Email Marketing, or Email Marketing Strategy if you want to get fancy, is incredibly important for any business. I’ve built my fair share of email lists and tested a lot of different emails. This has led me to creating my own list of go-to emails that I use over and over again.
Email marketing is the fastest growing marketing strategy. More than 3.80 billion emails are sent every day globally, and that number is growing. Email allows you to improve your SEO, reach out to your customers in real time, and build your brand in unprecedented ways. The benefits of email marketing are endless. However, in order to get started with email marketing in the right way, there are several things you must understand beforehand.
What is email marketing, and where did it begin?
The first email, sent by Ray Tomlinson in 1971 or 1978 depending on your source, marked the beginning of the modern communication era. The message was nothing special, a series of numbers and letters that looked more like a password than a message, but its significance was profound.
The email was sent from one computer to another, traveling through a network of machines not unlike the internet we know today. Tomlinson also introduced the “@” symbol in email addresses to the world.
Gary Thuerk, a Marketing Manager at Digital Equipment Corp, sent the first commercial email years later, where the message reached a list of email addresses. And voila, email marketing was born. There were only a few hundred people on the list, but that was enough for Thuerk to claim the mantle, “Father of Spam.”
Today, we’re inundated with email marketing campaigns, and yes, some of it still feels spammy, but there’s no denying the impact a well-crafted message can have on your customers—not to mention CRM and lead nurturing.
Email marketing helps you connect with your audience to promote your brand and increase sales. You can do a lot of things with emails, like sell products, share some news, improve your cart abandonment rate or tell a story.
With Mailchimp’s campaign builder, it’s easy to find the right email templates for any message—whether you’re welcoming new subscribers, notifying customers of a sale, or wishing someone a happy birthday.
Nick Sapia, chief digital officer of Alps & Meter
“The biggest benefit of Mailchimp’s email builder is that it’s easy to use. From quickly loading in our color palette and our brand font, we can make emails look and feel like an extension of our website very easily.”
Nick Sapia, chief digital officer of Alps & Meters Learn how he uses Mailchimp to send emails that match his brand
Does email marketing work?
When you want to communicate something about your brand or sell your stuff, email marketing is one of the most cost-effective ways to do so.
In fact, a 2015 study by the DMA found that for every $1 spent, email has an average $38 return on investment (ROI). When shoppers are ready to buy something, they often look for emails from their favorite stores.
Still, people receive more and more email all the time, and it can be challenging to stand out in full inboxes. That’s why Mailchimp gives you the tools you need to shine (plus, we’ve got a lot of tried and true tips on sending outstanding emails) and develop effective email marketing campaigns. Check out our email marketing statistics by industry for more on why email marketing works.
How do I get an email list?
You’ll see the highest ROI when you build and maintain an engaged subscriber list, made up of people who want to receive your messages (and who opted in on purpose). Although building a clean list can take more work at the outset of your email marketing strategy, Mailchimp lists have built-in tools to help you along the way.
There are lots of ways to find people who’ll look forward to getting your emails, but we’ve rounded up a few that work best.
- Create a signup form on your website. When people come to your website for the first time and like what they see, they’ll want a way to stay in-the-know about your brand. Create a form for newsletter signups and install a pop-up to collect customer data from your visitors.
- Use a good old-fashioned signup sheet. Whether it’s at your brick and mortar store, or an event that you’re hosting or attending, when you’re surrounded by people who are into what you do, provide a place for them to sign up and learn more.
- Drive signups through social media. If you don’t have a substantial email list (or you’d just like to see it grow), but you’ve got an engaged social media following, tap into that resource. Share your signup form on your social channels.
To add more subscribers to an existing list:
- Host a contest or offer a discount. We’re big fans of giving people an incentive to sign up for your email list—and we know that contests work. Try offering a prize for some lucky new subscriber or a discount code for a first purchase.
- Make your emails easy to share.When you create beautiful, compelling emails, with a lot of valuable information people will want to share them. Mailchimp gives you features (like share buttons and social media post builders) that let the word about your emails spread quickly.
- Build a landing page through Mailchimp. Landing pages offer one more way to grow your email list. Using your best imagery and content, landing pages give people a clear call to action and drive email signups way, way up.
Can I buy an email list?
No. You should not buy an email list (and if you’re using Mailchimp, you can’t use an email list you purchased).
Purchased lists are ineffective, and they impact everyone else who uses Mailchimp, too. If you send emails to a list of people whose contact info you bought, many of the emails will get identified as spam and you’ll also get high unsubscribe rates. Some email spam filters will flag a email campaign if anyone with the same IP has sent spam in the past. When you use Mailchimp, your email is delivered through our servers, so if one person sends spam, it could prevent other users’ emails from reaching inboxes. But by forbidding Mailchimp users from using purchased lists, we increase deliverability for everyone.
- That’s why we work vigilantly to keep our sending reputation intact, and it’s important that all users abide by our Terms of Use, which enforce anti-spam laws. There are 3 primary rules you should follow to comply with our Terms of Use.
- Don’t use third-party lists. This includes purchased or rented mailing lists, and lists scraped from third-party sources, including public websites.
- Get permission. Everyone on your list should have opted in to receive emails from you, and their permission should be express and verifiable. If you use one of our signup form options, we track this permission for you.
- Include an unsubscribe link. Federal anti-spam laws require you to give people a way to unsubscribe from your list in every campaign you send. We require you to use our unsubscribe link.
I’m ready for email marketing, but which platform should I use?
Whether you’re starting your first email marketing campaign or you’re a seasoned email pro, Mailchimp has the tools and support you need. With a wide array of features that do everything from marketing automation to tracking tools to optimizing your emails through split testing, we’ve got you covered from start to finish.
OK, but how much does it cost?
When you create a Mailchimp account, you have the option to select a Free or paid plan. This option allows you to experiment with our user-friendly tools and figure out how to best use our all-in-one Marketing Platform. So if you’re just getting off the ground, you can learn to market smarter so you can grow faster. You can remain on the Free plan as long as you have 2,000 or fewer contacts in your audience.
As your audience continues to grow, our pricing plans also scale alongside your needs, for advance business needs we are also offering a Premium Plan.
Plus, we empower you with lots of good recommendations (and fun email marketing tips!) about how to act on data from your contacts so you can send emails that people actually read. We will help you to create successful email marketing campaigns.
I’m new to email marketing, and I might need a little help.
We’re here when you need us. During your first 30 days with Mailchimp, we offer access to 24/7 world-class support for free so that you get the most out of your account.
If you’d like to keep in touch with our support team through online chat or email, upgrade to our Essentials plan starting at $9.99 a month. Whether you’re hitting a roadblock with an email you’re writing or want more information about how something works, help is available around the clock. And when you’re ready to take your email marketing to the next level, we have plans for that, too.
Even if you don’t upgrade to a paid account, you can always check out our step by step tutorials and in-depth information about how our features work (as well as tips and troubleshooting guides).
Email Marketing Field Guide
Email marketing is one of the most cost-effective ways to promote your business, whether your goal is to build your brand or sell more stuff. Our field marketing guide provides effective email marketing strategies and anything else you need to know to make the most of this platform. Learn how to create an email marketing plan, design effective emails all along your sales funnel, test them and improve your deliverability rates. Then discover the power of marketing automation and how to measure the success of your emails.
Email Design Guide
Presentation is everything, or so they say. With this old adage in mind, we’ve compiled our best tips for anyone who wants to send emails that subscribers click into a handy email design guide. We cover each facet of design: content, templates, identity, color, images, layout, fonts, and calls to action. Design is as much science as it is art, and we take the guesswork out of what can seem like the most challenging part of sending good emails.
Email Design Reference
If you want to code your own emails, you have the freedom to do so. But this is an advanced skill that requires a good bit of technical know-how. Here’s what you need to take the coding leap—whether you’re just getting started, wondering about the basics of HTML emails, or looking for a guide to coding them. We’ve also rounded up a few more resources you might need as you become a certifiable email pro. If you’re considering another platform, check out our comparison guide before you make any decisions.
Can I test my emails?
Of course you can! With A/B testing tools, like those offered by Mailchimp, you can do split testing and test as many as three variations for campaigns.
You can also test subject lines, content, from names, and send times. You can test your reach too; that’s how many people get your emails. Always optimize your emails for better results.
How to test your emails?
First, choose the factor that defines success for you. It could be clicks, opens, or money earned. We’ll collect the results, and show you the winner. And you can automate it too. Just tell Mailchimp to automatically send out the winning campaign. It’s really pretty easy.
5 strategies for better email marketing campaigns
When you follow these email marketing strategies, email will become your most important channel too!
Let’s get started.
1. Personalize your messages
When we say personalized email marketing, we don’t mean that you send an individual email to every single subscriber. Personalization means that you use customer data to create a personalized message.
A great example of a company that does personalization well is Amazon.
All of Amazon’s emails are personalized.
It’s not “Dear valued customer”, but “Dear Steven”.
It’s not, “You might like these… (randomly generated)”, but “You might like these (based on my purchase history)”.
To Amazon, email marketing is not just another marketing channel. It’s key to of the overall customer experience.
Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s CEO is an email mastermind. Jeff Bezos understands the value of emails and has been known to read through customer complaints. It’s also why more than 35% of all product sales come from recommendations (both via email and on screen).
And it’s not just Amazon that have seen these kinds of results through personalization.
A study by Experian found that personalized emails deliver 6x higher transaction rates!
Let’s break this down into numbers we can all understand:
The most recent research found that email marketing generates $0.08 in revenue per email.
That may not sound like much…
But if you send out an email campaign to 500,000 subscribers, you can generate up to $40,000 in revenue.
That’s a lot of additional revenue!
But, if you use personalization in your emails, you can expect a lot more!
According to brand new research,
Personalization can generate $20 in ROI for every $1 invested.
How’s that for a revenue opportunity?
The best part is this:
70% of brands do not use personalization within their email marketing strategy.
This means that by personalizing your emails, you stand out against the competition.
The simplest form of personalization is to address the reader by name. Most email service providers (ESP) offer this within their functionality and this tactic alone will improve your campaign performance.
For example, email subject lines that are personalized with a recipient’s first name can increase open rates by 16% higher open rates.
Considering that 47% of all emails are opened because of subject line alone, that’s a sure fire way to get more eyeballs on your email.
Outside of using the customer’s name, here are a few more tips to help you get started with personalization:
- Ask for the right information upfront: Great personalization starts way before you hit the ‘send’ button. It all starts with your sign up form. Without data such as name, company and location, you will be very limited with your personalized communication. Remember to only ask for the information you need, rather than the information you want. This is one of the ways that GDPR has impacted marketing teams.
- Use a real reply-to email address: When you use donotreply@example.com, it takes away the authenticity from the messaging. You want your readers to engage and respond to your campaigns. Use a real reply address will improve credibility and appear more personal.
- Use your real email signature: Just like using a real reply-to email address, you want to use real contact information within the email and the best way to do that is to include your contact details in the email signature. Giving your readers the opportunity to contact you or connect with you online is a great way to be personal and build a relationship with them.
2. Segment your subscribers
According to email marketers, segmentation is second on the top initiatives list this year.
Do you know why it is so high?
It’s because when you segment your database, your email campaigns become much more targeted to your audience.
Let’s take a look at an example:
You’re hosting a networking event for small business owners located within a 20 mile radius.
How can you expect to get the best turn out for your event?
The answer is segmentation.
The best way to get small business owners to turn up to your event would be to create a segment of people who list themselves as a small business owner that lives within 20 miles of your event and then send them an invite by email.
The segmentation part is simple and can easily be done through CRM software.
Compare this to sending one email to your entire database, with subscribers spread across the country (or continent).
How annoying is it to receive an email that invites you to an event that is located on other side of the world?
It’s very annoying!
Before you start segmenting your database, let’s take a look at how valuable it can be.
A study by HubSpot found that all email marketing KPIs perform better when you segment your email list.
The segmentation results include increased performance in:
If you segment your lists, you get better open rates, revenue, leads, transactions and more customers.
Another benefit is that segmentation goes hand in hand with GDPR and email marketing.
But, does it really work?
Yes!
Here’s an example from our own email marketing campaigns:
We recently sent out two email marketing campaigns. Both campaigns had the same subject line and the same content.
The first campaign was sent to our non-segmented email list, while the second was sent to our segmented list (segmented by interest).
The first non-segmented email earned an impressive 42 % open rate and a 4.5% click-through rate.
However, the segmented email campaign earned a 94% open rate and a 38% click-through rate!
I’d say it’s pretty valuable, wouldn’t you?
And that’s why so many marketers’ are segmenting their emails, right?
Wrong.
As 9 out of 10 email marketers’ do not segment their database.
So, here are a few examples for you to get started with segmentation:
- Segment by industry: Do you offer services and products to businesses or consumers? Knowing the industry of your subscribers is a great way to segment your email campaigns. For example, a business that sells car parts would engage at a much higher rate if they receive email campaigns on car products, compared to a business that sells software.
- Segment by company size: Also known as account-based marketing, segmenting email campaigns by company size or annual revenue is a great way to increase response rates. A small business that employs 5 people is not likely ready for the biggest industry conference of the year, whereas a business that employs 750 people might be a better fit.
- Segment by sales cycle: Early stage buyers will not be ready for an aggressive sales pitch or one-to-one demo but, they will be more appreciative to receive an industry research white paper. On the other end of the cycle, buyers who are ready to buy will respond well to product webinars or free trial offers.
3. Send mobile friendly emails
In 2012, 27% of all marketing emails were opened on a mobile device.
By 2014, that number jumped up to 42%.
Now, it’s as high as 61%!
These are huge numbers!
And what do you do as soon as you wake up in the morning?
If you’re like me, I’m guessing you have your phone next to your bed and the first thing you do each morning is check your phone for calls, messages and yes, you guessed it, emails…
Don’t worry, you’re not the only one. 50% of us do this.
When you send an email to a subscriber who reads their emails on their mobile device, but the email is not optimized for that device, what do you think they do with?
Mostly, they will unsubscribe or delete it.
So why is it that almost half of all emails are still not mobile friendly?
Worse still, our own email marketing research found that 20% of email campaigns are not optimized for mobile.
Yet on the opposite end of the scale, and when email campaigns are optimized for mobile, they generate a lot of revenue!
The average revenue per mobile email is $0.40, which is more than 4x that of a desktop email click, according to Yesmail.
Revenue per email on mobile devices is 4X higher than desktop
And 55% of smartphone users have made at least one purchase after receiving a mobile promotional email.
Furthermore, a study by Flexmail found that 36% of B2B companies that have optimized their email campaigns for mobile devices saw an overall improvement to their email performance.
So, how do you optimize your campaigns for mobile devices?
Don’t worry, here are some tips on how to do that.
- Implement responsive email design (RED): Creating a responsive email design means that the user experience is optimized regardless of the device or screen they use. Most email service providers (ESP) offer this solution within their email functionality.
- Keep the subject line and pre-header short: The subject line is crucial. Keep it short so the reader knows exactly what the email topic is about. And the pre-header text (also known as snippet text), don’t let it go to waste by using “To view this email in your browser…”. Instead, summarize the email or include a call to action (i.e., Use “FREESHIP” to get free shipping).
- Make the CTA big and obvious: Mobile device vary in size. While a text link may work on a tablet or larger screen, you might be alienating your readers who have a smaller screen (or bigger hands!) if your call to action is too small. Make the call to action, big, bold and simple to click.
4. Test copy, design and buttons
Whether you test your home page, landing pages or email templates, testing provides us with data to make practical decisions that will improve our marketing performance.
And email marketing is no different.
Most marketers have A/B tested their email campaigns.
If I had to guess, I’d say you’ve tested your email subject line, right?
Even the former President of the United States has A/B tested his email subject lines….
Think I’m kidding?
Email marketing played a huge part in the success of Obama’s 2012 Presidential campaign.
By sending several variations made to the subject line to a small sample of subscribers, they were able to calculate the amount in donations they could expect to receive based on the results.
The sample size revealed that the poorest performing subject line (“The one thing the polls got right..”), when sent to the entire database, would generate $403,603 in donations.
The best performing subject line (“I will be outspent”) was expected to generate $2,540,866 in donations.
That’s a huge difference!
In fact, the best performing subject line outperformed expectations and generated a total of $2,673,278.
That’s an additional $2.2 million in donations raised due to a change in the emails subject line!
President Barack Obama raised an additional $2 million in donations by split testing his email subject line
But it’s not only subject lines you can test through email marketing.
You can also test:
- From address: The name that appears in the “from” field has a huge impact on whether the reader opens your email. In fact, the sender name is the main reason why people open your email. Test your from address by sending your campaigns from a person’s name, person + company or from your CEO.
- Plain text vs HTML campaigns: Like most marketers’, I’m sure you are already sending a plain text version of your email. However, have you thought of testing an email campaign that is plain text only? And when you add an element of personalization, plain text emails appear to be written just for the reader.
- Long vs short emails: You can keep your emails short and sweet or, you can create long detailed emails. Long form emails can include more detailed copy whereas shorter emails will send the reader directly to a targeted landing page. The best way to see what works best? Test it.
(Not sure how to design your email campaigns? We’ve collected 21 of the best B2B email marketing examples from the world’s leading SaaS companies.)
5. Automate email campaigns when possible
Trigger-based emails are emails that are sent out automatically based on user behavior.
The most common forms of trigger emails are ‘welcome’ emails, ‘thank you’ emails and ‘transactional’ emails, such as order confirmation email and email receipts.
The data behind trigger emails shows us that trigger emails perform much better than traditional email.
For example, Epsilon found that:
- Open rates for trigger emails are as high as 49% (95% higher than traditional email open rates)
- The average click-through rate (CTR) for trigger emails is more than double the rate compared to traditional email click-through rates
- The best converting websites in the world, sites that convert as much as 40% of their traffic, use trigger emails.
And not only that, Forrester research found that trigger-based email marketing campaigns can generate 4x more revenue and 18x greater profits!
Does this sound too good to be true?
Well, it’s not. We’ve tested it. And it works!
Below is a comparison for our traditional email campaign (left) against our triggered email campaign (right):
Our triggered emails generated 5x higher open rates and 15x higher click-through rates.
Today, only 20% of marketers currently use triggered emails and they make up a low percentage of overall email volume, at around 2.6%. However, they can be responsible for as much as 20% of your email marketing revenue!
Triggered emails perform really well because they hit the email marketing sweet spot.
What does the email marketing sweet spot look like, you ask?
It looks like this:
And the reason why they perform so well is because of context.
Consider the following scenario;
You visit a website, browse the product line and add items to your shopping cart but, you begin to have doubts and decide to leave before completing a purchase.
Sound familiar?
This happens to every single eCommerce store, every single day.
But what if, one hour later, you receive an email that includes the exact product you were shopping for?
And what if this email included not only a quick-link back to your shopping cart but, a free shipping code or 10% discount?
You’re now more likely to complete your purchase, aren’t you?
That’s the power of trigger emails.
But setting up triggered emails is expensive and complex, isn’t it?
It doesn’t have to be. You can start by using auto-responders in your customer service software to replicate the automation aspect. That’s what we do for all of our existing triggered emails and we’re happy with it.
Here are some examples of trigger mails you can send;
- Activation: A new user creates an account but, they do not use your product within the first 7 days. Create an “activation” campaign that sends an automated email with their login information, steps on how they can get started and include a video demonstration for additional support. You can also invite them to a one-on-one meeting to walk them through the product and answer any questions they may have.
- Win-back: An existing customer is soon approaching the end of his yearly subscription. The customer hasn’t used your product in 3 months and you need a way to win them back and keep them for another year. Create a “win back” email that sends an automated email to all customers that are coming to end of their contract with a list of new product features and a short plan on expected releases in the next six months.
- Surprise: Customer loyalty is the key to success. And you can reward your loyal customers by giving them something for free every now and then. Create a “surprise” email that sends an automated email to your best customers that offers a free yearly license to your software for them to use, a gift card or even a coupon code to redeem a box of cupcakes. It’s a small cost for your business but, the reward is huge!
Conclusions
You’re building a marketing strategy, and email is a key component for generating leads, increasing sales and creating brand awareness. In this article I’ll share with you the most important components you should consider when creating an email marketing strategy. I’ll also provide a few best practices to follow in order to gain the most value from your emails.