EMAIL MARKETING - INTRO, TYPES and TOOLS for 2021

 Email Marketing-

Introduction:

E-mail marketing is a form of direct marketing which uses E-mail as a means of communicating commercial or fund-raising messages to an audience. In its broadest sense, every E-mail sent to a potential or current customer could be considered E-mail marketing. However, the term is usually used to refer to:

 1) Sending E-mail messages with the purpose of enhancing the relationship of a merchant with its current or previous customers, to encourage customer loyalty and repeat business .

2) Sending E-mail messages with the purpose of acquiring new customers or convincing current customers to purchase something immediately .

3) Adding advertisements to E-mail messages sent by other companies to their customers. 

Companies often list email as one of their most powerful marketing channels. With email usage worldwide projected to reach 3 billion users by 2020, businesses simply have to continue using email marketing to reach their audiences if they want to scale quickly.

What is Email Marketing?

In simple words, Email marketing is a way to promote products or services through email.

Email Marketing is when you send a commercial email message to your 'email subscribers' - contacts who have signed up to your email list and given express permission to receive email communications from you.  

Marketing your products or services by email can be a fast, flexible and cost-effective way of reaching new customers and retaining existing customers by encouraging repeat website visits. 

Advantages of E-mail Marketing

1. It is easy - Creating a marketing message via E-mail is almost as easy as writing an E-mail .
2. It is automatic- E-mail marketing has a tool called an “autoresponder”.
3. It is fast and efficient- Timing is everything, so it can be said: this is a quick and efficient way.
4. Measurability - By E-mail marketing, you can easily find the number of E-mails sent, number of E-mails that have been opened and that those who have opened up, the number of people who are not registered, and click rate.
5. It is very meaningful- You can customize messages for different customers and provide contents and promotions that are consistent with their profile.
6. Most of what you invest, you get- E-mail Marketing has the highest return on investment than other marketing methods.

Disadvantage of E-mail Marketing

1. Undelivered E-mail- These days many ISPs use complex junk-mail filters.

2. E-mail response decay- It's not easy to keep subscribers actively engaged with your company in the long-term.

3. Renderability- Difficulty of displaying the creative as intended within the in-box of different E-mail reading systems.

4. Expenses- Some people and technology resources are required to deliver a sophisticated E-mail newsletter that engages the consumer.

5. E-mail Overload- When an E-mail gets through to the consumer, there is so much E-mail that needs to be looked at sometimes it is difficult for the individual to distinguish between solicited and unsolicited E-mail, as well as have time to read through the E-mail.

Why Email Marketing?

1. In 2019, email users were around 3.9 billion and it is expected to increase to around 4.4 billion (almost half of the world population).

2. 68% consumers have made a purchase online as a direct result of an email marketing message (according to direct marketing association).

3. 72% consumers prefer email as the mode of communication with companies (marketing sherpa).

Types of Email Marketing

1. Transactional Emails

Transactional email is any type of message that is triggered through an event that happened within an application or website, such as a purchase, return, or other user-initiated interaction.

Transactional emails are one-to-one emails, meaning they are created and sent with one individual in mind, and they contain information related to a transaction or process which that individual triggered.

The transactional email basically uses a special type of server, called SMTP server for that you need to find out the SMTP server provider in India or any other country like USA, Canada, Germany and many more.

2. Direct Emails

Direct mail is marketing material mailed directly to the homes of consumers or offices of business buyers. Examples include postcards with an offer, catalogs that display goods, coupons, solicitation letters from nonprofits or free samples sent by businesses.

The strategies we used in 2019 need updates to be more effective in 2020. According to the DMA, direct mail had an average response rate of 9% for house lists and 4.9% for prospect lists.

3. Newsletters 

These are regular emails that are sent to a listing of subscribers who have chosen to receive updates from a corporation. Newsletters typically do not have specific sales messages, however, attempt instead to make a relationship between a client and a complete. They usually have a colloquial tone and contain news and knowledge that may be of interest to the client. The goal is to stay a client connected to a corporation even after they don’t seem to be shopping for something.

Importance of email marketing

• Boosts brand awareness: It helps stay top-of-mind with your targeted customers and increases the chance of turning potential customers into leads, leads into clients and clients into loyal customers.
• Perfect solution to non-targeted marketing: Your prospects receive content suited specifically to their needs.
• Easy sharing: Just a simple click of the forward button and subscribers can share your deals, offers and news extensively.
• Cost effective: It is highly affordable as there are no print costs, no advertising rates and no postage fees.
• Measurable marketing: With precise and valuable metrics, such as click-to-deliver rates, delivery rates, open rates, and subscriber retention rates, it becomes easy to learn customers’ behaviors and interests.
  

Top Email Marketing Tools 

1.MailChimp

MailChimp is one of the oldest email marketing tools ever invented, and is still the industry leader even with the arrival of newer competitors with new technologies.

2. ActiveCampaign Lite

ActiveCampaign is a full-fledged digital marketing tools suite, offering various sales and marketing automation tools.

3.Campaign Monitor

Campaign Monitor is quite similar to MailChimp in many different ways, but mainly because it also offers an easy to use visual builder with a drag and drop approach.

4. ConvertKit

ConvertKit is an email marketing tool focused on ecommerce, offering several unique features that are useful for ecommerce-specific needs. For example, the feature to do recipient analytics, opt-in forms designers, and landing page builder, among others.

5. Mailer Lite

MailerLite is a simple email marketing solution for all types of businesses. The key idea behind our solution is simplicity. We provide our customers with a simple and user-friendly content editor, simplified subscriber management and campaign reports with the most important statistics

6. GetResponse

GetResponse is an email marketing platform. It enables you to create a valuable marketing lists of prospects ,partners and clients ,so you can develop relationships with them build a responsive and profitable customer base.