What is e-mail marketing?

Do you know anyone who doesn’t have an e-mail id?

 
How many email ids do you have?

How many of them are official, how many are informal, and how many are just there with hardly a visit from you?

I think you understand where I’m going with this, don’t you?

What is e-mail marketing? 

No one will argue that email is not a personalized way of communication. An official email sitting on your inbox expects attention and demands that you respond. 

Similarly, a personal email from friends and dear ones are communications that nobody takes lightly

E-mails have to be dealt with and can’t be ignored. You may subscribe, unsubscribe, report, delete but you will not allow accumulation of unread e-mails in your inbox. 

If that is right how many of us are using this simple, and informal communication tool effectively?

Before we go any further, let’s try and set the context right. What is e-mail marketing when it involves promoting and marketing a product or services through a series of communications using this humble and understated communication tool? 

Email marketing is the most underrated communication tool that can help you promote a product or service to a target community that is actively searching for the product or service that you have to offer them 

Social media is growing in popularity when it comes to promotional and marketing activity but you’ll agree that to sign up, the social media sites ask you to share your email id first. The telephone numbers are also asked but the primary  aim is to collect your email id

Messaging platforms like Whatsapp are successful to a certain extent in getting you to join by using your mobile number but for serious and business communication e-mail is the preferred tool, don’t you agree? 

Communication through email is personalized, direct, and complete in itself. 

A business communication over the phone or a chat is tricky because the chances of disengagement are very high if you’re unable to grab the attention of your customer. 

It can be a stressful experience if you keep getting questions and objections over a phone call or a chat. 

Also, it’s a two-way communication and therefore you can easily be diverted or distracted from your purpose of communication.

Email communication on the other hand allows you to express yourself freely and if it is structured well and provides value, your prospect will start reading your content and start engaging with you with trust and faith. 

Trust-building should be a constant exercise and this will also inspire you to offer the best information products and services.

E-mail marketing strategy

Your email list is your distribution channel and also your most valuable asset. So you’d do well to not only grow your email list but also grow your relationship with your subscribers. 

Your frequency of emailing your prospects has to go up and it has to remain regular and consistent. 

Don’t just remember your prospect when you have a product to sell or a service to offer. 

Even before your product or service is ready you can find out if your product is needed in the market by sending out questionnaires, polls, and surveys.

The results will help you segregate your audience into distinct, disparate demographic communities based on age, gender, region, nationality, status, affordability, desire for learning.diet preferences, hobbies, likes and dislikes, etc. 

Your communication with your audience should be an ongoing process and don’t just leave it to automated sequential emails. 

When you start increasing the frequency of your e-mails, take care to send information that is valuable, entertaining, and conversational in the sense that you are joining their mental conversations about the pain, issues, and problems that are troubling them and their dear ones.
Take care not to restrict yourself to just send them sales pitches on a regular basis. 

Instead of glorifying your product features, focus on what the prospects want and address their pains, frustrations and needs. When you focus on what is going on in their lives, the prospects will start looking at you as an authoritative figure who can offer the best solutions.

It’s not a bad idea to offer them free courses with guidance and an attempt to over-deliver on your commitment made to your prospects. 

Free courses, guidance, and creating a support group in the form of Whatsapp groups, telegram groups, Facebook groups will encourage the prospects to feel that they belong in your group.

When they start expressing, you’ll get all the information necessary to come up with a product or service that will solve their problems. Deliver value and make the effort to over-deliver and you can be sure of them signing up for your medium to big-ticket products in the future. A free course with a paid product will make your sales happen effortlessly.

How to do e-mail marketing?

Before you get started, it is important to determine your aim before you commence email marketing. 

Step 1. Ask yourself the following questions:

1. what is the purpose of this email? What do you want to achieve from this email communication?
2. What is the type of campaign that will be suitable? Whom should you send it to?

3. What will be the content matter? 

4. How will you measure the performance of your e-mail with regard to results?

Step 2. List building

You’ have to induce your target customer(s) by offering them a simple sign up process by offering them something of value. It could be an e-book, discount coupons, a free course,  or an invitation to a webinar.

Step 3. Best e-mail marketing tools

Getting the name and email is the beginning. 

The effective use of a lead magnet to get your prospect to share his email id has to be followed up with a sequence of emails that are going to informative and gently asking them to take action, with a sufficient gap between every e-mail. 

Aweber, Mailchimp, Getresponse are some of the best email marketing tools that are available and more vendors are jumping in with more features and competitive pricing. 

Email marketing tools will help you create personalized emails stacked up in a sequence and sent as per your planned schedule in order to slowly convert your prospect into a customer. 

Also, these tools will help you analyze your prospects and their behavior pattern in a comprehensive manner along with free tools like Google analytics, Search console, and free plugins on your Webpress blogsites.

Step 4. Select the type of campaign

Announcements and newsletters are effective campaigns that will elicit replies and responses from your prospects. When you post a blog post, feel free to inform your email prospects. Newsletters will help them remember your brand name, product, and services and you can always ask them to sign up for different initiatives from your side.

Step 5. Measurement of performance

There are no uncertainties in email marketing performance measurement. By using email marketing software you can be sure of who opened your email, how many clicked the links, and who did not spend any time on your site.

Google analytics and your email tool will help you in analyzing the behavior of your prospects. You can measure the number of clicks, time spent on your site, bounce rates, unsubscription rates, open rates, etc. 
This is important to help you make changes and alterations to your email marketing campaign.

More than 90% of smartphone users use their phones to access their emails and it is not surprising to see users have numerous email ids and keep visiting each of them when notifications prompt them to pay attention to e-mails.

How to do e-mail marketing profile?

How to do e-mail marketing profile?

As an e-mail marketer, you need to understand where the prospect is coming from and where they spend more time on their online buying behavior.

Ask yourself how many e-mails you will be sending and what will be the frequency?

Your email should focus on the prospect’s pain and frustration rather than on your product features and testimonials. 

You need to join in on the conversation that is going on within himself, between the ears, and find out what his pain points are.

By empathizing with your prospect you can come up with a customer avatar and address your e-mail with the customer avatar in mind.


How to earn from e-mail marketing?

Money is in the list may sound cliched but it is true. To share a few ways just read on. There are way more than the three ways that have been listed here:


Thank you page

When the prospect opts in by sharing his e-mail id and name, you can be confident the conversion process has begun. On the thank you page you can give links to your product or service and expect him to click on the link and find out more. The buying may happen later but the decision has been made.

Replay your popular e-mail campaigns
Take out your most successful e-mail campaigns and re-run the campaign with the discount coupons and free features. Just don’t over-do it. Maybe once a year is enough

This is by no means an exhaustive coverage of email marketing and in order to learn more, feel free to subscribe to my website by clicking here for more on email marketing, email marketing tools, newsletters, product launches, and webinar announcements