These days marketers are trying all the possible ways to reach their customers. There are cases where companies and Businesses spending more money on marketing than R&D. It t is true.
Marketers are putting a lot of effort into Live chatbots, Instagram, and Youtube influencers, to reach their customers. No Matter the cost.
On the other side, there are free and less affordable ways to reach customers, as well. Among all Email is the most effective medium. Here are the simple stats. For every $1 spent on the email, you can generate $42.
Email is not only for Medium and Large Businesses. It is also for Bloggers like you and Me. Email marketing is the best way to reach the end customer. Email is the best and proven way to reach the target audience as well.
Any blogger would suggest one and only thing while promoting your blog. Which is "Keep collecting Emails from day one".
Let's start with the basics.
I often get this question as well. What exactly is email marketing? what do they do with it? Is it a simple way to send a reminder regarding the update?
Let's start what is it and how to use it.
What is Email Marketing?
Email marketing is the use of email to "promote products or services", in the layman term. which is pretty much the exact answer too.
It’s not just limited to that. You can use email marketing to develop relations with current customers, and/or to reach out to potential customers.
Email marketing allows businesses to keep their customers informed, and to customize their marketing messages accordingly.
Think of it as one of the most cost-effective and conversion-rich forms of digital marketing today. It’s potent, persuasive, and gets your e-commerce store great results.
Why is Email Marketing Important?
There are many reasons why it is important. Few are Subscription rate, conversion rate, and ROI, and much more.
For any business or for a blogger's marketing strategy is vital to make a profit, and, while having content is excellent, it means nothing without proper optimization and a means of getting the information out to your following.
The majority of bloggers take advantage of social sharing, which is also good to reach socially hungry people, these social share allows them to hit publish and send new off to their various social media channels.
However, when it comes to reaching your audience, email is still the way to go. As consumers, email is about 40x more effective than any other form of social reach.
1. Build your subscriber list
The main goal of any blogger is to build a Subscriber list and get as many readers as possible. It takes months to build a consistent number of readers to your email subscription list.
2. User-Friendly Design and More
Nearly 80% of subscribers open the welcome letter and if possible they will also reply and customize accordingly. So you need to build a user-friendly design.
3. Give subscribers a taste of your latest content
You need to send only the snippets or highlights to the email subscriber. Don't send a 500+ letter email no one would see it at all.
Just send the highlighted text and an image that describes the purpose of the email.
4. Promote your Products and services
If you are an e-Shop owner or a small business owner attach products as well. Give them a discount regularly and ask them to give feedback.
Remind them about the monthly or quarterly offers. and More. If your a blogger send them a snippet of your book or any service and ask for feedback.
Here is a simple graf, that tells the importance of marketing channels for an organization. If this is the best way that an organization follows then you and should consider this as well.
The scale that you and I and the organizations implement would be different. But the results that we're expecting are the one and the same. Which is to reach the end customer within no time.
Don't Be a Spam.
If a bunch of your email subscribers ignores or simply delete emails without opening, then your are making mistake. You need to understand the conversion rate in each campaign and rectify those mistakes.
Don't get banned by Google because of sending misleading emails. If you do this mistake again and again then you might loos the email list altogether.
Email Marketing Statistics
Here are some of the interesting fasts/Stats on Email marketing. This will blow your mind. Let's check it out.
- There are 3.9 billion daily email users and users are forecasted to reach 4.3 billion in 2023.
- 293.6 billion emails were sent and received each day.
- The average expected ROI is $42 for every $1 you spend on email marketing.
- Emails with personalized subject lines generate 50% higher open rates.
- 49% of consumers would like to receive promotional emails from their favorite brands.
- Mobile opens account for 46 percent of all email opens.
- 35% of business professionals check email on a mobile device.
- 73% of millennials prefer communications from businesses to come via email.
- 35% of marketers send their customers 3-5 emails per week.
- 78% of marketers have seen an increase in email engagement over the last 12 months
- 80% of business professionals believe that email marketing increases customer retention.
- 59% of respondents say marketing emails influence their purchase decisions.
Now you know how important emails are. Rite. If you focusing more on social media or any other forms of marketing techniques just try email marketing as well.
Make sure the first welcome emails are personalized and user friendly with cleat cut design and information.
Latest email marketing techniques
1. Pre-Targeting and Post-Targeting
Many times bloggers or marketers focus on targeted audiences and collect emails, regularly and treat newly email subscribers as their first customer. But after a while, they simply treat than as a visitor.
There are some cases where the marketing team focuses on the wrong audience and wastes the budget and time. So clearly define your target audience and build loyalty in their heart, over time.
Collecting emails is not an easy task it takes time. So be careful while selecting the target audience.
Once you acquired the emails, don't bombard them with daily emails, Instead, focus on sending emails on a weekly bases. And after a month or two ask them fr suggestions and feedback and then tell them about the daily or 2 days newsletter program and we're giving it for free for you. Would you like to join it?
Try to take their approval and send freebies once 3 months and especially for special occasions. If you know their birthday then you can send them personal emails saying congrats.
Quality is more important than quantity. So Build one loyal customer rather than building an army of junk emails.
2. Focus on Mobile First Formate.
With gmails personalization aspects like inbox, promotion, forums, etc, they are segregating the emails and most of the cases many would go to inbox rather than opening any other tabs.
In many cases, customers would like to open emails on their mobile phones rather than on a laptop. So you need to focus on mobile-first formate.
Companies like Google and Apple are focusing more on mobile-friendly devices and then give importance to system friendly design.
3. Personalization
Email personalization techniques still work today. That doesn't mean you should follow the same formate day after day.
Instead of one personalized email formate design at least 10 different formats and send them accordingly.
This way the reader understands that the sender is really focused and cares about the reader. They can write personalized emails.
Simply don't start "Hello MR.XXX" in all of your emails. Instead, focus on "MR.XXX thank you for checking out my newsletter, like your one of our oldest and loyal customers here are some freebies"
If necessary send some coupons regularly like month ends or special occasions etc.
4. Sales and conversion focused.
Don't be sales driven when eve you just starting off. Be value-driven. If you always try to sell something through email, then the percentage of those who open your email will reduce drastically.
So the best way is by focusing on "Value". Provide enough value to the reader and then make them visit your website. Once they come and see your website then you can try to sell.
Right away don't sell anything on email. If you can build a consistent number of readers from email campaigns then you can start offering freebies and discounts and then you can sell. "Occasionally".
Take a day, maybe month-end or month start, and one or two days trying to sell. And the rest of the days focus on building loyalty with value.
5. Off-peak sending
Just like any other marketer doesn't focus on sending long and bulky emails during office times like 10 to 4 on weekdays.
Nearly 75% of the time even the existing customers won't bother to read the email at all. They might simply delete it or not even open it at all. Later on, they will ignore it altogether.
If you send emails regularly, they might consider unsubscribing the email newsletter. So instead of sending emails regularly send then during weekends, or if you want to send emails during the weekdays focus on sending off-peak times.
Now you know how important emails are and how to use them to gain valuable customer loyalty. Rite. Now let's see what are the best email marketing services out there.
Best Email Marketing Services
These are not Affiliate links
1. MailChimp
Best Free Email Marketing Solution for beginners and for small businesses. MailChimp is the most popular email marketing service on the market today, due to their free trial and lifetime free for 2000 subscribers
It is very intuitive to use and MailChimp provides plenty of templates to make designing beautiful emails simple. There are some limitations like "Non-Affiliate links and 2000 subscriber limit" for the free version.
But, if your blog or emails have any affiliate ads, you cannot use MailChimp since their terms of service do not allow affiliate marketing.
For smaller businesses, their “Forever Free” option is fantastic. Once you start growing (and hopefully making money!), their paid plans remain very affordable.
2. ConvertKit
ConvertKit is one of the Great Email Marketing Tool for Content Creators, especially for bloggers. This platform is especially good for bloggers, as they make it super simple to add PDFs and other incentives to your welcome email.
Plans start at $29/month for up to 1,000 subscribers.
You can start with a 30day free trial and continue with base plans. It is also the most suggested platform for email builders by many bloggers and content marketers.
3. ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign is one of the Best All-Around Email Marketing Tool for Bloggers, as you can attach with the shop (E-cart) as well.
It is More than just email, this is a fully integrated customer relationship management tool. Create triggers, automate follow-ups, and more.
The pay meant options are also very easy when you attach with your shop in the blog. Their mid-tier plan is just $49/month. Many features are not available in the basic and low-end plans. that is the only con that you can find in this service.
They also include a conversation bot for $9 per month per user.
This is useful for mid-size companies those who are in constant touch with the end customers.
4. Constant Contact
Constant Contact is one of those Email Marketing Service that is built primarily for Relationship Building.
It is also the marketing platform that is designed for bloggers and small website owners to build emails list and promote content to them regularly. Is also has some of the best features like e-shop, social media connections, and more.
Constant Contact is also one of the oldest marketing firms, that is built primarily to promote small and medium enterprises and best suited for bloggers as well. When comes to pricing you can start with a $20 base plan and scale accordingly.
5. GetResponse
GetResponse is a comprehensive marketing software platform that helps you create content, boost sales, and increase traffic to your website.
Integrated email marketing, autoresponders, and landing pages let you automate essential tasks and launch effective marketing campaigns.
Advanced analytics make it easy to track conversions, leads, and ROI, and learn what your customers want. Customizable template and more. It is the Best Autoresponder in an Email Marketing Service.
000. Feedburner👀
Are you out of your mind? Or are you living in the stone age? This is not an email marketing tool.
It is a Subscriber tool.
No, I'm Not but this is the heard truth. 3 out of 10 Bloggers still start with Feedburner. You may believe it or not. We're all not born with a Gold spoon in our mouths. Rite.
You may like it or not, I still recommend this platform if you are a beginner.
Tell me one thing. If there is no one using it, then why would it be still on the internet. Google might have taken it down rite. But they didn't. There are still customers out there.
Conclusion
Email marketing is a proven way to reach customers all around the world. Especially for bloggers, Email Marketing does not only keep your readers up to date but also encourages return visits and gives you the ability to increase your revenue through affiliate links Ads, and much more.
For many bloggers and small businesses, it is a vital part of their marketing strategy. A building an email list is not that easy it takes time and energy. Once if you have enough list of emails you can make consistent income out it as well.
From day one of your campaign, you should focus on building your subscriber list, Attracting and also retaining the old customers, Providing freebies to old customers. and more like snippets of your next blog article, etc.
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