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What is email marketing? and how
Written by Coursera • Updated on
Find out how a well-executed email campaign can help you achieve your marketing goals.
Email marketing is a form of digital marketing that uses email to engage with potential customers, increase brand awareness, build customer loyalty, and drive marketing efforts.
In the world of digital marketing, email marketing is widely recognized as an inexpensive yet powerful tool that can increase customer retention and increase sales. As a result, it is often the cornerstone of many digital marketing strategies being developed today.
In this article, we'll take a closer look at the effectiveness and impact of email marketing, find use cases, and familiarize ourselves with key terms. You'll also find a list of email marketing best practices, popular email marketing platforms, and recommended online courses to help you get started.
Email Marketing: Impact, Examples and Glossary
Email marketing has the potential to improve your marketing efforts. Read on to find out how and learn some of the key terms email marketers use every day.
Impact of Email Marketing
Email is one of the most popular means of communication on the Internet. In fact, it is estimated that approximately 306.4billionEmails were sent daily in 2020. This number is projected to increase to 376.4 billion by 2025 [1].
The ability to reach large numbers of potential customers with a single click makes email a relatively inexpensive digital marketing tool with potentially high impact. This is confirmed by the data. For example, a 2021 study found that the average return on investment (ROI) for email marketing is $36 for every $1 spent [2].
However, the ROI of email marketing is not the same for all industries. In the same study, researchers broke down the average ROI per dollar spent across four different industries as follows:
Retail, Business and Consumer Goods: $45
Marketing, Public Relations, Ad Agency: $42
(Video) How To Do Email Marketing🔥What is the best email marketing strategy for small businessesSoftware and Technology: $36
Media, Publications, Events, Sports, Entertainment: $32
Regardless of the industry, it's clear that email marketing offers a potential return that's worth many times the initial investment.
Email marketing examples
If you have an email account, you've probably encountered some form of email marketing before. Typical examples of email marketing are:
Email newsletters informing recipients of upcoming events, e.g. B. in a museum, theater or concert hall
Emails promoting holiday deals, e.g. E.g. during Black Friday or July 4th
Emails sent after a purchase (also known as transactional emails) that offer a discount on a future purchase
Email Marketing Glossary
Digital marketers use a variety of terms to describe the email marketing process. This glossary contains some key terms you should know:
acceptance level: The percentage of messages received by recipients' email servers.
bounce rate: The percentage of messages that were not received by recipients' email servers.
Tariff free: The percentage of emails opened by recipients. The open rate of an email campaign is one of the most important metrics for success. The higher the open rate, the better.
Reference:The text that appears in a recipient's inbox and describes the email. Subject lines should be interesting and relevant to recipients.
Call to Action (CTA):A link or button that leads to a download or website, e.g. B. to a product page, a blog post or a booking page.
Exchange rate:The number of recipients who follow a CTA by clicking a link or making a purchase, e.g. B. when a recipient clicks on a link to your website.
Klickrate (CTR): The percentage of recipients who click on a CTA in an email.
IP heating: The practice of progressively sending more and more emails to a recipient in order to discover their IP address.
Accept/Deactivate:To subscribe (opt-in) or unsubscribe (opt-out) from an email list.
parenting sequences- A series of automated emails sent when someone signs up for your email list. Nurturing sequences encourage customer loyalty and help guide customers through the marketing funnel.
Email marketing best practices and tips
A well-executed email marketing campaign has the potential to retain previous customers, attract new ones, and help you achieve your marketing goals. But to do that, you need to create a well thought out email campaign that strategically engages prospects with relevant and timely messages.
When creating your own email marketing campaign, keep these tips in mind:
1. Create compelling subject lines.
A subject line grabs the reader's attention and prompts them to open the message, while the message content elaborates on your value proposition and prompts readers to take action.
High daily email volume means competition in recipients' inboxes is high - a great subject line can help you stand out from the crowd. This reality is underscored by the fact that the average open rate for branded emails across all industries is just 21.33%[3].
Celebrity subject lines are intriguing and relevant to those who open them. Some ways to improve your subject lines are:
Clearly indicate a promotion. ("Get 15% off your next purchase")
(Video) How to Master Email Marketing (2023)Create a sense of urgency. ("Hurry! Our 30% off Spring Sale ends in 24 hours")
Arouse a sense of curiosity. ("Ice skating in June?")
Mark a specific time period. ("Got some Christmas shopping to do? We're here to help.")
personalize it. ("Jane, your subscription is about to expire!")
2. Consciously structure your message.
Structure is an important part of any copywriting, but especially so for marketing emails.
By effectively structuring the content of your message, you can articulate your value proposition to your reader right away, so you don't waste time. In fact, according to a study, the average time a recipient spent reading branded emails in 2021 was estimated to be just 10 seconds [4]. You may literally only have seconds to get your message across.
To maximize this short time, make sure your email is well structured. Some ways to maximize the little time you have with your reader are:
Place the most important information at the top of your email, e.g. B. the promotion you want to see the most.
Make it scannable so readers can easily find the information they need
Keep text to a minimum and use links to direct readers to longer sections, such as B. Blog posts referenced in the email.
Add CTAs, such as B. Links, throughout your article
Make sure there is a clear CTA at the end of the email to target those who read the entire email.
3. Keep your design simple.
There's a fine line between attention-grabbing and distracting. On the one hand, you want to create a dynamic visual design that draws attention. On the other hand, you want to make sure important information is easily conveyed and highlighted. Therefore, a simple design is often more effective than a more complicated one.
Some important considerations when creating a marketing email are:
Use three or fewer colors in your email. A reduced palette will be attractive without being too distracting.
Highlight your logo and brand. You want the recipient to know quickly who sent it and where to get your product
Visually highlight calls-to-action
Optimize your message for mobile devices. Many people check their email on their smartphone, so it's important that your messages are appropriate for their devices.
4. Only send emails to people who have signed up for your list.
It's important that you only send email to people who have made a conscious choice to receive it. There are several reasons for this practice.
First, while it's technically possible to buy third-party email address lists, the practice is generally prohibited on many marketing platforms.
Second, in some cases, it may be illegal to send marketing emails to people who have opted out of receiving emails. For example, in the United States, CAN-SPAM (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act) is a 2003 law that specifically prohibits sending email to those who have already opted out of receiving E -Mails have decided. According to the law, "each individual email found violating the CAN-SPAM Act is subject to fines of up to $43,792" [5].
After all, emailing those who don't specifically request it is just plain inefficient. While it may seem that sending as many emails as possible will help you achieve your marketing goals, the reality is that email marketing is most effective when it's targeted at a specific audience. Instead of sending emails to people who don't want them, it makes more sense to promote your product or service to people who have already expressed interest.
5. Plan your emails strategically.
In many ways, email marketing is all about timing. Sometimes sending the right message at the right time is the best strategy to improve customer retention and achieve your marketing goals.
As a form of digital marketing, email marketing benefits from easy automation. Marketing automation allows you to send automated emails to a specific audience. Use automation to send targeted emails at specific times of the year, e.g. B. during the holidays, or to create automated training sequences.
Automated build sequences help keep recipients engaged by automatically sending relevant emails that maintain brand awareness and guide them down the marketing funnel.
6. Stay tuned and get tested.
One of the advantages of digital marketing is that you receive regular data on the effectiveness of your campaigns. When creating your marketing campaign, this data can be invaluable in finding more efficient approaches to reach your target audience.
Email marketing platforms allow you to track key data like open rate, CTR, and conversion rate. Additionally, many of them also allow you to run A/B tests, which compare the performance of two different campaigns to determine the most effective one.
Routinely analyzing your data and running tests will help you improve the performance of your overall email marketing campaign.
There are a variety of email marketing tools and platforms available online. As you execute your marketing strategy, these platforms can help you create personalized emails, manage customer email addresses, and send automated emails to increase your impact.
Some of the most common email marketing platforms are:
Regardless of your marketing goals, you can use marketing platforms to execute your email marketing strategy.
You have mail
A well-executed email marketing campaign has the potential to lead to future marketing success. Prepare yourself with a flexible online marketing course such as For example, a career in marketingThe Content Marketing Strategyfrom UC Davis ordigitales Marketingfrom the University of Illinois.
Alternatively, if needed, you can acquire technical skills that will help you better analyze your marketing campaignsProfessional Meta Marketing Analysis Certificatehis Coursera.
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article sources
1st Statesman. "Number of emails sent and received per day worldwide from 2017 to 2025, https://www.statista.com/statistics/456500/daily-number-of-e-mails-worldwide/.” Retrieved 25 January 2022.
2. Statesman. "Return on investment (ROI) of email marketing in selected industries according to Marketers Worldwide as of June 2020, https://www.statista.com/statistics/804656/email-roi-perception/.” Retrieved 18 January 2022.
3. Mailchimp. „Email marketing benchmarks and stats by industry,https://mailchimp.com/resources/email-marketing-benchmarks/.” Retrieved 27 January 2022.
4. Statesman. "Average time people spend reading branded emails from 2011 to 2021, https://www.statista.com/statistics/1273288/time-spent-brand-emails/.” Retrieved 27 January 2022.
5. CCJ. „CAN SPAM Act: A Compliance Guide for Businesseshttps://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business". Retrieved January 27, 2022.
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FAQs
What is email marketing? and how to do? ›
Email marketing is a type of direct digital marketing method that uses emails to engage with a business's audiences. It involves sending promotional or informational content. Email marketing is typically used to create product or brand awareness and generate leads or sales.
What do email marketers do? ›An email marketing specialist is a digital marketer that focuses on building email lists, creating emails, and nurturing leads through written communications.
What is email marketing for beginners? ›What is email marketing? The definition of email marketing is a form of digital marketing that uses email to promote products or services to potential or existing customers. Email marketing is an essential channel leveraged by B2C and B2B companies to build brand awareness, grow customer loyalty and drive conversions.
What are the 5 steps of email marketing? ›- Define your “what” for a tactical “why” Email marketing performs well when it's done right. ...
- Streamline targets through market segmentation. ...
- Deliver client- and solution-oriented messaging. ...
- Create geo-specific and industry-targeted email marketing campaigns.
- Stage 1: Connect.
- Stage 2: Educate.
- Stage 3: Make an Offer.
- Now You're Ready to Get Started.
- Sell your product. ...
- Sell affiliated products. ...
- Pay attention to the subject lines. ...
- Use psychological tricks. ...
- Upsell the best products. ...
- Cross-sell related products. ...
- Redirect your subscribers to another website. ...
- Make a targeted list.
Email marketing remains one of the top marketing channels because of the stability, control, and affordability it offers businesses. As an owned media channel, email marketing gives marketers more control over their messaging and the scope of their reach.
How much email marketers make? ›Email Marketer Salary by Experience
According to talent.com, the average annual salary in the U.S. for experienced email marketers is $80,988.
Email marketing isn't particularly difficult to learn, but your success will depend on how motivated you are and how much time you can spend studying. Email marketing relies on building an email list, creating compelling emails, and sending them out to the list via an email service provider (ESP).
What is an example of e marketing? ›Emails, banner ads, blogs, PPC and social media marketing, are some of the examples of internet marketing.
How to learn email marketing from scratch? ›
- Attract the audience with a compelling subject line.
- Ensure to choose the preview text wisely.
- Offer relevant content to your audience.
- Place CTA in a visible place for your visitors.
- Add relevant images and ensure of creating visually appealing emails.
- Design mobile-friendly emails.
The 3 Rs of Email Marketing: Responsive, Responsible and Relevant.
What is the rule of 7 email marketing? ›The marketing rule of 7's states that a potential customer must see a message at least 7 times before they'll be provoked to take an action.
What are the six rules of email? ›- Use a clear, professional subject line. ...
- Proofread every email you send. ...
- Write your email before entering the recipient email address. ...
- Double check you have the correct recipient. ...
- Ensure you CC all relevant recipients. ...
- You don't always have to "reply all" ...
- Reply to your emails.
The four Ps are product, price, place, and promotion.
What is the most important thing in email marketing? ›As a marketer, your top priority should always be to get permission from your audience before sending any marketing emails. Make sure that your subscribers have given you their consent to receive your emails, otherwise, you risk ending up in the dreaded spam folder, or worse — on the receiving end of a hefty penalty.
What are the 3 C's of marketing communication? ›The 3 Cs are: Company, Customers and Competitors - the three semi-fixed environmental factors in your market.
How much should I charge as an email marketer? ›Also, another popular article states, “On average, a mid-size business can expect to spend $9 – $1,000 per month on email marketing if they self-manage their campaigns (depending on the platform and number of subscribers) or $300 – $500 per month if they work with an agency.”
What is the highest salary of email marketing? ›Email Marketing Specialist salary in India ranges between ₹ 1.9 Lakhs to ₹ 11.0 Lakhs with an average annual salary of ₹ 4.1 Lakhs.
Is email marketing a good side hustle? ›Email Marketing
You can promote products or services, or simply provide valuable content that your subscribers will find useful. On the other hand, you can also use email marketing to generate leads for your business. Whichever route you decide to go, email marketing can be a great way to make money on the side.
Is email marketing in demand? ›
Research shows us that email is still the best channel to reach people on, ahead of other channels, even with the increase in popularity of social media and other messaging platforms. Email users are anticipated to continue growing. In 2021, approximately 309.6 billion emails were sent and received daily.
What businesses need email marketing? ›- Retail. Retail is the top-performing industry in the benchmark as multiline and mono brand retailers dominate. ...
- Financial Services. ...
- Travel and Hospitality. ...
- Manufacturing and Natural Resources. ...
- Consumer Goods. ...
- Healthcare.
Email marketing is better for building relationships with current customers, while social media marketing can help you build brand recognition with potential customers. Deciding which strategy to emphasize can help you build a more effective and personalized strategy for a company.
Is email marketing dying Why or why not? ›Email Marketing is STILL alive and well—and it's not going anywhere anytime soon! In fact, Email Marketing is the single best way to market your brand or business, increase your revenue, and cash in on more conversions. That's right. It's better than ads, better than social media, and better than organic traffic…
What is the No 1 benefit of using email marketing? ›One of the main email marketing benefits for businesses is that you can get immediate results. Compared to other marketing strategies that take weeks or even months to see results, email marketing delivers results very quickly. But not only do results come quickly, they're also easy to track.
How long does it take to become an email marketer? ›Hiring managers expect an email marketing specialist to have soft skills such as detail oriented, analytical skills, and communication skills. Once you have all the required skills and experience, it takes an average of 3-6 months of job training to become an email marketing specialist.
How many emails should I send for email marketing? ›Data shows that 10 to 19 emails per month are the most ideal send frequency for small businesses engaged in ecommerce. That's a good place to start, but you should still determine the best cadence based on your subscribers' preferences and expectations.
How many emails per week for email marketing? ›Sending emails two to three times per week seems to be the peak stat. Once per week and four to five times per week both showed associated data trailing off. The data you're looking for, when it comes to determining a send cadence, involves what keeps your subscribers engaged.
Can I learn marketing on my own? ›Can You Learn Digital Marketing On Your Own? Yes, you can learn the basics of digital marketing on your own, but because the digital marketing landscape never stops evolving, self-guided learning may not be the best route.
What are the disadvantages of e-marketing? ›- Dependability technology.
- Slow internet connections cause difficulties.
- Security privacy issues.
- Maintenance costs due to constantly evolving environment.
- Higher transparency pricing and increased price competition.
- Worldwide competition through globalization.
What are 4 parts of e-marketing? ›
What are the 4Ps of marketing? (Marketing mix explained) The four Ps are product, price, place, and promotion. They are an example of a “marketing mix,” or the combined tools and methodologies used by marketers to achieve their marketing objectives.
Is Amazon an e-marketing company? ›Amazon's digital marketing strategy is comprehensive, and they reach the customers through digital marketing. Today, everyone uses social media. Amazon advertises its products on social media, taking advantage of those who use those sites and sending them to their product pages to help them sell more.
How do I start email marketing for free? ›- Mailchimp for a growing email marketing program.
- HubSpot for segmentation.
- MailerLite for advanced email marketers.
- Omnisend for eCommerce businesses.
- Sendinblue for building automated workflows.
- Zoho Campaigns for the most affordable upgrade.
- Benchmark for free AI features.
- Quality over quantity. ...
- Use an embedded sign-up form rather than a link in your menu. ...
- Encourage sign-ups anywhere you can. ...
- Make your emails mobile-friendly (responsive email design) ...
- Create a list segment for your most engaged customers. ...
- Send automated emails.
Dark mode shifts the background and font colors of an email to light on dark. To do this, it checks any color or background color with a CSS property of background, color, background-color, or an HTML attribute of bgcolor or color.
Does Gmail do email marketing? ›You can use multi-send mode in Gmail to: Create email campaigns. Send newsletters and announcements. Personalize your email with mail merge.
Why email marketing is important in 2023? ›Email marketing remains a powerful and effective tool for businesses of all sizes. Email marketing revenue should reach an estimated $11 billion worldwide by 2023. The rise of social media and digital marketing channels may be tempting, but email marketing is still important.
What is the 12 second rule for emails? ›Have you ever heard of the 12 second rule? Simply put, it's a concept that dictates that readers on average spend about 12 seconds reading an email before navigating away. Call to action text therefore must be snappy and to the point.
What is the 3 second rule in email? ›The theory is that you have about 3 seconds to capture a visitor's attention. Longer than that and you'll lose them. Some say it's 4 seconds, and others say 2. The exact number doesn't really matter, the point is that you have precious little time to capture and keep someone's attention.
What are 10 do's and don'ts for using email? ›- Do: Use proper salutation. ...
- Do: Proofread. ...
- Do: Stay concise. ...
- Do: Keep Calm. ...
- Don't: Use buzzwords. ...
- Don't: Put anyone down. ...
- Don't: Punctuate poorly. ...
- Don't: Forget the conversation closer.
What 3 things should an email always include? ›
- Attention-Grabbing Subject Line. ...
- Enticing Call-to-Action. ...
- Value to the Customer.
- Forgetting attachments.
- Sending to the wrong recipient.
- Choosing a bad subject line.
- Using the wrong writing tone.
- Sending at a bad time.
- Replying to all (all the time)
- Neglecting your signature.
- Working with too many (bad) Fonts.
Email is considered one of the most effective channels for marketing, with 79 percent of marketers placing it in their top 3. The global market for email marketing software was worth $7.5 billion in 2020.
What is the success rate of email marketing? ›Industry | Click Through Rate |
---|---|
All industries -Overall Average | 8.00% |
Retail (both brick and mortar and online) | 7.53% |
The 4 C's of Marketing are Customer, Cost, Convenience, and Communication. These 4 C's determine whether a company is likely to succeed or fail in the long run. The customer is the heart of any marketing strategy.
What are the 6 C's of strategy? ›The six Cs of strategy include: concept, competition, connectedness, continuity, conviction, and the capacity to change. These are elements of the broad process of thinking about how a business develops its strategic depth and capacity.
What is the 4 C's strategy? ›The 4Cs for marketing communications: Clarity; Credibility; Consistency and Competitiveness. What is it? The 4Cs (Clarity, Credibility, Consistency, Competitiveness) is most often used in marketing communications and was created by David Jobber and John Fahy in their book 'Foundations of Marketing' (2009).
Is email marketing a difficult job? ›Successful email marketing requires solid communication skills, data analytics skills, and an understanding of scheduling and automation in much the same way as content marketing and social media marketing. The difficulty level of all three fields is about the same, and they take about the same amount of time to learn.
How much do companies pay for email marketing? ›The average costs of an email marketing agency typically range from a base price of $300 to $500 per month, with tiered pricing that rises with the monthly email volume or contact list size. The cost for a large business could be $2,000 to $12,000 per month.
How many emails do you need for email marketing? ›“If you are in fashion your best frequency may well be close to 6 emails per week. But different brands and verticals have different optimal values for how often to send.” Your email marketing frequency should be based on your typical customers purchase cycle and profile.
Are email marketers in demand? ›
There are thousands of companies looking to hire qualified, engaging, and energetic people ready to take on the task of marketing for them through email. Statistics show this field continues to grow, despite all the hype of social media, and more and more companies are looking for good marketers to join their team.
How do I get my email noticed? ›- Build better relationships with subscribers.
- Brush up email copy.
- Improve your follow-up sequence.
- Provide immediate value.
- Use data.
- Avoid typos.
- Polish your email template design.
- 1) Research them. Don't make assumptions about the person you're emailing. ...
- 2) Perfect the subject line. ...
- 3) Establish relevance. ...
- 4) Identify and build a connection. ...
- 5) Make them like you. ...
- 6) Inspire reciprocity. ...
- 7) Convey your authority. ...
- 8) Use an appropriate voice and tone.
- View the "Contact Us" page of their company website.
- View their author page.
- Use LinkedIn to build rapport.
- Reach out on Twitter.
- Subscribe to your prospect's email list.
- Use HubSpot's CRM and LinkedIn Sales Navigator.
- Use HubSpot's CRM and Hunter's Email Finder.
- Pick up the phone.