Emails, despite being the oldest form of digital communication, still reign the top spot when it comes to usage. It is still used to build authentic connections with customers to keep the business alive.
With a user base of over 4 billion people (source: Statistica), emails dominate the other marketing channels. This user base is constantly increasing every year.
What is Email Marketing?
Email marketing is the process of targeting and communicating with leads and customers through emails. With an ROI of $38 on every dollar spent (source:emailmonday), email marketing deserves to be a part of every digital marketing campaign. It still beats social media marketing and affiliate marketing and according to smartinsights, email marketing is the most effective marketing channel.
So, Email marketing is an important part of digital marketing campaigns. But the problem is, most people don’t do it the right way which reduces the conversion rate.
To help you in building a successful email marketing campaign, here is a complete guide to email marketing covering everything you need to know about email marketing. Let’s get started.
Why email marketing?
Despite the rapid rise of social media, emails remain one of the most effective ways to generate leads and build loyalty with customers. People who purchased products that are marketed through emails spend 138% more(source:optinmonster).
Your social media account might get deleted for some reason but when it comes to emails, you own your list and no one can take it from you.
How email marketing helps businesses?
Emails increase brand recognition. Including your logo in your emails keeps your business in front of the audience constantly. A customized email with unique and elegant color palettes, logos, and brand graphic help to create a good image of your business in the minds of your potential customers and leads.
Email marketing helps businesses to connect to a larger target market and increase credibility. Consistent emails help in building trust with your customer and these customers who trust you, refer your products to their friends and family.
Sending email newsletters to your clients keeps them updated with what’s new in your business. It educates them about what you are working on and how your business is performing.
How does email marketing work?
A successful Email marketing campaign requires three elements. These are:
1. An email list
You need to have a list of active emails. This is a database of email contacts who expressed interest in your products and in receiving marketing communications from your business. You can generate an email list in many ways. One of the most popular ways is to offer a coupon in exchange for an email.
2. An Email Service Provider(ESP)
It is a software that helps you manage your email list and generate automated emails. It helps you send emails automatically, triggered by the audience’s behaviors which enables you to personalize each interaction with them and increase engagement.
3. Defined goals
The goals of the email marketing campaigns need to be defined and the entire email marketing campaign should be built around it. You can use an email marketing campaign to:
- Drive sales
- Generate leads
- Engage customers
- Increase brand awareness
Once you align these elements, you can start working on the email marketing campaign.
Important terminologies
Here is a comprehensive list of email marketing terminologies that will help you in understanding the ESP and bounce rate report.
- Acceptance rate
It is the proportion of emails that are accepted by the recipient’s ESP.
- Acceptable spam rate
Without impacting the sender’s reputation, the rate at which the email sending server is reported spam.
- Bounce rate
Rate of emails that were undelivered to intended recipients.
- Blacklist
The list of IPs that have been reported spam by SDS(Spam Detecting System).
- Bulk mailing
Sending emails containing similar content to multiple recipients at the same time.
- CAN-SPAM
It is the abbreviation of “Controlling the Assault of Non- Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003”. It regulates commercial emails by establishing requirements and standards for commercial messages. It gives recipients the right to opt-out of emails and also lays out the penalties for disregarding them.
- Clicks Per Delivered
Once delivered to recipients, emails that receive clicks define the click per delivered rate.
- Clicks per Open
It is the percentage of emails that become opened/viewed after getting a click.
- Cost per Thousand (CPT)
It is the cost that an email marketer bears from every 1000 email addresses on a rental list
- Conversion Rate
The number of recipients or subscribers who respond to your promotion or call is analyzed by conversion rate.
- Dedicated IP
Dedicated IP is the exact IP address which is used to send emails to subscribers or potential clients.
- Double Opt-In
This is the best way to build a subscribers list. It helps you to collect emails by asking interested parties to confirm their subscription by clicking on a link sent to their email. Doing so helps you only collect emails from people who are interested in the subject. It subsequently helps in lowering the probability of a high bounce rate.
- Email filter
It helps in blocking emails based on the subject line, sender, or content.
- Email Sponsorships
It involves purchasing advertising space in a newsletter or sponsoring a particular article or a series of articles to promote your service or product.
- False-positive
When a legitimate permission-based email is marked as spam or erroneously filtered.
- Hard Bounce
It refers to the permanent failure of an email to be delivered to the recipient.
- Honey Pot
An email address conspicuously planted by organizations that fight spammers.
- Retention List/Home List
When subscribers join the list willingly because they are interested in the subject of the matter, your product or service, they are added to the retention list.
- HTML Email
You can design custom and creative emails by using HTML Emails. You get the option of playing around with the design as much as you want. Optimized emails generally get a much better reception when compared to generic emails.
- IP Warm-up
Slowly increasing the number of emails sent from a single IP.
- Landing Page
A dedicated page to capturing leads from a linked email.
- Authentication Levels
Identifying whether a sender’s identity is legitimate
- List Segmentation
Segmenting subscribers that are most relevant to send your campaign emails.
- Open Rate
The number of emails opened by the recipients.
- Opt-In/Subscribe
When a user chooses to receive email communication from a website.
- Opt-Out/Unsubscribe
This allows subscribers to opt-out from receiving emails from a sender anytime they want.
- Physical Address
Address of the company or organization sending the email.
- Read or Open Length
Time spent by the recipient to close the email after opening it. Longer read length means the recipient finds the information provided in the mail interesting.
- Sender Score
It is a score out of 100 that defines the reputation of an IP.
- Single Opt-In
When subscribers opt to receive email communication from the sender, without confirming their email addresses.
- Spam Cop
It is a paid service that plants bait emails around the internet to identify people who harvest them and mark their addresses as spam.
- Spam Trap
Consists of an email address that was once usable but is no longer valid.
- Sender Policy Framework
A DNS record that identifies on whose behalf a domain or IP sends an email.
- Whitelist
Opposite of a blacklist, contains emails that have been approved to send messages to that recipient.
Final words
Running a successful email marketing campaign can deliver exceptional results while being affordable. Email marketing campaigns not only widen your network and reach, but also help in building a good relationship with your customer. Email marketing also helps in building brand awareness. Make sure your email marketing campaign has all the three elements and the above-mentioned terminologies will help you in executing the email marketing campaign in a better way.
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