What is Email Marketing and How Does it Work?

There are many ways email marketing can help in optimizing your business growth. While still using other marketing channels, email marketing campaigns tend to help build customer loyalty and strengthen customer relationships which all help to boost conversions through your online store.

Below we've listed a few tips to help you increase your click-through rate to increase sales, get new subscribers, and build loyal customers all through effective email marketing techniques.

The benefits of email marketing:

There are many benefits of email marketing, and we've listed a few key factors:

Increasing brand awareness: by utilising email marketing as a strategy, you are immediately increasing the number of times your target audience sees your brand's names, therefore increasing brand awareness. It has been said that your target audience will need to see your brand name more than 3 times before they engage in shopping through your online store, and creating successful email marketing campaigns is an easy way to achieve this.

It provides a direct and personalized channel for reaching your ideal target audience: with email marketing campaigns, you aren't only reaching out to existing customers, but also engaging with new subscribers, allowing you to personalise your emails with subscriber data, which in turn can help build brand loyalty.

It is cost-effective: More often than not, email marketing software platforms will provide you will a completely free trial period. Not only are these email marketing tools effective, but email campaigns generally have lower expense output compared to traditional marketing channels. Almost all email marketing software platforms provide great tools for promotional emails, automation templates, signup forms, transactional emails, re-engagement emails and more. Email service providers we can recommend are Omnisend and Klaviyo.

Email marketing allows you to track and analyse key metrics: such as open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates, providing valuable insights for your marketing team to use in building your email marketing strategy. All email software providers will show key metrics for email campaigns, automated messages and email subscribers. Analysing this data can help in advising your email marketing strategy.

The ability to segment and tailor content: email marketing can help businesses deliver relevant content to email subscribers through specific segments of their audience, enhancing the overall user experience. This means that your audience is more likely to receive relevant content applicable to their interests, buying behaviours and more. Segmentation is important to provide relevant messages and valuable content. By utilizing customer segmentation, you are less likely to end up getting spam complaints, and it will prevent unsubscribed customers who lose interest.

Email marketing facilitates automation: with email marketing, you can schedule future campaigns in advance. This will help your email marketers build out an effective email marketing strategy as opposed to sending out last-minute emails that aren't thought out or strategised. Email marketing automation also allows for transactional emails, re-engagement emails, and promotional emails to be sent based on user behaviour or predefined triggers such as the welcome email journey being triggered by the signup form. Email automation can be a great way to continue earning passively online, capitalising on your email marketing efforts.

Email marketing has a long-term impact: using an email marketing tool can help your business build and nurture your email subscriber base. This contributes to overall customer loyalty, repeat business, and a successful brand-consumer relationship.

The 2 types of email marketing campaigns that should be in your email marketing strategy

Automated email campaigns: transactional emails, welcome emails, abandoned cart emails and so much more can be sent based on user behaviour or predefined triggers. These email marketing campaigns can be optimized with customer information in the email subject lines. This will help boost conversions through email marketing and save you from having to do this manually.

Promotional email campaigns: these marketing campaigns are used to share industry news, new product launches, collection highlights etc. These are often built once-off, but can still be optimized with unique subject lines and customer data. Customer segmentation is important for these email campaigns to ensure that you are sending relevant content to each subscriber to avoid them unsubscribing.

Optimizing Click-Through Rates in Email Marketing

The most obvious way to do this is by using effective subject lines. Your email campaigns could be beautifully built from a stunning email template, but what's the use if your subscriber doesn't open it? Your email subject line is the first step in engaging with your customers and enticing them to interact with your email marketing campaign.

Another way to improve your click-through rates would be to verify your email address and business domain. This can be done through your email service provider and will help you pass the spam filters and avoid ending up in the spam folder. If you are in the spam folder, it's likely your customer won't even see your email marketing campaign.

Another key method to improve your click-through rates is by providing a call to action in your email campaign. You can customise the look and feel of your buttons in your email marketing tool to grab your customer's attention and persuade them to click through. Make sure your call to action is catchy and relevant.

See below some results that can be achieved through effective email marketing:

Tips to create a successful email marketing campaign

Personalize your email subject line and content: when working with email marketing, you don't want to bombard your customer with unsolicited emails, so building out a personalized email is important. As mentioned above, subject lines are a great way to grab your customers' attention and get them to click through. When they have opened your email campaigns, be sure to provide them with an easy-to-read email. It is important here to be consistent with your brand imagery, give them enough information to make them want to engage, and always provide a call to action. Providing a call to action will mean that you are encouraging your customers to click through to your website and make a purchase. This step will automatically help you increase your online revenue.

Structure your campaign for easy reading on desktop and mobile devices: many people forget that most email marketing campaigns tend to be opened on mobile devices. Always make sure you have sent a tester email and opened it on both your desktop and mobile. This will ensure a smooth customer experience.

Ready to get started with email marketing?

Email marketing can be a great tool to increase sales and brand awareness for your business. If you are ready to start using an email marketing tool, we suggest you have a look at Omnisend. They provide excellent email personalization, campaign management, email automation and email templates to help grow your customer relationships. You can have a look at their pricing structure here, as well as try their software completely free.

See below some results we have been able to achieve through email marketing:

Do you need help building a successful email marketing strategy?

We are SHE The Influence can help you build a successful email marketing strategy. If you are interested in chatting, please book a meeting here. We are a partner with Omnisend and Klaviyo, and we provide email marketing management and strategy development.