Email Marketing is NOT Dead

Raise a hand if your inbox is filled with emails from businesses you enjoy plus a few you never unsubscribed to? The same is true for nearly all of us. According to Gigaom Research, emailing is ranked the single most effective tactic by marketers for awareness, acquisition, conversion, and retention. What do customers think? Research also shows that 95% of consumers check their email daily, 70% of consumers named email as their preferred method of communication with brands, and all the more important- mobile email marketing is on the rise.

There’s a lot where that came from, and for this week’s topic, I took a moment to just understanding my personal patterns as a consumer. From it, I can surely attest to the fact that email marketing is not going anywhere, but it is most certainly changing. Follow along as I cover some important themes on the subject in today’s blog.

The Benefit of Using Email Software to Manage Email Campaigns

Whether you have a contact list of 50 subscribers or 5,000 subscribers you should be using email software to manage your campaigns. Why? Email software allows for you to inform your consumers of all the new deals and updates while keeping their attention through attractive content. Create relationships! It is obvious at times to receive emails that were clearly sent as a mass message. The same is true when a brand is intentional in building a relationship with the consumer. When an email includes my name in the first line- I am so much more likely to read it through than when it’s not. What about you? Better yet, retarget consumers based on items they left in the shopping cart or tell them about items they didn’t even know they wanted to hear about. Maybe even offer a small discount- 81% of online shoppers are more likely to purchase as a result of emails centered around their shopping preferences!

By now, maybe you have decided email software is right for your business. Good choice. Check out this article for more information on the beginning process of deciding the best platform for your business’s needs. 

Constant Contact vs Mail Chimp

There are many options, both free and paid, for email software. A few admired options are MailChimp and Constant Contact. The software is designed for you to create engaging campaigns that will help you grow your business and also provides data about your consumers so you can target or retarget based on performance.

Let’s talk about MailChimp. As the VP of promotions for WWU SMA and I use this platform every week. First things first- it’s FREE, with paid features to be purchased such as predicted demographics, and as you cap out on the subscriber count for the free version. When it comes to editing and design MailChimp is very user-friendly and the navigation throughout the site is very simple. While there are tons of templates to choose from, you can also create one from scratch or even code your own! Personally, I feel that the templates here are more trendy and in style than Constant Contact’s. MailChimp also has more signup sources available than Constant contact, including drag and drop tool, customized fields to really maximize the user experience in subscribing. Not to mention the segment and grouping tool. This is an amazing feature because the more relevant your campaign is, the better results it will have. Have you heard of geolocation? While MailChimp reports the percentages of opened and clicked emails, it provides approximate locations of your contacts, making it easier to target them based on various time zones and regions. 

Constant Contact, on the other hand, is not free but has a 60-day trial period free of charge. The base price will then become $20/month and of course up in price based on the number of contacts your business has. Similar to Mailchimp, Constant contact has many templates one can use to create email campaigns and there are more templates to choose from on this platform than the other. While it is limited, this platform has registration forms available for changing colors, fonts, background, and even the banner images. Try managing your events on this platform and distributing surveys or giving out coupons to your subscribers.

Both of these platforms have a lot to offer and of course, there are many other platforms to choose from than just these two. Determining what your business wants to achieve through email campaigns would be the first step in selecting the platform that is best for you. Check out Constant Contact’s previewing tool for the various industries that they serve and get some ideas for your next campaign. 

Email Marketing vs Marketing Automation 

Email marketing is the act of targeting consumers with a commercial message through email with the goal of driving sales, increasing customer loyalty or communicating important information. According to HubSpot, by 2020 there will be 3 million email users. Their email marketing course takes a deep dive into building an effective email marketing strategy. While the digital domain continues to grow, many believe email marketing is just not enough on its own. Maybe your feeling like “no way” email marketing is working just fine. That very well could be so, but here are some signs to keep an eye out for when it comes to considering marketing automation over email marketing.

According to Marketo, Marketing automation is the technology that allows companies to streamline, automate, and measure marketing tasks and workflows so they can increase operational efficiency and grow revenue faster. There are many elements that makeup Marketing Automation, as you can see below.

Marketing Automation Best Practices

While sending emails can feel like a chore, marketing automation has made it a little bit easier for you and even help you make the most out of your campaigns. Below is a shortlist of a few best practices for your business to reach its goals by combining automation with your inbound marketing strategy.

• Align Marketing and Sales using CRM- the table below shows what each do on their own. CRM is known for optimizing for different purposes than marketing. Combining the two capabilities to meet the needs of both sales and marketing is important for modern marketing, and it can help you close the gaps between to fill both needs of marketing and sales for your business.

• Determine a master labeling system: Keep the clutter organized for faster-searching and understanding which components go with which campaigns. This helps eliminate extra work later on.
• Build your buyer persona(s): Position your message in front of the right audience. Creating buyer personas helps your targeting, and allows for your business to identify segments and customize your marketing efforts with them.
• Map your lead flow: Don't dig into automation without some direction- Establish a lead management system.

Thanks for reading!