E-mail Marketing

Email provides the most direct line of communication for conversion to sales

Which is the reason why the most savvy content marketers have no intention of giving it up any time soon.

Email marketing is amazingly cost-effective

ROI around 4,3% (according to the Direct Marketing Association)

All of us are far too familiar with email newsletters that waste our time, email pitches that annoy us, and downright spam. Those don’t work.

What works is a value exchange — your valuable information for your prospect’s valued time. Your subscribers need to know they can trust you … that you’re not a soulless self-promoting spam-bot.

Good email content depends on

• your relationship with your audience through effective subject line writing (which get your messages opened);
• your distinctive voice (which gets your messages read);
• and delivering quality, niche-specific content your prospect needs and shares with others (which inspires referrals and word-of-mouth).

Courtesy of: THE DIRECT MARKETING ASSOCIATION (UK) LTD 2015

Email marketing platforms

MailChimp features

Create

• Email Designer
• Email Templates
• Facebook Ad Campaigns
• Multi-User Accounts
• Merge Tags
• Email Beamer

MailChimp features

Manage

• Custom Forms
• Segmentation and Groups
• Advanced Segmentation
• Subscriber Profiles

MailChimp features

Deliver

• Automation
• Product Recommendations
• Abandoned Cart
• Geolocation
• Email Delivery
• Predicted Demographics
• Delivery by Time Zone
• Inbox Preview
• RSS-to-Email

MailChimp features

Analytics

• A/B Testing
• Reports
• Multivariate Testing
• Comparative Reports

MailChimp features

Mobile

• MailChimp Mobile
• MailChimp Snap
• MailChimp Subscribe

Email marketing is twenty years old. It’s the grandfather of online marketing

47% of marketing emails are opened on a mobile device and email marketing spend continues to grow, and is expected to reach $2.5 billion by 2016.

Research by campaigner.com found that:

• 60% delete the email
• 27% unsubscribe from the brand
• 23% mark the email as Spam

How to Make Sure Your Emails Land in Gmail’s Primary Inbox

• Mention the Reader By Name (This makes things more personal, and the person feels more connected to you and your story.)
• Write in Traditional Letter Form (In email marketing, personal touch wins. By keeping your message simple and natural, it makes the reader feel like you are writing directly to them. It also 'fools' Google.)

• Lose the Images (Contrary to social media best practices, Gmail has its own rules. For whatever reason, Google sees images as a sign of a promotion or spam message.)

How to Make Sure Your Emails Land in Gmail’s Primary Inbox

• Include No More Than One Link (you can get away with more than 1 link, but it’s not guaranteed you will survive the Google filter.)

• Avoid RSS (usually almost every RSS feeds lands in my Promotions tab)

• Keep It Short (the longer your email is, the less likely it makes it to Primary)

• Keep it concise (Trying to blatantly sell products or services will decrease the likelihood of landing in the Primary inbox.)

Email marketing case studies

• https://www.getvero.com/resources/email-case-studies
• https://econsultancy.com/blog/65329-seven-inspirational-email-marketing-case-studies-from-the-digitals/
• http://www.convinceandconvert.com/email/email-marketing-case-studies/

References:

• Sheahan, J., Spencer, S., Matzan, J. (2014) Social eCommerce: Increasing Sales and Extending Brand Reach. Beijing: O’Reilly Media
• Safko, L. (2010) The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools, and Strategies for Business
  Success. 2nd Edition. John Wiley & Sons.
• http://www.copyblogger.com/email-marketing/
• http://www.emailmonday.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/National-client-email-2015-DMA.pdf