too few might leave them forgetting about you. Find the sweet spot by testing different frequencies and paying attention to how your audience responds.
Setting Expectations: Imagine signing up for a newsletter and then being bombarded with emails every hour—it's not cool! Be upfront with your subscribers about how often they'll hear from you and what kind of content to expect. It builds trust and avoids inbox overload.
Planning Ahead: Treat your email strategy like planning a road trip. Create a roadmap with a content calendar, so you know where you're going and when. Use email automation tools to schedule your emails in advance, so they hit your subscribers' inboxes right on time.
Keep an Eye on the Dashboard: Just like driving, you need to keep an eye on the road ahead. Monitor your email metrics—open rates, click-through rates, and unsubscribes—to see how your audience is responding. Adjust your strategy as needed based on what's working and what's not.
So, think of consistency and frequency in your email marketing as the heartbeat of your brand—it keeps things alive and kicking! Keep that rhythm going, and you'll see your email campaigns hit all the right notes with your audience
Well then… are you ready to unleash the sleeping giant in your marketing arsenal? Email marketing could be a lucrative pursuit for a marketing team willing to invest the time and research to create compelling and eye-catching email subscription campaigns.
Disclaimer: No AI was injured in the production of this content. AI (ChatGPT) was used as a tool to supplement enhance and make suggestions in writing this blog post.
Resources
West, C. (2021, August 4). How to run a successful email marketing campaign: A step-by-step guide. Sprout Social. https://sproutsocial.com/insights/email-marketing/
Mahoney, M. (2024, March 28). How To Get More Email Subscribers (Fast and Easy). Copyblogger. https://copyblogger.com/email-marketing-subscribers/
How to Win People Over with Compelling Email Content. (n.d.). Semrush Blog. Retrieved April 15, 2024, from https://www.semrush.com/blog/email-content/
OpenAI. (2022, November 30). ChatGPT. Chat.openai.com; OpenAI. https://chat.openai.com
Blagojevic, I. (2019). How Many Email Users Are There? - 99firms.com. 99firms.com.
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