Tag: email marketing

Table of Content

• The Value of Email Marketing in Today’s Digital Landscape
• Choosing the Right Platform and Understanding Costs
• The Power of Personalisation and Effective Templates
• Automation for Efficiency and Impact
• Data Collection and Performance Analysis

The Value of Email Marketing in Today’s Digital Landscape

In an era dominated by social media and instant messaging, you might wonder: is email marketing still effective? The short answer is yes. Email continues to offer an impressive return on investment (ROI), with some studies suggesting an average of $42 for every $1 spent. But what makes it so valuable?

Direct communication with your audience is something that every company wants to proceed with their campaign to get close to their customers. Social media is another option, but it is different in nature compared to email marketing. 

There are unique aspects to social media marketing. However, when it comes to budget, email marketing shows the most efficiency with lower ROI. Also, with the ads and organic posts, there isn’t any guarantee that the reach will be maximised. With email marketing, if you have set your subscriber lists segmented and well maintained, reaching your customers will not be a problem. 

A few new concepts have to be embraced in today’s email marketing. Research has shown that 77% of Americans have smartphones, and around 70% of consumers use smartphones to purchase products. The number of mobile users is increasing as it is now a norm to access personal and business information on smart devices. 

The methods of interaction between consumers are ever-changing. With the development of technologies like augmented reality(AR) and virtual reality(VR), marketing has embraced the incorporation of these new innovations. In the case of the wants and needs of consumers, around 90% of consumers favour interactive content. However, these interactive contents are not regularly practiced. 

Consider the application of interactive content to set yourself on the advancement of future email marketing strategies. Embed video content, buttons that lead to extra and relevant content, infographics, and gifs to show more interactive content.

Choosing the Right Platform and Understanding Costs

Having access to fitting email marketing platforms will prepare you with tools like email templates, email builders, and personalisation. Furthermore, advanced features like list management for segmentation and automation can assist you in building powerful email campaigns that can get engagement from your subscribers to up your relationship management game. To select the best of the best, checking on the infrastructure of each platform is key, which ensures that your email campaign can fit to utilise the platform to the fullest. 

Some of the key features to consider when selecting a platform:

SMTP Server: Most of the top services that provide email marketing platform services have their own SMTP servers. They help deliver emails without the issue of landing in the spam folder. When most email campaigns are bulk emails sent to large numbers of segmented people, it will cause problems on the receiving end if the platform does not offer this basic need. 

Integration: Check the platform to see if it allows integration with other third-party tools, which can help you tremendously to increase the functionality of your email marketing campaigns. When your email marketing CTA leads to website sign-up, having the WordPress integration can make things much easier.

Sign-up Forms: Creating lead generation through email campaigns can be much easier if there are tools provided by email marketing platforms, like sign-up templates and website integration. 

List & Segmentation: Email marketing platforms should include the comprehensive functionality of list creation and management, as well as the segmentation of the subscribers. This is crucial to having a higher success rate in your email marketing campaigns. 

Automation: When you have lists that go beyond the numbers you can control manually, automation must be applied. Without automation, launching different email campaigns can be a nightmare. Trigger-based email campaigns and drip campaigns need to have automation features to function properly.

Free Plan

Basic Paid Plan

The Power of Personalisation and Effective Templates

Studies have shown that personalisation in email marketing can help increase transaction rates. When personalisation is discussed, it does not mean that you will have to create individual emails to push; it is the method to create personalised touches in stages of the email campaign based on the target audience you have segmented and targeted. 

Personalisation is relatively easy to apply and work on, yet most industries do not follow this method. It is as simple as having “Dear Sean”, instead of “Dear Customer”. Many do find it difficult to understand why such tiny details of personalisation can make a huge difference. 

Another example is kickstarting the first paragraph of the email with “Based on your preference,” or “Since you have purchased OOO & OOO before,” with the actual purchase history can give a personalised touch. The purchase history and behaviour history of the customers can also be applied to newsletter emails and suggestion emails, which are less aggressive methods of promotional emails. Incorporating messaging like “Recommendation for Sean: OOO”, “Don’t miss this chance, Sean!”, and “This month’s suggestion for Sean” in the subject line gives the reader a feeling of closeness and connection overall.

Subject lines that can tap into the receiving ends by driving curiosity, being humour-based, appealing to their needs, evoking the fear of missing out, giving discount offers, being catchy and trendy, and accessing the customer’s pain points. An interesting study from Demand Gen Reports has shown that email subjects with pop culture references had an open rate of 26% in comparison with the normal 16%. This shows how a personal touch on email marketing does work, as it resonates with the audience that you are targeting. However, it’s also important to ensure proper segmentation at the same time, as it is the indicator of creating the correct personalisation email strategy.

The email design also works magic on the numbers like click-through and open rates. If you have a dull email that looks generic, no one will be entertained enough to open that email. To be specific, regardless of whether the nature of the email is B2C or B2B, the visual representation is important. In today’s age, where most of the email work is done over smart devices, it is crucial to have mobile-responsive email designs. According to MailChimp, with the launch of mobile responsive email design, their click rate over mobile increased by 15%. 

The click-through rate also depends on the clear call-to-action (CTA). While the email content can hook people to continue reading your email all the way until the end, an appealing CTA is needed to have them take action for successful conversion. CTA is instruction and persuasion at the same time, where the nature of it has to be simple to have a clear direction for people to take action. Another method to increase the click-through rate is to have the CTA in button format. According to Campaign Monitor Research, CTA buttons can help to increase click-through rates by 127%. Examples from Tommy Hilfiger and LOOKFANTASTIC show how the simple copy “Shop Now” and buttons could attract users for better click-through rates.

Effective CTAs example:

Promo emails: Shopt now, Contact us, Claim now, Get OO% off

Onboarding: Learn more, Discover, Find out more

Brand awareness: Like and share, Click to enter and win, Follow us

Automation for Efficiency and Impact

Automation in email marketing is an important factor in shaping your strategy. It can help you accomplish tasks that need to be done automatically to save you from time-consuming work and other tedious workflow if done manually. There are a few methods of automation, such as trigger-based and drip campaigns. Through automation, personalisation is possible. By establishing conditional settings, correct messages can be sent to the right people at the optimal time. Setting automated workflow, on the other hand, can help to increase the inflow of leads.

Consistency is the key to maintaining relationships with customers. With automation, the retention rate can be significantly improved. Having scheduled messages to be pushed out through emails with eye-catching subject lines, nicely designed layouts, and appealing CTA is likely to avoid the spam folder. Setting a series of dedicated messages also helps to keep the retention rate. From welcome messages to suggestions and informative emails, you can show the audience that you care about them, which, in turn, will help to lower the drop-off rate. 

Automation works in a way where every action of the customers can be tracked to react based on that data. If you have given a promotional email that showed a low open rate and click-through rate, the offer you have given is not “sticky” enough to attract purchases. Setting up drip campaigns can also help to bring in leads and lower the drop-off rate. 

You can initiate the gradual procedure of sending emails to the audience about the company for branding, products for purchase, and industry information to build trust. However, it is crucial to have the knowledge of your prospective audiences beforehand instead of pushing out blind cold emails using a drip campaign. This can bring a huge setback to your email marketing by inadvertently generating massive blocks or spam that cause your email domain to be included in an automatic blacklist of email service providers like Gmail and Outlook. 

Examples of automated emails can be welcome, abandoned cart, onboarding, cross-sell & upsell, reactivation, royalty program, product launch, purchase (Thank you & follow up), recommendation, anniversary, social proof, survey & review, promotional, and referral.

Data Collection and Performance Analysis

Data-driven marketing is important in today’s world. Learning how to quantify certain actions changes the shape of your strategy for ongoing campaigns and future projects. In email marketing, it is common to measure the outcome of the email campaigns. One of the greatest strengths in using email marketing platforms is the measurability. Key metrics to look out for are open rates, click-through rates (CTR), conversion rates, list growth, and unsubscribe rates.

Many alternative factors impact your KPI. To master decoding the correct path to certain campaigns, it will take time to experiment and require a leap of faith to figure out which tweaks have made the most effective turnaround. For some of the days, it will give you hard times, while some could give you that little smile. 

To avoid those dramatic days due to bad numbers, follow the example tips to experiment with for better results:

Open rate: Change the language in the subject line to certain niches or references according to the target audience demographics. The email’s timing can also help improve the open rate and adjust the time and day to fit your audience.

Click-through rate: Always check your discount offers and last-minute offers, as the value you have given can be unappealing to the audience. The copy of the email can also be the issue. Make it direct and clear to the readers so they know what needs to be done. Changing the CTA copy and design can also help to improve the CTR.

Unsubscribe rate: Check the inactive list and send them emails for reactivation. If the people on that list do not want to be part of the service notification, they will leave. Check if you have emails that align with the brand guidelines. Sometimes, off-brand images can be the reason for unsubscriptions. Do not bait and switch! If you have emails promising certain actions, follow the promise; do not back out on the promise or share misleading content. There has to be value provided for every email that is sent out, or else the spam folder will be the destination for any future emails.

List growth rate: Always follow the best practices and regulations to avoid getting detected by spam filters. Remove certain inactive groups from the list so that your overall list can be kept healthy with highly engaged subscribers. Checking on bounced emails to completely remove those parts of the list can keep your list healthy.

Kickstart Your Email Marketing

Remember the tips shared through this three-part journey – Email Marketing 101, Email Marketing Strategy Part 1, and Email Marketing Part 2! Begin your journey with dos and don’ts. 

The main emphasis on this three-part journey is personalisation. Simply put, personalisation in email marketing is like writing to your most loved person. That person could be your friend, lover, and family. A warm and welcoming gesture that can touch your audience’s heart will give you the outcome that you have always desired. The more sincerity you approach your subscribers with, the more likely they are to want to hear from you. It improves that open rate and click-through rate by going through the roof. If you have hit a setback, do not hesitate to ask for help, as we are here to assist and share consultations on where you feel stuck and how to solve your problem.

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Table of Content

• Email Marketing B2B & B2C
• B2B Email Marketing
• B2C Email Marketing
• Creating an Effective Email Marketing Strategy
• Email Marketing Regulations You Must Know
• The Importance of Your Email List

Email Marketing B2B & B2C

Email marketing is one of the most important tools for marketing professionals in any industry as it delivers the message to the mass audience with a personal touch. However, as the fundamentals of email marketing might be shared across the sectors, the specifics still differ, as each nature’s target audience is diverse.

Business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) share commonalities and differences. To achieve your goals in business directions set for a specific target audience, this article will discuss the main difference between the B2B & B2C, methods in creating the best strategy, rules, and regulations that must be followed, and emphasise the importance of email lists.

B2B Email Marketing

B2B marketing tends to approach the target audience consistently by using newsletters and other methods of distribution, which involve the growth of relationships and prospects. This is due to the nature of the motivation where showcasing expertise in certain fields to bring authority to the solutions that the company provides is the main objective. To do so, email marketing is one way to drive that to a more efficient and productive method to drive profits. 

In 2022, B2B marketers utilised email as the third most commonly used owned-media platform for content distribution, and 44% of them considered email the most effective marketing channel. The reason is that the main focus of email marketing has always been to provide leads through the funnel by offering significant information during each stage, pushing towards better conversions.

Email engagement, in particular, serves as the fourth most insightful metric to evaluate marketing performance for B2B marketers, as it helps open channels for further development in relationships with target audiences. 

In the end, B2B email marketing is to provide the best return on investment (ROI) possible for the growth of one’s business. Therefore, marketers in B2B tend to focus on the ROI and clear methods to show that to the important stakeholders in the company. Hence, audience segmentation is one of the most important parts of B2B marketing. 

As most industries focus on B2B, the main target would be senior roles with decision-making responsibilities. The content in the email will then tend to be driven by the informative nature and solutions that can be provided for businesses. 

Examples of B2B emails commonly used in marketing:

• Product & service update announcements
• Education on products & services
• Webinars & offline seminars invites
• Lead generation campaigns
• Reminder emails
• Customer survey emails
• Greetings during important holidays
• Promotional

B2C Mail Marketing

The nature of B2C email marketing differs from B2B, as the target audience of the email is focused towards the general public who could potentially use the products and services in their daily life. This is most commonly focused on the companies that sell consumer goods and services like fashion, medical, software, supermarkets, and e-commerce.

Email marketing can be a difficult channel for marketers to master, as 50% of B2C marketers mentioned the task of growing their email list as one of their biggest challenges. The reason is that B2C email marketing approaches the target audience at such a personal level, where the emotional connection is needed to bring more certainty to the brand identity and drive credibility. As a result, storytelling is one of the most important methods in B2C email marketing. 

Its method is to tap into the positive emotions of the customers and drive engagement to make the purchase. In most cases, this is driven by motivational approaches like great value, sales, and exclusivity to certain products and services. 

To put it simply, B2C email marketing seeks to find the natural desires, problems, and changes in lifestyles of potential customers to satisfy the need to purchase the product and services. 

Through the process of personal connection, brand loyalty will form, having a more positive influence on the decision-making process. This means that whether it’s segmentation from demographics, purchasing power and behaviours, or personal preferences, the segmentation of the target audience takes up an important portion of B2C email marketing. 

To connect those segmented customers to the purchase stage for a higher conversion rate, highly optimized call-to-action (CTA), content, and user experience are key. The content needs to be at a level that is sufficiently persuasive but not to a level where it pressures the audience, which could drive away leads. After all, B2C marketing aims to tap into the reader’s natural needs and desires.

Examples of B2C emails:

• Promotional
• New product and services announcement
• Recommendation according to personal preferences
• Welcome emails
• Reminder emails
• Special holiday events
• Seasonal campaigns
• Offers for personal occasions such as birthdays & anniversaries
• Educational

Creating an Effective Email Marketing Strategy

Cleaning email list: Remove the dead customers, the unsubscribed, and audiences with low engagement. Get rid of list that marked you as spam, bounced, and bad emails.

Creating value: In the email campaigns, highlight the points that can’t reach the audience. For example, you can show the product information to the audience, like the product specifications, size fitting, and the guide for the customers. This creates value for the audience. To find out what your audience’s wants and needs are, simply ask them by giving them options on the content. The best method is to use a survey. If you want to go for more experimental, you can have them reply to emails asking for their preferences.

CTA optimisation: Call-to-action is important, giving higher click-through rates for the email campaigns you have set out. A better click-through rate also means better conversion rates. Use the creative power by applying buttons and other methods of creative incorporation. Start with strong words like buy, download, shop, sign up, and join us. Bring out the emotions of the customers. Incentivise your readers by offering special discounts. Provide exclusivity and limited chance messaging to drive the purchase.

User-generated content: UGC is another method to build trust and credibility with the audience. This generates bigger brand awareness than any other campaign. Linking testimonials, videos, and photos in the email can bring in more purchases. According to Everyday Social, over 70% of consumers trust the UGC and make decisions on purchases based on it. 

Utilise social media: Use your social media by adding it to certain emails like newsletters. Use social media to include CTAs back in the email campaigns. Use the share feature that the email platforms provide by linking your social media. 

Subject line: Better outcomes will be made with effective subject lines. Before the subscribers click on the email, the first thing they will see is the subject line. This means if the subject line isn’t convincing or intriguing enough, people will not click. To make the best possible subject lines, keep your characters to under 60, use more powerful words, resonate with the body of the email, and bring a more personalised tone.

Segmentation & targeted: Segmentation of email lists is one of the most important strategies in email marketing. Grouping a like-minded audience gives you more control over the content that is sent to the right audience. Suggestions on the segment could be based on the demographics, interests, actions, customer profile information, and location. Some of the methods to gather the information are to use the signup form and surveys.

Re-engage the list: There can be several reasons behind the drop-offs in your email list; nevertheless, it is important to re-engage the inactive subscribers. Simply put, it is more efficient to retarget the known customers than to find new customers. Therefore, it is important to consider the re-engagement strategy as part of effective email marketing. Usually, the main reason for inactivity is the price point or loss of interest in products. Try to offer them some discounts or promotions to warm up the subscribers.

Trigger-based: Trigger-based emails are automated emails that function when the user contacts with specific actions that are preset. For example, clicking or submitting certain information on a landing page can trigger a series of follow-up emails that go out to the subscribers who interacted with those links and sign-ups. Trigger-based emails can help uplift your communication with individuals on your subscriber list. Instead of sending the same batch of emails, the interaction between the individual and your company can happen using this method. Some of the methods are behaviour-based triggers, where the customer’s actions trigger the emails. Demographic-based triggers send personalised messages like birthdays & anniversaries. Time-sensitive triggers send emails to the customers based on the product of interest going on limited sale.

Personalise: According to a study done by Accenture, 91% of consumers tend to purchase products that provide personalised offers and recommendations. This brings the idea that every industry should be following the personalised methods of email marketing strategy. However, there are a few things to consider when crafting personalised emails for your campaign. Add your subscriber’s name in parts of the email, including the subject line, the start of the email, and the body paragraphs. Check the behaviour and purchase pattern to apply in the recommendations & promotion emails. Send birthday & anniversary emails with coupons. Lock in sales by emailing your subscribers when there is an abandoned cart. Give recap emails of the customer’s history.

Timing: Your open rate will be determined by when you send out your email campaign. If you send your email in the middle of the night, the open rate will be low for obvious reasons. Check the data to learn when your subscribers will open up their emails to estimate the best time for their phone usage for emails. If it is a B2B service, aiming to send during business hours should be the best practice. Always test; testing on the best time for open and click-through rates is one of the best methods to discover the optimised time. 

A/B Test: A/B testing is to experiment and check which email type performs better in terms of content and subject lines. The test could include email subject lines, copy, CTAs, design, links, the time emails are sent out, and different formats of content.Data Check: Always check your data after every campaign. Your click-through rates and email open rates are among the most important metrics to take into account. It is the way to learn how to improve on the next campaign, shifting the directions based on the data for your overall email marketing campaign.

Email Marketing Regulations You Must Know

There are regulations that are set so that the consumers are protected. In the case of email marketing it is the same where the aim is to protect the user’s privacy from spam and unsolicited emails, giving guidelines to businesses to follow for ethical practices. 

In the early days, rules were there for spam, but as technology advanced, so did the rules, giving users the option to opt out of the email lists and companies being only able to send emails to those who have given them the consent.

The catch here is that every country has slightly different rules on this matter. For the United States, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) oversees email marketing for all the states. In some places, an international regulatory body takes charge, like in European countries, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is the main regulation that the European Data Protection Board enforces.

The Importance of Your Email List

An email list is something that you do not forget and let run wild in email marketing. In fact, it is one of the most important strategies that need to be organised and optimised regularly to keep the best possible client relationship. It is the foundation of email marketing strategy, as the company that works on building that list invests time and money in the beginning to bring it up to a certain level. 

To build your email list, more directions should be given to the visitors on your website and landing pages. There should be CTA buttons that lead to subscribing to be updated. Consider notifications and pop-ups to appear while the user is browsing the website. Using social media to promote the email newsletter and promotional emails that give discounts is another method.

In today’s world where social media is the go-to platform for any promotion, the word email marketing seems to be out of date. However, email marketing has been a strong contender for digital marketing strategies. It can be directly communicated to the audience with a personal touch. 

In this blog article, we will explore the bedrock of email marketing, including its brief history, types of emails, importance, and how to kick-start your email marketing campaign.

Table of Content

• 1. History of Email Marketing
• 2. What is Email Marketing? Definition and Key Concepts
• 3. Importance and Benefits of Email Marketing
• 4. Types of Email Campaigns for Marketing
• 5. How to Start Email Marketing: A Step-by-Step-Guide

History of Email Marketing

The first person to send out an electronic telegram, which is now called email, was Ray Tomlinson, a computer engineer who developed the communication between computers back in 1971. 

In 1978, Gary Thuerk was the first person to use the technology to send out 400 batch emails. This campaign led to 13 million in sales, making it one of the top marketing tools used by most businesses. Since then, email marketing has shaped into something different. 

The advancement of the internet to the general public in the ‘90s ignited the era of digital communication, which evolved email technology to the median tool for communication. In marketing, this advancement led to the development of platforms offering services for tailor-made solutions like batch emails, automation, and personalisation to the target audience. 

Email marketing is still considered a top priority for marketing strategy, showing growth every year, as businesses send over 300 billion emails daily and spend an estimated $350 million annually just on email marketing campaigns.

What Is Email Marketing? Definition and Key Concepts

Email marketing is one of the most powerful marketing tools. It sends emails to the targeted audience aimed to provide brand messages, product promotions, and reminders. The key is to build and maintain relationships with the audience, converting them into potential customers. 

Here are the top components of email marketing:

• Email Campaigns: This is a structured series of emails that is followed by a set of strategies.
• Email Design: Visual representation of the email that combines with textual content; this is a powerful tool to personalise your email.
• Subscriber List: A list of targeted audiences that have opted in to receive emails.
• Automation: Use of email platform software to send emails based on certain triggers and schedules. This is a powerful tool to remove bottlenecks and customer drop-offs.

The format of email marketing is diverse, from promotional emails, monthly newsletters and confirmation emails for purchases to recommendations for a personal touch. 

Importance and Benefits of Email Marketing

Email is still one of the most popular methods of communication done online. The ability to reach a mass number of audiences with high output and low cost is one of the selling points for businesses, with an average ROI of $42 for every $1 spent, making it the top cost-effective strategy to take for marketing. 

From the consumer perspective, email is a reminder tool for them and unknowingly a persuasive tool for them to interact with businesses for future purchases. For businesses that are looking to build that thick trust between product selling and customers, this is where email marketing comes into play, giving the powerful tool of direct communications with individual customers.

It not only builds relationships but also facilitates the growth of trust with customers and segments those who convert. From the perspective of budget, email marketing is cost-effective as it gives good value for click-throughs. With the right call to action in place, the boost you will get in sales by direct route to your landing pages will increase your click-through rate (CTR) higher than the normal average. 

In comparison with social media marketing, email marketing is not affected by regular changes in algorithms that social media platforms undergo, which means that consistency is in place for more stable strategies to apply. Further, email marketing shows an average open rate of 21% and a click-through rate of 2%, which is higher than the average CTR for social media ads. Yet, the biggest problem with email marketing is that not everyone knows how to get it right in the bull’s eye. 

If you have seen through your spam mail or potential emails that you have just clicked spam, it shows how difficult it is to get it correctly. The tip to start getting things done correctly is to check on the data using the software to run the A/B tests of call-to-action (CTA) and subject lines for best-performing messages. 

Types of Email Campaigns for Marketing

Promotional:

Promotional emails come in various formats and information. It can campaign to promote special offers and discounts, new product line releases, information about seminars & webinars, brand promotion, and sometimes not necessarily products but services as product offerings. 

Most promotional emails are sent in a series strategically planned over a certain period of time, depending on how the campaign is shaped. 

Promotional emails need to have a clear strategy, and to do so, the call-to-action (CTA) is something that needs to be perfected for promotional emails. This ensures potential customers can read and take specific actions. For example, to claim the coupon for a discounted purchase offering, the CTA should be “Claim your discount”.

When it comes to upcoming holidays, promotional email campaigns are not just optional but mandatory, as they can drive your business’s sales upward. Therefore, creating a calendar to track the important dates and plan pre-game and post-game strategies for your promotional email campaign is crucial. 

Newsletter:

Newsletters are popular methods of communication to the audience for information transfer. Often, the content of the newsletter includes the latest updates of the company like different milestones achieved, outstanding awards received, and potential development of new products. 

There can be different variations of newsletters, such as case studies, research papers, and whitepapers. The duration of the newsletter output can be determined by the data collected. Some show that monthly is the best fit; in some cases, weekly or bi-weekly does the trick. In the end, it is based on how your audience behaves. 

Retention:

This is one of the most important types of emails that businesses must implement. Retention emails are the key to keeping your customers happy and getting them ready for more of your future products. Just like how account management is done, this is the way for marketers to make sure the clients are satisfied. 

Some of the examples of the retention emails are:

• Introduction emails that welcome the reader
• “How to” emails on the products and services
• “What we have achieved” emails to show confidence to the customers
• What are the next steps for the company
• Surveys to show that the company is interested in the voice of customer
• Targeted emails to the customers who might have lost interest – reactivation

Transactional:

Transactional emails are automatically triggered when there is customer action in your online shops. These can be products or services that the company offers. As soon as the customer purchase is done, emails will be sent to your customer’s registered email. These emails can be:

• Order confirmation
• Thank you emails
• Reminder emails about items in the cart
• Reviews of services and products

These automated emails are key to getting a positive customer satisfaction rate. They instil customers’ confidence in your products and services and cement their trust that they are getting what they have paid for. 

How to Start Email Marketing: A Step-by-Step Guide

Email marketing platform is the best practice for email marketing campaigns, as it is a Software as a Service (SaaS) that offers software services such as data analytics, customer relationship management tools, automation, and campaign design. 

These platforms do give free plans that are limited in services; thus, budgeting is involved to get the services needed. It is possible to use email service providers like Gmail and Outlook for batch emails. However, it is not recommended, as it can potentially cause a number of problems, such as your email being flagged as spam, which can then end in your account being suspended. 

The intention of the email service providers was always to be used as personal. This is where the email service provider platforms come into play to avoid spam filters and ensure deliverability. 

Other forms of benefits using email marketing platform is the increase in your open rates by average 20% and your CTR by average 15%. Further growth in your metrics for email marketing can be done through personalisation and strategic segmentation.

Key Steps to Master Email Marketing Campaign Planning

Create a Goal: Before you can kick start any project, planning is always the key. Build your campaign with a clear goal and objective. 

Build Your Customer Email List: Before sending out any email for the campaign, building a right list is important. Without a defined target audience, your campaign will not deliver any accurate data for your future directions. Compile a list of the right audience by assigning sign-ups to your email list on your website or landing page. 

Select Email Marketing Platform: There are numerous excellent platforms out there that can cater to specific needs on email marketing. Some platforms have AI integration to help out with tasks, increasing overall efficiency. 

Create Tailored Content: Stop using boring emails and generic content. Instead, personalise them to offer more resonating content for your audience. Design your email template to fit those needs, and drive your open rate/click rate with a stronger CTA.

Segment Audience: Statistics show that a strategic approach to segmentation can increase revenue by 760% on average. Check on the target audience details by their age, race, gender, location, and purchase history. The demographics and purchasing power will help you personalise your emails better and lead to better outcomes.

Automation: Around 80% of the marketers make use of the automation for their campaigns. Set trigger points for the emails to automatically generate, which will help with the customer relationship by instilling trust and confidence in the products and services sold. This is one of the most important points in email marketing where a lack of automated follow-ups could result in a bad outcome for the campaign.

A/B test, Analyse, Optimise: Testing is important to any type of marketing campaign. In the context of email marketing, A/B testing serves as a way to gather accurate data to determine which subject line works the best and if a certain CTA is a better choice to garner a higher click rate. According to statistics, A/B testing can increase the ROI of the campaign by 37%, making this the key to better email marketing.