Amid the explosion of media, social networks, and the image revolution, have you ever thought that Email marketing is an “old-fashioned” but ineffective form of marketing?
I used to think so, too, and I also struggled with A/B testing each title, and content, to improve open rates, and click rates but didn’t see any significant effectiveness. However, after spending time researching, learning, and being inspired by experts, I realized that email marketing has never been outdated. It always plays an important role in attracting, retaining customers, and boosting sales, especially at a low cost. I will share with you what I have discovered about the types of email marketing, how to deploy effective campaigns, and the mistakes to avoid to optimize campaign effectiveness.
Table of Contents
What is email marketing and Why choose email marketing?
Email marketing is all the emails that businesses use to reach potential and current customers. It is a direct, effective, and cost-saving channel compared to other advertising forms.
Why should we explore and utilize email marketing campaigns?
- Direct reach: Email reaches directly into the customer’s inbox, where they frequently check
- Increase conversion rate: An effective email marketing campaign can have a higher conversion rate than other marketing channels, such as advertising, especially when you build a close subscriber group
- Build a brand: Increase brand awareness, credibility, and reputation
- Personalize customer interaction: Email can be personalized to suit each customer, and help maintain long-term relationships with them
- Save costs: Compared to other marketing channels, email marketing is less expensive and easier to track effectiveness.
What types of email marketing exist? How does BraveBits conduct them?
There are many ways to classify email marketing. Based on the purpose of sending mail, we have types like:
- Welcome emails: Used to welcome when customers sign up for emails or make a first purchase.
- Announcement emails: Update customers about important information such as policy changes, new product information, upcoming events, etc.
- Customer nurturing emails: Provide useful content, and product information, answer queries, etc., to nurture the relationship and encourage potential customers to convert.
- Customer care emails: To support customers after purchase, answer queries, collect feedback, aiming to enhance customer experience and retain customers.
- Promotional emails: Send emails introducing products, services, and promotions to customers.
At BraveBits, email and live chat are direct channels to connect with users. We are using welcome emails, nurturing email, and guiding them based on the appropriate actions of the customer journey. In addition, customers also receive newsletters monthly to update new features, promotions, case studies, useful tips to increase conversion rates, etc. Additionally, some email campaigns are executed specifically for the goals of each group, for example, email campaigns for loyal customers, agency customers, and partners.
Secrets to build effective email marketing campaigns
- Define campaign objectives: Clearly define what you want to achieve through this campaign (increase sales, attract potential customers, etc.) to build relevant content. You should set goals with measurable criteria.
- Build a quality email list: Collect customer emails legitimately and voluntarily. It can come from customers who agree when installing the app, filling out forms, visiting websites, landing pages, social networks, …
- Design attractive email content: Attractive title, concise content, clear layout, beautiful images, and obvious CTA (call to action). We often use online tools to evaluate titles and check content. In addition, titles with an icon or pre-header are usually more attractive.
- Choose the right time to send emails: It’s when customers are most likely to open emails. From our research and experiments, the best times will usually be early in the workday at 9 AM, 2PM and from Tuesday to Thursday
- Avoid common mistakes such as:
- Send emails that are not relevant to the customer’s needs
- Email content is long-winded, boring, difficult to read
- Contain many advertising words, and many inserted links,… are easily recognized as advertising/ spam/ phishing emails
- Sending too many or too few emails
- Track and analyze campaign performance: Track email open rates, click rates, conversion rates, etc. to evaluate campaign effectiveness and adjust accordingly.
To effectively execute each step above, we continue to learn and improve by:
- Participating in online courses, reading articles on email marketing
- Attending workshops, and events on email marketing
- Consulting successful campaigns from other businesses
- Experimenting with different email marketing campaigns to learn lessons
- Contacting and consulting with experts in the field
Email marketing will still be a low-cost but effective tool to attract, and retain customers, and increase revenue if we exploit it correctly. I hope that with the experiences I’ve shared, you will understand more about the types of email marketing, and how to deploy effective campaigns and succeed in winning current and potential customers.
Author: Megan Tong
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