While social media marketing may get more buzz and often a bit more budget, email marketing remains a significant focus for businesses in 2021. Email allows you to reach your customers and prospects in a more personalized way at a very efficient cost. How efficient? Research has shown email marketing to have an ROI of $42 for every $1 spent! Are you investing in building a clean contact list and using this channel for maximum benefit? Here are 5 ways to use email marketing to grow your business.
1. Welcome Email
When someone subscribes to your newsletter or blog or downloads an article or resource you’ve offered online, the email that follows (either immediately or within 24 hours) is your first opportunity to speak directly to this potential customer. It’s a huge one. Welcome emails generate 4x more opens and 5x more clicks than regular email marketing, so make yours count. Don’t just stop at saying “Thanks for your interest.” While you have their attention, suggest other content they may be interested in or offer a special new customer discount or access to premium content for a limited time. Studies show Welcome emails that contain an offer can boost revenue by 30% per email compared to welcome emails with no offer.
2. Funnel Emails
An email marketing funnel is designed to help move a person along a path to conversion, whether that is a sale or a conversation with a sales rep. Funnels are used in both B2C and B2B environments, but for businesses that have a longer sales cycle and/or a larger investment, funnels are essential. Conversion paths also look different depending on whether you’re selling one large item or several smaller items. However, in all cases your Welcome email should be just the start of the conversation. Have a strategy in place to follow this with a series of additional emails to build a relationship. These subsequent emails are designed to inform and persuade the recipient by offering additional resources and insights that help move them closer to a decision. Create a strategy that builds — you were interested in [topic] so I thought you might also like to read this [blog post, etc.].
3. Offer Email
Ultimately, you need to get offers in front of your audience to spark interest and generate sales. Building a marketing plan with events and offers allows you to schedule special promotions and share these with the contacts you’ve been warming with other funnel emails. Offers look different depending on your type of business. For example, it’s easy to see a discount, free trial, special event, sale, etc. as “offers.” However, in a lot of businesses, offers are built around new resources, like a research study or a downloadable guide to solve a business problem. The goal is still to keep building relationships and move the subscriber closer to a purchase.
4. Cart Abandonment Email
The sad truth is that a majority of would-be customers who place items in their carts leave the site without completing their purchase. I do it; you do it, for lots of different reasons I won’t get into here. But if you have an ecommerce site and aren’t following up with shoppers who’ve exited before completing their purchase, make this happen now! You can use an email to prompt completion, make sure there wasn’t a problem with the process, or overcome objections that stalled the purchase. Abandoned Cart emails have a 43.4% open rate and a 8.9% click-through rate, so there’s incentive to test ways to increase clicks and ultimately revenue. Test giving an incentive to finish like a special add-on deal, free shipping, or a discount. Generate urgency in your copy by taking a scarcity approach — “hurry, only 3 left!”, “sale price ends tonight,” etc.
5. Newsletter Email
Struggling with ideas of what to send to your email list? Newsletter emails are tried and true communication vehicles typically sent in a recurring format on a regular schedule. Your recipients will recognize your newsletter when it arrives in their inbox, and their decision on whether to open or delete is primarily based on how much value you’ve offered in the past. Make sure you give them something worth reading. You don’t have to start from scratch — repurpose some of your blog posts, add customer success stories and interesting tidbits about your team. Announce product updates and introductions and offer solutions to the most common problems your customer service or IT help desk teams resolve. Add human interest stories about suppliers who provide your products or essential components. But most of all…don’t skimp on the copywriting. Engaging readers with well-crafted copy keeps them coming back to see what’s new next month. Every time one of your contacts opens an email, you increase your likelihood of purchase.
Does email marketing really work in 2021? Yes! If your email campaigns aren’t working or you want to get even better results, let’s talk ideas. Email marketing should be growing your business…is it?