Have you heard that you should rely exclusively on SEO and social media campaigns for successful advertising planning? That email marketing is now outdated? Then you can vehemently disagree with whoever told you that next time! Sending electronic mail to the desired target group is still one of the most effective elements of your overall marketing strategy. Industry experts even predict a worldwide increase in sales for email marketing. With little effort, you can reach many customers and prospects directly.
Find out how to use email marketing in an uncomplicated way with maximum effectiveness. We provide you with everything you need to know about this specific marketing measure and tell you which tools you should use. And we don’t skimp on personal tips and helpful hints.
What is email marketing?
Email marketing is exactly what it says on the tin. You use commercial emails to strengthen the bond with existing customers and to acquire new customers. In terms of content, it can be a matter of advertising products or services. You can provide information about news or special offers, send Christmas greetings and birthday wishes. Since your messages end up in the personal inbox of the desired person, email marketing is a form of digital direct marketing. Always make sure that your addressees have agreed to receive emails in advance in accordance with the applicable data protection regulations.
Professional email marketing today is very different from the mass mailings of the past. Rather, it focuses on personalized and sometimes even individual communication that is tailored to the target group.
Generally speaking, email marketing can be divided into two areas:
- Promotional emails are used to draw attention to special offers from your company. These don’t have to be new products. They could also include:
- special offers
- webinars
- competitions
- last-chance buys
As a rule, promotional emails are sent between three and ten times over several days.
- With info emails, you can share the latest news from your company with your customers. Here, too, a variety of content is possible:
- Personnel changes in management
- Relocation of the store
- New logo
- Search for skilled workers
Only send messages that are also of interest to outsiders. Info emails should always offer added value for the reader.
Email marketing: what are the advantages?
Despite growing competition from social media, email marketing still has numerous advantages:
- Growing brand awareness: By regularly receiving your emails, your target group automatically memorizes your company name. Together with the personalized address, the recognition of your brand has a positive effect on perception. As a result, the trust of your existing and potential new customers in your offers increases.
- Increased sales: Email marketing still achieves one of the highest returns on investment. Your investment will lead to particularly high profitability if you combine your email with discount vouchers or special offers.
- Manageable costs: You only have to create the text for your e-mail once – and then you can send it to as many recipients as you like. Your personalized salutations are automatically inserted for you by high-quality software solutions. And you can even get your first campaign from most software providers for free.
- Increased customer loyalty: With every email, you strengthen the bond between your customers and your company. It starts with your welcome email and continues with advertisements and information, right up to birthday wishes or Christmas greetings.
- Complete independence: You are completely free in the content and design of your email. No third-party provider sets limits for you; you alone decide on the recipients.
- Precise measurement: professional tools enable you to analyze your email campaign at any time. With data on openings, clicks and conversions, unsubscriptions and delivery problems, you can evaluate the success of your campaign. And if necessary, make your strategy even more effective in the future.
The best tools for email marketing
We would like to give you one email marketing tip in particular: opt for a professional email service. You can also use your private internet provider, but software developed specifically for this purpose scores over Outlook, Gmail and co. in many ways:
- mailings from private providers are often identified as suspicious and end up in the spam folder. Professional providers, on the other hand, only use trustworthy servers. Your electronic mail will always be delivered to your inbox. You can also be sure of a high-quality responsive design and thus the correct display of your e-mail on any device.
- Personalization functions are also not easily provided by private service providers. Here, too, you are in better hands with experts. Their software solutions integrate placeholders for individual personalizations that are automatically filled in before sending.
- The same applies to your design templates. While private providers do not offer you your own email templates, you often have the choice between hundreds of templates from experts. You do not need any prior knowledge to make personal adjustments. The tools are intuitive to use and easy to design for the emails you want.
- Compared to private providers, specific software solutions also offer you detailed tracking and analysis functions in real time.
If you want to use a professional software solution, you’ll be spoilt for choice. You’ll come across a large number of different providers during your research. And each of them has slightly different areas of focus. So ask yourself a few questions before making your decision:
- What budget amount are you planning?
- How many e-mails do you send on average per month?
- How many email contacts do you have?
- Do you need your software to be able to distinguish different target groups when sending your emails?
- Do you just want support for your email marketing or are you interested in further administrative functions?
Your answers will help you find the right provider for your needs. And in the future, you can use targeted email marketing to increase your sales even further.
