Email Marketing Archives • TotalWeb Partners

December 21, 2022

How Small Businesses Can Make the Most of Email Marketing

For many small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), the pandemic was the nudge they needed to embrace digital technologies, like email marketing software. Plus, new challenges like inflation and labor shortages have left small businesses lacking the time and resources to maintain a robust marketing program. A recent Act! Survey found that 69% of SMB owners handle all of their company’s marketing responsibilities. Email marketing technology has quickly become a necessity for SMBs looking to keep pace with the competition.

With ROI top of mind for many of these SMB owners, it is critical to make the most of their email marketing. To do so, businesses must start by setting clear goals, then using the tools necessary to measure the success of those goals and simplify email marketing processes.

Related: Your Email Marketing Is Destined to Fail Without These 3 Essentials

SMART goals
We’ve all seen the acronym — successful email marketing starts with setting SMART goals that properly define and measure the goals of an email campaign. If you’re unsure of what your email campaigns are delivering, first ask yourself two questions:

Do you have SMART goals?
Are you effectively measuring your progress?

Often, SMBs create email marketing campaigns with (at best) poorly defined goals, like “increase the awareness of a new product.” While you may be able to track things like impressions, does that really determine the awareness you have created around the product?

Email marketing campaigns must be directed toward a specific, measurable outcome, like generating new leads, improving conversion rates and growing a subscriber list. Failure to properly define and track email campaign goals can lead to missed opportunities and uninformed decision-making down the line.

The metrics your team tracks should be determined by the goal of your email campaign. For example, if your goal is to increase the amount of time visitors spend on your website, you should track the overall time on site (TOS) while monitoring bounce rates to determine if page enhancements are enticing users to stay longer. If the goal is to generate leads, teams should be tracking lead source viability over time, leads by campaign type and the average number of touchpoints to conversion. To generate successful email marketing campaigns, marketers must first define clear goals and the metrics to track them.

November 16, 2022

by TWP Publisher

B2B Email Marketing 101

B2B Marketing, E-Marketing, News B2B Email Marketing, Email Marketing

If you’re in the B2B space, you must already understand how important email marketing is, but why isn’t it working out for most marketers?
As email marketers and copywriters, you want to craft emails that people love to read. You can’t create emails for the heck of it, and in case you do, your audience will only learn to treat it as white noise and tune it out.

It’s time to harness the power of email, and this blog post will help you achieve that! We’ll show you how to write compelling emails that inspire your audience to take action. Let’s dive in!

Email Marketing: The Dos and Don’ts

“Most B2B brands have an email marketing strategy, but often get stuck when it comes to writing email copies that stop the readers in their tracks and grab their attention.”

Direct email is a marketer’s biggest blessing. The one-to-one communication it offers gives you a chance to make an impact and form robust relationships with your readers. Emails provide the best ROI for marketers and flexibility and control for the readers. Only the consumers decide when to open and read an email. The first to-do on the list is consent. As a business, ensure you have an opt-in list of subscribers and follow all the data regulation laws such as CCPA, GDPR, CASL, and CAN-SPAM. If your readers wish to unsubscribe, make sure the opt-out process is smooth and easy.

Most consumers check their emails multiple times a day. You can create email marketing campaigns to educate, entertain, and inform your audience. But most importantly, to build rapport and make them trust your brand even before your ads or salespeople reach out to them. Personalization is the key. Your customers don’t want to feel they’re just another name on your list. They want to feel it’s personal. They want to feel like you’re directly talking to them.

Email marketing’s goal is to help your customers get to know your brand better and take the intended action. Before you start writing your email, you may want to ask yourself why you want to create this email in the first place. It helps you set an intention for your email marketing practice and design an inviting subject line. If you do not write a good subject line, most people would not even bother to open the email, and all the efforts you put in to create the email body go in vain. Make sure the subject line is clear and specific.
Email marketing has the potential to grow your business rapidly, no matter in which industry or niche you operate. Segment your email lists as per the audience categories and preferences. You shouldn’t be sending the same email to everyone. Marketing only works when you send the right message to the right audience at the right time. Communicate with your audience consistently- time is of the essence here! We recommend once a week for most B2B brands.
Make your emails readable- write short sentences and give enough whitespace; so it doesn’t look tedious to read to your customers. One-sentence email paragraphs make your emails scannable and prompt you to be clear and concise. Simplicity is the key!
In the B2B world, avoid sending emails early in the morning. When selecting days in the week, go for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday since Mondays are busy with meetings and calls, and on Fridays, people often wrap up work early. Try to think about your reader’s schedule and time your emails accordingly.

In the end!
Emails shouldn’t be about you. They have to be about your customers because your readers aren’t interested in how great you think your business is- they want to know what you can do for them. Be bold and straightforward with your emails but don’t come off as too salesy or aggressive. Subtle marketing is the way to go!

Anatomy of an email marketing strategy: from discovery to conversion

E-Marketing, Marketing, News Email Marketing

Content continues to prove itself as an invaluable part of a marketing strategy, for B2Cs and B2Bs alike. Brands that make it their business to create and serve engaging, useful content can keep their audience interested, gain their trust, and establish themselves as an authority in their field.

Content strategy can be a major part of reaching business objectives – according to Semrush’s 2022 State of Content Marketing Global Report, more than three-quarters (78%) of brands that achieved their business goals have a documented content marketing strategy, while 81% of companies that did not reach their goals do not have one.

There’s a role for content throughout the entire customer lifecycle, though it has the most impact when it is delivered at the right moment, which is where email comes in.

Mapping the right content with the right point in the customer journey and delivering it through email can be extremely effective. With consistent delivery of quality, relevant and valuable content, you get better quality leads and customers who are more likely to stay with you, as well as the opportunity to learn more about your audience and what they want, continuing the virtuous cycle.

In this article, we’ll look at how you can effectively build content into your email strategy in three steps: mapping the customer journey, collating the right content, and bringing the two together in an email programme.

Step 1: Understanding the customer and mapping their journey
As is the case with every marketing campaign, the best place to start is with an understanding of your audience. As a first step, draw upon any insights you have about your existing customers to develop different personas, before plotting the journey they take with you from awareness to conversion and beyond.

Reflect on the prospect’s needs, challenges and concerns on each step of that journey. Then identify the points at which they will be most receptive to content from you and determine what that content should look like.

An important point to keep in mind is that your email and content strategy must be aligned with the company’s broader marketing goals. According a 2019 survey from the Content Marketing Institute, the two biggest benefits of a documented content marketing strategy are aligning teams around common missions or goals, and making it easier to determine which types of content to develop.

If your business objectives are well defined, then goals for the content strategy will more naturally follow. It also means you’re less likely to waste money and effort on campaigns that don’t deliver material results for the company.

Step 2: Bringing together the right content
By this point you should have a good idea of the content you need, and fortunately, there may be no need to create it from scratch. It may be far more efficient to update or repurpose content that already exists in the company, which you can track down with a content audit. This is where you take stock of all the content you have on your site, such as blog posts, videos, guides, whitepapers and survey results, noting what content is performing well or tends to spur action.

If it is necessary for you to make new content, ensure you’re thinking about who your audience are as individuals – where they work, their life stage, their challenges, what they value, where they get their information – as well as where they are on the customer journey, to guide what you create.

Step 3: Aligning content with the customer journey
After you have an understanding of the likely journey the prospect will take with you and the content to which they’ll be most receptive, it’s time to bring the two together with your email strategy.

With a bulk communication and marketing automation platform, like Everlytic, it’s possible to set up automated workflows that send emails in response to certain behaviours, ensuring the prospect receives the right content at the right time. Also, if you have segmentation in place, you can adapt the email and personalise the content within it to suit their profile, rendering it even more valuable.

For example, when the Independent Institute of Education (IIE), South Africa’s largest private higher education institution, wanted to convert prospective leads into applicants and ultimately registered students, they used Everlytic to build a series of emails to nurture those interested in further study.

A series of emails and texts were sent to contacts over time, which were triggered by their behaviour. The content of the messages, of which there were five variations, would reflect where the recipient was in the onboarding lifecycle. IIE attributed the campaign as a factor in the 20% growth in student numbers the following academic year. This paced approach also took some of the strain off their sales and marketing teams.

September 14, 2022

by TWP Publisher

Email Marketing vs Social Media Marketing: What’s the Best for Your Business?

E-Marketing, Marketing, Social Media Marketing Email Marketing

Email Marketing vs Social Media Marketing: What’s the Best for Your Business?

Marketers use various strategies for firms to market and raise brand awareness. Social media marketing and email marketing are two of the most popular and successful ways to accomplish marketing objectives. Both are magnificent in their own ways. As of 2021, there were around 3.78 billion users of social media and 4.1 billion users of email globally, according to Statista. This amount represents about 48% of the world’s population.

Social networking is becoming more and more popular every day. Nevertheless, we are unable to control how emails affect their users’ ability to transact. The issue at hand is which is superior. Which of the two can influence the target audience more effectively?

What is Email Marketing?
A type of digital marketing called email marketing uses emails to spread brand recognition. It informs customers about the newest items, discounts, and services to help them remember the brand. The following are some advantages of email marketing:

Strengthen Relationships, Loyalty & Trust
Building individualised interactions with present and potential clients through email marketing is a terrific strategy. The readers of your newsletters and emails will come to know, like, and trust you and your business if you write them well. Consumers also do business with trusted companies.
Increase Brand Awareness & Stay Top of Mind
Consumers are reminded of your business, products, and services every time an email is delivered to them. This helps customers remember your business when it’s time to make a purchase.
Segmentation
Email marketing allows you to establish lists of each market segment based on demographics, interests, previous behaviour, etc. This allows you to develop marketing messages that are specifically tailored to each target audience. With the help of this incredibly successful marketing strategy, each segment will closely relate to your marketing message.
Low Cost & Good ROI
Comparatively speaking to other marketing strategies, email marketing is relatively affordable. For every dollar invested, email marketing typically returns $44.25 in profit.
Easy to Use
An email campaign may be set up quite quickly. You may upload subscriber information, segment your lists, use email templates, fill in your content, and send out emails to subscribers regularly using the many resources and software providers for email marketing available online. Constant Contact and Mail Chimp are two of our preferred email marketing services providers. Instead of using a pre-made template, having a customised email template that aligns with your company’s brand can be much more successful.

November 24, 2021

by TWP Publisher

This Holiday Season Play The Long Game With Email Marketing

E-Marketing, Marketing Email Marketing

As we predicted, promotional email volume has skyrocketed this year as brands worked to retain and reengage customers because of pandemic-related shutdowns. And marketers facing the decline of third-party cookies are now chasing first-party data through — you guessed it — email relationships. Inbox placement and reputation management vendor Validity finds that global inbox volume has increased 94% since Q3 2020. Competition for email attention and email data is tougher than ever.

The stakes around your email program are higher. Because of data deprecation, first-party data is gold. And email addresses unlock user identity and permission — keys to this treasure. So responsibly collecting email registrations, preserving relationships with good sending behavior, and enhancing user profiles through regular email interactions isn’t just about getting more opens and clicks. Improving deliverability now makes or breaks your entire customer data strategy. Here is how to do right with email marketing this holiday season:

Don’t get lured into the temptation of over-messaging. We get the appeal of sending just one more message when you are facing looming Q4 transaction goals. But wearing out your list now sacrifices longer-term revenue, compromises your sender reputation, and potentially deletes forever the identifier you need to stay in touch with a customer. GDPR allows that users can request that their data be permanently erased from a marketing database if requested.
Keep registration customer led. Boxed and Rue La La now require registration just to browse their sites. But we advise not forcing a customer’s hand. Let customers control their opt-in. Rent the Runway’s omnichannel preference center collects explicit proclivities and zero-party data such as user size and style searches for use in product recommendations. And Dollar Tree gives subscribers a chance to change contact information, desired message type, and frequency.
Deliver value to customers. We bet your email strategy over-indexes on accomplishing your Q4 goals — sales volume, revenues, inventory liquidation. This is the case for most emailers. But the best way to win this holiday and still have a database and solid sending reputation is to give customers what they want, rather than forcing them into your path to purchase. As Validity found, Red Letter Days increased inbox placement when it targeted emails to user behavior and preference. And improved inbox placement boosted opens and clicks, which generated more data for better targeting. This virtuous cycle increased revenue attributed to email by 10%. Email marketing vendors like Bluecore and Cordial collect and make usable non-email data (like point-of-service data, supply chain updates, or SKU-level metadata) to improve message relevance.

November 22, 2021

by TWP Publisher

Email marketing is bigger than ever, so here’s how your small business should do it

E-Marketing, Marketing Email Marketing

Email is a critical marketing tool. Research firm Statistica reports that, in 2020, about 306 billion emails were sent and received every day worldwide, and this figure is projected to increase to more than 376 billion daily emails within the next few years.

That should not surprise anyone running a small business. According to recent research from Campaign Monitor, an email marketing platform, 64% of small businesses use email marketing to reach customers.

Unfortunately, there is still a great deal of confusion among small-businesses owners about how to best deploy email marketing.

For starters, you don’t want to send hundreds or thousands of emails from your company’s mail server unless you enjoy getting into a fight with your internet service provider. That’s why it’s always best to subscribe to a bulk email service such as Constant Contact, Mailchimp, AWeber, or Emma. Besides providing templates and assistance for sending out email campaigns, the primary job of these services is to make sure that your email gets delivered.

The good ones will have best practices and actively enforce opt-in and data rules to ensure that you are not sending spam or messages to people who don’t want to hear from you. Because of these controls, the major mail providers such as Gmail, which recognizes that delivery is coming from a vetted source, are less inclined to block your messages or send them to spam.

What about content? The rule of thumb is that it should be short and mostly non-promotional. That’s because no one wants to receive advertisements. Your community will want information that will help. This information can be about your products but also include thought leadership, insights, and advice.

“If your email marketing is all about ‘buy my stuff, buy my stuff, buy my stuff,’ then you’re not providing any kind of value,” says Bonny Clayton, a Media-based web design and marketing specialist. “Keep doing that and your email list is going to die.”

Clayton also recommends that if you’re sharing a blog or information about a new product, “don’t give them the whole kit and caboodle in the email. Whet their appetite, pique their interest in the email, and then say, learn more by having a big juicy button for clicking.”

November 18, 2021

by TWP Publisher

How, why every artist should use email marketing in 2021

E-Marketing, Marketing Email Marketing

The current musical landscape consists of a melting pot of artists, all bidding for the attention of audiences with 12-second attention spans. While social media is great when it comes to building an engaging brand story and identity, artists like you need to take their marketing efforts one step further.

That’s where email marketing comes in. Email is the tried-and-tested medium that can turn someone who stumbled upon your music into a long-term fan.

Why is email marketing beneficial to musicians?

Email is the internet’s currency. Anyone who’s online has an email address.

90% of emails get delivered straight to your intended recipient’s inbox. Conversely, only 2% of your Facebook audience see your posts. If you’ve got 1000 followers on Facebook, only 20 of them will see your post. If you have 1000 people on your mailing list, 900 individuals will receive your email in their inbox. That’s quite a difference!

Email is also one of the most powerful conversion channels out there. The average click-through rate of any given email is approximately 3%, compared to Instagram’s 0.22%. This makes a big difference when talking about overall revenue, merch sold and gig tickets purchased.

It’s also important to consider the fact that many people use social media to communicate with loved ones and to pass the time. On the other hand, email is a more professional communication medium. In fact, 49% of consumers prefer receiving marketing messages via email.

Then there’s also the indisputable fact that email is one of the most stable communication channels on the net. The first email campaign was sent in 1978 to 400 people. Marketers haven’t looked back ever since. By 2013, 53% of marketers agreed that email is the most effective communication channel. In 2020, around 306 billion e-mails were sent and received every day globally. This figure is set to increase to over 376 billion daily e-mails in 2025. Social media platforms come and go – but email has stayed and conquered.

November 13, 2021

by TWP Publisher

Email Marketing Automation Guide

E-Marketing Email Marketing

Email marketing automation can help you save time, increase your ROI, and deliver a better experience to your subscribers.

Email marketing automation sends targeted emails to subscribers automatically.

Email marketing automation allows you to continue building a relationship with your subscribers over time.

In addition to saving time, email marketing automation provides a better customer experience and boosts revenue.

This article is for business owners aiming to streamline their email marketing campaigns.

If you’re looking for a way to bring in and convert new leads, email marketing is still one of the best strategies out there. Email marketing allows you to connect with your customers and send them automated, personalized content.

Not only is this marketing strategy an efficient way to connect with your customers, it’s the most cost effective. One study found that every $1 spent on email marketing generated an average ROI of $38. And 78% of marketers have seen an increase in their email engagement over the past year.

Fortunately, email marketing automation is a lot easier to set up than you may think, even if you’re new to email marketing. Once you understand the basics, you’ll be well on your way to providing this benefit to your customers.

What is email marketing automation?

Email marketing involves sending targeted emails to groups of your subscribers. This could be a weekly newsletter, information about your products or services, or just general information about your company.

Editor’s note: Looking for the right email marketing solution for your business? Fill out the below questionnaire to have our vendor partners contact you about your needs.

With email marketing automation, these emails are sent without your constant involvement. You set up automatic workflows, and when a customer signs up for a free lead magnet or makes a purchase, they will receive an email or a series of emails.

Email marketing automation allows you to continue building a relationship with your subscribers over time. When you plan your campaign, you’ll decide who it targets and your campaign’s purpose.

From there, you’ll decide how many emails to include and how frequently your customers will receive these emails. Once you schedule your campaign, the emails will be delivered automatically.

November 9, 2021

by TWP Publisher

Marketers search for new email marketing technology to meet pandemic challenges

E-Marketing Email Marketing

During the pandemic, email marketing budgets remained steady while marketers considered new technology to get the most out of the channel, according to a new report from email optimization company Litmus that surveyed 400 marketers.

Marketers this year are most interested in automation. Of those surveyed, 59% said expanding automation was a priority for 2021. Also, 55% are looking to boost personalization, while 35% are considering enriching customer profiles.

Privacy. This year’s iOS changes, including Apple Mail Privacy Protection, have 43% of marketers saying they will look for new ways to measure their email campaigns. Conversely, 24% say that don’t plan to make any changes.

Also, nearly 20% of marketers will run more A/B testing as a result of the new measurement challenges, while 16% will change automation flows and 10% will message their audience about the Apple updates or privacy issues in general.

Budgets. Just because email marketing budgets didn’t increase notably thus far in the pandemic doesn’t mean there aren’t plans for them to grow in the next year. More than 40% of companies intend to up their spend in the channel in 2022.

There is also a shift within email marketing to move the efforts in-house, the study indicates. For instance, 41% of companies plan to hire more email marketers, and 52% expect to decrease the use of agencies, consultants and freelancers.

Relevance. Close to two-thirds of marketers say that they change the tone of their email messages in response to world events.

Specifically with regards to diversity, 27% of companies have sent an email detailing their stance on DE&I. Most of those who haven’t don’t plan to. Only 7% say they haven’t yet, but expect to send out this kind of email.

Why we care. The MarTech Replacement Survey showed a similar interest in boosting email capabilities over the same period. The Litmus survey suggests that even though there was a great need to innovate, budgets were still lacking to make a serious investment in transformation. More optimism about 2022 will likely carry this momentum, as a good many marketers will have more options and funding to make serious changes to their email stack.

October 30, 2021

by TWP Publisher

5 Simple Strategies to Update & Automate Your Email Marketing

E-Marketing Email Marketing

Utilizing the latest email marketing strategies is a great way to expand the reach of your business and help you connect with a wide range of customers. You also want to stay in touch with those prospects who didn’t purchase your offer…yet. They might need a little more convincing that you know your stuff and email marketing is an easy way to get inside their inbox and appeal to them. Looking at ways to improve your email marketing strategy is essential to your success.

Implement these simple strategies to improve your email marketing efforts.

#1 Tweak Your Messages

Many entrepreneurs use various types of email sequences to help them maximize sales during a live launch. However, you can reuse these messages by simply performing a few tweaks to the original email. Performing these tweaks is a great way for you to save time while also improving your marketing reach. Ultimately, tweaking your messages only requires a little bit of work to your existing emails.

#2 Check Out Your Email Marketing Metrics

Another way to improve your marketing strategy is to check your metrics consistently. This is also one area that many entrepreneurs overlook or just don’t take the time to do. This information can play a key role in helping you determine the highest performing emails. Metrics can include a variety of information, such as click-through rates, open rates, and purchases. You can use these metrics to learn effective marketing strategies to help you maximize your consumer base. If you never, or rarely, look at your numbers any tweaking you do could be the proverbial ‘shot in the dark.’

#3 Craft New Emails

Taking the additional time to craft new emails is well worth the effort in helping you to expand the reach of your business. Writing new emails is especially effective if you are running a special promotion or giving away a free item. You can also reuse older messages to help your business grow and reach many more customers with only a minimal amount of effort.

#4 Create a Sense of Urgency

One of the best ways to reach new customers is to create a sense of urgency within each email. For example, you can offer a limited special offer that is only available for a few days. You can also use various elements, like a countdown timer, or programs, like Deadline Funnel, to help you include urgency in your emails. This simple marketing technique is highly effective in improving your sales rate since subscribers won’t want to miss your deal.

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