Email marketing has the highest ROI in the market. Virtually all content that discusses email marketing starts with this phrase. And it’s true. After all, without a doubt, email marketing is one of the digital media that offers the highest returns to companies. And, therefore, many digital marketing managers and professionals decide to invest time and resources in email campaigns as a way to leverage their businesses.
But, for lack of knowledge and good guidance, these professionals end up making bad choices, thinking it would just a matter of “sending emails” and imagine that email marketing is very simple. After all, what’s so difficult about that? Well, we could enumerate a shortlist of problems, just for starters. You’ve got to do it right if you want to obtain good results.
That’s why we at SafetyMails, the most trusted email email verification platform on the market, we are going to show you how to start email marketing the right way!
Table of contents
What is email marketing?
For a long time, and even today, many people confuse email marketing with those unsolicited messages whose sole purpose is to sell something. This concept is far from correct. Email marketing is something much smarter and more comprehensive.
In fact, email marketing is a digital marketing tool that uses the consented sending of messages via email to establish a relationship with a subscriber base. The sale is part of it, yes, but it’s not just about that.
Characteristics of email marketing
Email marketing has 3 fundamental characteristics:
- It’s direct marketing: email marketing is sent to lists of known contacts, whose characteristics are properly mapped, allowing for the correct segmentation of deliveries and is a medium capable of tracking results in real-time, whether receiving messages, reading emails, clicks on links, etc.
- It’s permission marketing: that is, email marketing provides that any messages will only be sent to contacts that have given explicit or tacit consent. In addition to email marketing, other digital marketing media also require this type of permission, such as push notifications and messages via sms.
- It’s very versatile: email marketing can be used for sales, for relationships, for branding, and many other purposes.
Types of email marketing
There are lots of types of email marketing you can do, depending on your goal.
You can choose many things, such as:
- promoting your business;
- make sales;
- invite people to read an article on your blog or a video on YouTube;
- informing about a purchase or recovering a password.
Use a professional email address
It may seem like an obvious and banal thing to say, but it’s not: many people still try to use free email addresses like Gmail or Yahoo to send their email marketing campaigns. This is a very bad practice, which can cause problems such as messages blocked by providers.
Also, free emails do not convey trust to recipients for the purpose of doing business. Remember: it’s not enough to be professional, you have to look professional.
Therefore, create a professional email account, with a domain referring to your business, to your website. The cost is very affordable and there are numerous online hosting and professional email services.
Choose an email marketing tool
Do not try to send your email marketing campaigns using MS Outlook or your Gmail webmail. It’s not the right way and it will lead to a lot of problems (and eventually the suspension of your email account).
Using a specific, own tool for email marketing offers several advantages. The first is technology: these tools have teams taking care of the infrastructure of the sending and quality processes, with specialists in the area. A simple email delivery does not have all the controls and features needed to avoid problems.
In addition, email marketing tools have several features, such as editors for creating emails, automation, flows, complete reports and contact controls, among others.
By the way, if you want to learn more about some interesting tools to help you in your day-to-day working with email marketing, we recommend this excellent content from SafetyMails: “Essential tools for email marketers
And how do you choose the most suitable email marketing tool?
There are many email marketing tools available on the market. For this reason, choosing one among so many can be a complicated task. To help, we’ve created a short guide for you to choose your email marketing tool.
Build your email list
If it weren’t for email lists, there would be no email marketing. That is clear. As Sherlock Holmes would say, “I can’t make bricks without clay.”
This question, however, is one of the first issues for those who want to begin email marketing: how to start from scratch?
It’s important to understand that it’s not about quantity, it’s about quality. The number of emails you have is just a vanity metric in most cases.
Use content marketing techniques to attract the attention of new subscribers, such as:
- webinars with strategic partners,
- availability of ebooks,
- templates, etc.
Never buy email databases, as it is illegal and also violates the principle of permission marketing.
It is also important to build intelligent Landing Pages capable of captivating visitors. Be creative and seize opportunities.
Checking email is a key step – SafetyMails
About 20% of emails typed on Landing Pages are invalid because visitors make small typos. This is bad for your business, as these are leads that don’t convert (i.e., they don’t bring profit to the business) and can still block your email marketing campaigns, as providers have a tolerance for invalid emails of less than 3%!
Therefore, checking email by email during the registration process is important to ensure the quality of the generated leads.
SafetyMails’ email verification service solves this problem very simply, in registration forms, landing pages and applications. It is very easy to install, and it is integrated with a number of services and also with WordPress forms.
Enjoy and create a SafetyMails account now and receive 100 free credits. Also, test the API for forms and receive another 1,000 credits for this purpose.
Track key metrics
Conducting an email marketing campaign is just the first step. Knowing what happens after they are run and how the recipients behave is even more important, since it will define your future action strategies.
Track openings by time, provider, device (smartphones or PCs/Notebooks), clicks, conversions, ROI, and much other information that is critical to your business and the development of future campaigns.
It is important to know which are the most important metrics for your business and, in your planning, define which are the most suitable key performance indicators (KPIs) for your email marketing.
Plan your actions correctly
For email marketing to reach its full potential, it’s not enough just to create an interesting email layout and send it to your contact base. More than that, it’s important to consider all the planning aspects that lead to success. Email marketing cannot be a matter of chance; rather, it must be the result of a well-defined strategy.
If you want to know what are the key elements for a good email marketing campaign, take the opportunity to read this article from SafetyMails: “How to conduct effective email marketing.”
A good email marketing plan contains various steps, working in a cycle:
- audience definition,
- primary and secondary objectives,
- segmentation,
- layout creation,
- email contact management,
- strategic sending definitions,
- results tracking,
- intelligence,
and each of these steps also have multiple tasks.
Conclusion
Email marketing is extremely effective, but requires serious consideration upon adoption within your digital marketing strategies.
Do the right planning, adopt intelligent strategies for capturing new leads in the online and offline environments, hire a good sending and management tool and you will assure an excellent execution of your email marketing campaigns.
