Why Your Business Needs Email Marketing and How to Implement It

In this article, we explain why businesses should send out email newsletters and how to set them up. Bonus: we give 5 tips on how to avoid ending up in the Spam folder.

Email newsletters are mistakenly considered an outdated channel for working with clients: “Who needs letters if everyone is sitting on social networks and instant messengers?”

Unlike social networks, where ranking algorithms rule, your letterwill be received by 90% of users. According to Campaign Monitor statistics, a Facebook post* is seen by only 2–4% of business page subscribers. In social networks, you compete with neighboring posts in the feed, and your email is less loaded. The average user reads an email for longer than 8 seconds.

From a letter in a newsletter, you can make a full-fledged sales page with interactive elements, a personalized selection of products and a CTA button.

Another misconception is that email is tied to the desktop.According to Litmus, 43% of users check their inbox from mobile phones. Mailing services help to adapt the design of letters to mobile devices without special knowledge of code. This makes the traffic channel mobile-friendly. 

What business tasks does email marketing solve?

Email marketing has one of the highest ROIs.Campaign Monitor dataThey say 3,000-4,000% depending on the business sector. That is, every ruble invested in email marketing will bring you an average of 30-40 ₽ in income.

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Let’s talk in more detail about what tasks can be completed through email marketing.

Guide the client through the sales funnel

96% of your website visitors are not ready to buy right now, but are ready to take a less stressful step – download useful content, leave a request, subscribe to a newsletter in exchange for a discount. 

63% of consumers need to contact a company 3-5 timesto believe her.

Email marketing is a good tool for communicating with a “cold” audience. It can be used to automatically “warm up” visitors and build trust in the brand.

“Warmed up” audiencemakes purchases 47% more often, than “cold”.

The ideal option for warming up is an auto funnel. You set up an automatic chain of letters that close the tasks of each stage of the funnel. The letters themselves sell the product, you save resources. For example, this is what an auto funnel for an online school might look like:

1. You get a client into your database through a lead magnet – useful content that partially solves a painful issue and demonstrates your expertise.
2. Over the course of several days, you send the client letters with useful content: articles, videos, webinars, live broadcast recordings. The client consumes the content, solves their problems and begins to see the company as experts. Their trust grows.
3. Having convinced yourself of your competence, the person wants more. At this stage, you sell the main or starting product. For example, you want to bring a client to a month-long course, but you start by selling a two-day master class.
4. If the client has bought, then close it for repeat sales. If not, then there are several scenarios: “press” the purchase further; continue to increase trust through other free materials; make special offers with a limited validity period; offer a cheaper product.

Email marketing works not only in autofunnels. If you sell by phone, an email chain can close objections in advance and prepare the client for a manager’s call. A client who has already received 2-3 useful content letters and got to know the company is more likely to pay you money than a “cold” contact.

You can use the autofunnel partially, diluting it with contact with the client at certain stages. For example, with the help of a newsletter, you can share useful content, increase trust, and then bring the client to contact the sellers.

Email newsletters can not only warm up new customers, but also bring back old ones. Automatic personalized letters with promotions and bonuses increase the average check and LTV.

Our article tells you about the 6 key business metrics you need to track to get the most out of your advertising.

Supplement customer service

Email marketing helps improve your service in the eyes of the client. For this, trigger (transactional) emails are used – notifications about order confirmation and its status; reminders that it is time to renew the subscription, and other service messages.

Payment notification from ЮMoney: click on the image to open it in full size

Customers like it when all the necessary information comes quickly and electronically, there is no need to call and find out where the order is; take screenshots with receipts or the shipment number – everything will be in the mail. Transactional letters have a high Open Rate, because the user is waiting for them, he himself performed the action that launched their sending.

Uber transaction email: Click on the image to view it full size

One type of transactional email is a welcome email. It is sent when a customer first contacts your company. It may contain an offer to confirm the mailing, order information, or a receipt.

The average open rate of a welcome email is82%, according to GetResponse. Be sure to add a call to action to your welcome emails: show special offers, useful content, or ask to leave a review.

The First OFD company sends an electronic receipt and adds a gift to the letter

Restore customer relationships

If a client has not made a purchase for a long time, a mailing will help remind them about the company and motivate them to repeat the order. A universal tool in this case is bonuses and discounts for a specific subscriber.

Newsletter from Mann, Ivanov and Ferber Publishing House: Click on the image to open it in full size

Sell ​​specific products

You can also send outright sales letters via email. Tell people about the arrival of a new product, and encourage them to buy it. For example, OZON sends out sales letters every day:

Example of mailings from OZON: click on the image to open it in full size

It is probably not by chance that OZON chose the daily mailing strategy. We do not recommend blindly copying this approach.

According to OptInMonster,Only 14% of email subscribers believethat all marketing emails are relevant to them. According to Adobe,45% of users don’t like, when brands refer to them too often. 

It’s also not worth sending out infrequently.Most consumers want to be informedfrom brands weekly.

You just have to find the sweet spot by testing your sending frequency. See how increasing or decreasing your emails affects conversions, unsubscribes, and spam submissions.

Combine sales pitches with useful information, and include relevant calls to action at the end of your email.

Increase the average bill

By using blocks with personalized product recommendations embedded in the email, you can increase the average check.

Modern CRM systems allow you to download the history of product views and create personalized offers for each client or client segment based on it. Letters sent to segments,bring companies 58% of all income.

Letters where the user is addressed by name and offered personalized offers,open 50% more often. 

Return the client to the site

An automatic letter will remind you about an item left in your shopping cart; suggest not to postpone purchasing an item from the “favorites” or “wish list” category; send a notification if a previously interested product has returned to the catalog.

69.57% of visitors add the product to the cart, but do not complete the checkout. You can get them to buy using email marketing. You can collect the emails of those who “abandoned” their cart and send them an email asking them to complete their order.

Email with user’s cart contents: click on image to view full size

Average Open Rate of Emailswith 45% of cart abandonments. If you send such an email within 20 minutes of visitors leaving,conversion to order will be about 5.2%.   

Conduct client onboarding – teach them how to work with the product

Such letters teach clients how to extract maximum benefit from a product, service or service. Their goal is to guide the client through all stages of using the product, reveal its capabilities and features, and answer questions.

How to Launch an Email Campaign for Your Business

Find recipients: how to build a database and work with it

The base must be assembled independently. Do not buy ready-made bases:

1. This is illegal – the user must subscribe to the newsletter themselves.
2. This is ineffective – thousands of “cold” users who know nothing about your product. In addition, they did not agree to the mailing. This is a direct path to spam.

Collect addresses online and offline – when registering on the site, through the subscription form in the footer of the site and blog, in questionnaires when receiving discount cards. The most effective way to add an information or product bonus to the subscription form. Offer free material that will solve one of the client’s problems, or test access to the product.

The form sometimes uses the option “subscribe to news”, but it rarely works. It is important for the client to understand why they should read your company’s news, what is the benefit of it. If the updates are directly related to their goals and needs, then the call to action will work. For example, a wholesale buyer monitors deliveries and wants to be aware of new products instantly. If you are a retail store with news in the format “today we opened our tenth outlet in Khimki” – it is unlikely that anyone will be interested enough to subscribe to the newsletter.

Think about how to motivate the client. Indicate that you send exclusive useful content by mail, that subscribers join a club of clients who are the first to know about new offers and sales.

Regularly clear your database of inactive addresses: delete anyone who hasn’t opened emails for a long time or hasn’t received them at all.

Prepare letters

1. Make a plan for letters for a month so that the mailing is balanced. If you send informational and commercial letters, then the former should be significantly more numerous. If you limit yourself to advertising offers, then think in advance about the optimal number of letters per week or month.

We explained how to create a content plan for a blog, email newsletter, and social networks .

Offer subscribers a choice of frequency for receiving emails – specify in the subscription form, for example, “every day”, “once a month”, “twice a week”.

Monitor open rates and unsubscribe rates. Use data to adjust your email frequency. For example, if you send out promotional offers twice a week and almost no one opens them, try cutting it down to once a week and see if that helps or if something else is going on.

Conduct tests. Send letters to two approximately equal groups of audiences, but with different frequency and at different times. Draw conclusions about which version opens letters better, where there are fewer unsubscribes.

2. Create a master template for a letter in the brand style. A master template is a universal guideline that contains all possible variations of letter blocks and stylistic differences for different types of mailings. Font options, block and element locations, and button options are prescribed here.

To create a template, you don’t need to know HTML, there are simple and convenient design constructors. For example, the Stripo service, where you can assemble letters using the Drag-and-drop principle – just drag the blocks in the editor.

The template will help you save time and significantly simplify the process of creating letters.

3. Choose a sender name . The easiest option is to indicate the company name. To emphasize the personal approach, add the name of the employee on whose behalf the mailing is sent to the brand name. For example, “Irina from Tinkoff.” This way, the user will feel that a real person is writing to them. Personalized mailingsopen 29% more often.
4. Work on the subject line . The open rate depends on the subject line. Create intrigue, leave a gap that the user will automatically want to fill. For example, for a letter about an abandoned cart item, instead of “come back and place an order,” try the option: “it seems you forgot something.” Don’t go for clickbait. The subject line should reflect its content so that the person doesn’t get disappointed after opening it.
5. Think through the content and take into account all the details . We have prepared a checklist that you can refer to while working on the body of the letter:

1. A letter with benefits for the reader.
2. Concise text, no unnecessary digressions, everything is to the point.
3. The design is simple and clear, the letter is not visually overloaded.
4. The meanings are easy to read with a quick scan of the eye.
5. A clear and concise call to action, such as “learn more”, “order”, “buy”, “subscribe”, “download”.
6. Large, high-contrast CTA button that’s easy to click on mobile.
7. There is only one call-to-action button in the letter.
8. The footer has been designed with the reason for receiving the letter and contacts.
9. There is a prominent unsubscribe button.

The letters of Mann, Ivanov and Ferber have a contrasting and noticeable button

Google and Yandex evaluate your mailings and assign a reputation to the domain. The lower it is, the higher the chances of ending up in spam.

Reputation affects the deliverability of emails. If the reputation is bad, the emails end up in spam. It is affected by the volume and frequency of mailings, spam complaints, unsubscribes, and bounce rate.

Bounce Rate or the percentage of “returns” is the percentage of addresses in the database to which letters cannot be delivered. For example, a subscriber specified @g n ail.com instead of @gmail.com, such an address does not exist, the letter sent to it will be recorded as “return”.

There are two types of returns: hard and soft. 

Hard — these are incorrectly written or non-existent addresses. For example, instead of [email protected], you have [email protected] written in your database. Remove addresses with serious errors from your database, or better yet, make sure they don’t get there. Set up validation in subscription forms.

Soft – when a letter is not delivered due to a temporary blocking of the mailbox, its fullness or unavailability. 

You can analyze your database for unavailable addresses and clean it using the ZeroBounce service. You can also monitor the Bounce Rate indicator in your mailing statistics.

5 tips on how to avoid ending up in the Spam folder:

1. Use only your own database of users who have agreed to receive the mailing. Sending to other people’s databases will lead to frequent clicking of the “Spam” button, unsubscribes and an increase in the Bounce Rate. As a result, the domain’s reputation will be damaged.
2. Use Double Opt-in subscription confirmation. When the user has filled out the form and subscribed, first send them a subscription confirmation email. There will be fewer subscribers, but the base will be high-quality — you will get 100% valid addresses, fewer unsubscribes, and a minimal chance of getting caught by spam filters of mail systems.
3. Monitor your sender reputation – it consists of IP reputation and domain reputation. You can find it out using the Sender Score service.
4. Watch the subject and content of the letter. Don’t use clickbait subjects and overtly selling words. Don’t write like this: “URGENT! SALE SALE! Crazy discounts – save $$$$!” Go to your spam folder, see what kind of headlines end up there most often, and don’t do that. Don’t write in caps and put several exclamation marks.
5. Avoid attachments – they are often used by spammers to send viruses. Mailings with attachments are not liked by mailers.

Select a service and start sending out emails

Choose a mailing service based on reviews and recommendations from colleagues; study the service websites, write to support to understand whether the functions are enough for you; test promising ones during the free period – pay attention to ease of use, integration options with other services.

Several popular mailing services: MailChimp, Unisender, GetResponse, Sendpulse.

Start testing the mailing. Do not send letters to the entire database at once, first warm up the new IP address. The provider may consider you a spammer if you immediately start a mass mailing from a new address. Warming up means that you will gradually increase the number of letters and recipients, starting the mailing with the most interested users. This process takes about a month. As a result, you will earn the provider’s trust, and the deliverability of letters will increase.

Evaluate efficiency: set KPIs and analyze results

At the start of the campaign, select KPIs that you will then use to determine effectiveness.

Here are some metrics to consider:

1. Number of undelivered emails. 
2. Open rate.
3. Percentage of emails sent to spam.
4. Number of clicks on a link in an email.
5. Subscription cancellation rate.
6. Conversion to target action.

The main metric is sales. To evaluate, at least set up Google Analytics e-commerce. Use end-to-end analytics services, such as Roistat.

The end-to-end analytics service helps to cover all channels; to understand which ones are most effective and which ones are sagging. The service takes into account the contribution of all sources. Also, end-to-end analytics focuses on sales, not on applications, because even with a high number of applications from a channel, if they are not converted into an order, the budget is wasted. Based on the analysis results, make adjustments to the email campaign.

The email channel includes not only outgoing mailings, but also user responses. After reading the letter, the recipient may want to write to you at the address specified in the contacts. To know from which channel the responses to the mail come, use the Roistat email tracking service.

How email tracking works: when going to a landing page from different sources, the user sees an individual contact address. If he contacts the company through this address, then email tracking will immediately collect information: which advertisement the client came from, from which region, by what keyword, from which specific ad. All this information is automatically included in the application created in the CRM.

Main

1. Email marketing has one of the highest ROIs – 3000-4000%.
2. With the help of a mailing list, you can “deliver” a full-fledged sales page with a CTA button and interactive elements to the client’s mailbox.
3. Email marketing solves business problems: helps to return the client to the site; improves service; warms up new clients with the help of an auto-funnel; helps to advertise specific products and make personalized selections from them.
4. Start preparing to launch an email campaign by collecting a subscriber base. Addresses can be collected both offline, for example, through questionnaires at the checkout, and online, through a subscription form on the website.
5. Do not buy ready-made databases – the user must agree to the mailing.
6. Regularly remove inactive addresses from your database to improve your email deliverability and open rates.
7. Make a monthly mailing plan to balance its content. Test the sending time and frequency, adjust them in the plan based on user feedback.
8. Write letters with the reader’s benefit in mind. Make them easy to quickly scan with your eyes. Highlight the CTA button in a contrasting color.
9. To evaluate the effectiveness of email marketing, set KPIs: conversion to target action; number of clicks on a link from an email; number of undelivered emails; open rate and other indicators.
10. The main metric for tracking channel success is sales. Use end-to-end analytics services to more accurately track the impact of each channel on sales.