We love email marketing. And if you don’t, then you’re missing out bigtime.
Email marketing is the best way to reach consumers and remains one of top conversion tools available to businesses across every market there is.
The only thing that gives email marketing a bad name is the sheer amount of wastage that occurs.
Too many marketing emails don’t know their purpose, their audience or their place within the nurturing journey.
Which is why billions of them get sucked up into spam filters and ‘click delete’ folders.
Do you categorise your marketing emails by type?
Because once you do, you can begin to harness the true selling power of premium email marketing.
The 5 types of marketing email
1 THE INTRODUCTION EMAIL
Also known as the welcome email or the follow-up email, this is one of THE most important marketing emails businesses can send. As the first interaction point between you and incoming enquiries, getting this right is crucial. Read more about the welcome email here.
Dos
The length is up to you – short and sweet or rich and full-bodied – just ensure your email acknowledges the interest shown in your brand and recognises the relevant channel through which consumers expressed their interest.
Tailor your email content by lead source to offer genuine and relevant value.
2 THE ENGAGEMENT EMAIL
These emails concentrate on selling particular products. Where they go wrong is that they are sent to the wrong people.
Ensure you have established what interests individual consumers so that you tailor you emails with products relevant to each.
These emails need not just be products-related; engagement emails should also encourage prospects to review your brand across various platforms. Include free content, social media campaigns and relevant news alerts to build organic consumer interest in your business.
3 THE SEGMENTATION EMAIL
How can you sell to consumers without establishing what they want?
The purpose of segmentation emails is to help you divide your database into specific consumer categories, allowing you to tailor your interactions with them and more effectively encourage conversion.
Dos
Ask questions, encourage feedback, create ‘account preferences’ landing pages, track which links are clicked and which aren’t and use this data to segment consumers into relevant groups and nurturing paths.
The more you can glean from your prospects, the more effective your communication with them will be, and the more sales you will ultimately achieve.
4 THE CONFIRMATION EMAIL
A successful conversion provides an invaluable opportunity to cement first-time purchasers as repeat customers.
Prospects have demonstrated maximum trust in your brand by purchasing from you, capitalise on this show of trust by delivering exceptional customer service, rewards, feedback opportunities and suggestions on future buys.
5 THE RE-ENGAGEMENT EMAIL
Even loyal customers will lose interest in your brand at some point, particularly if your interactions with them have dipped.
Re-engagement emails are attempts to rebuild the conversation by offering new content, tempting discounts or by simply asking them if there’s anything they need.
Stay relevant and specific in your contact for maximum impact.
If any of your marketing emails don’t (even broadly) fall into one of these categories then think hard about why you’re sending it.
Confused, over-complicated or irrelevant emails are the highest email marketing offenders and are simply a waste of everyone’s time.
Lead generation, lead segmentation and email marketing go hand-in-hand. Make sure you have a clear nurturing process to complement your email marketing content otherwise you may well fall into the dreaded spray-and-pray category of marketers.
Check out our posts on lead attribution and lead nurturing to find out more about the bigger picture.