A Beginner’s Guide for an effective Email Marketing

The exchange of initial commercial message with a group of B2B or B2C targeted audience in the form of emails is known as email marketing.

Email marketing influences major business decision directly or indirectly. Email marketing is automated and customised so that less manpower is being used and it is considered to be the best marketing strategy to generate more ROI with no-cost or low-cost.

Most companies follow email campaign as the first step to prospect their users/clients by providing the most relevant information as cold emails.

Subscribed/Opt-in emails are subscriptions based where the recipient agrees to receive the emails sent by a company.

Unsubscribed/Cold emails are sent without the recipient’s subscriptions and mostly it is considered as spam emails. (strictly not recommended)

Lead Generating emails – Commercial message sent for generating leads through emails for business deals.

Welcoming emails – Introduction email sent after a new user subscribes to your email list. It gives the first impression to the recipient about the company.

News-Letters – Sent in regular intervals about the Company updates/Industry updates/ Products and Services. Its main purpose is to create brand awareness and build a good relationship with your customers.

Event Notifications – Send at regular intervals about the event like Webinars/ Conferences/ presentations. It is also used to update your users if there any changes in the event.

Webinar invitations – Webinar invitations are sent to loyal customers or niche targeted audiences for a discussion on a particular topic.

Offers – Sent to update recipients on special discounts and offers on a product/services.

Survey emails – They are used for customer’s feedback on a product/services where companies can use to improve their Product, Services & Offerings.

Transaction notification emails – They are automated emails sent after payment or any other transaction through banks and other wallets to users stating the status/acknowledgement of the payment.

Anniversary/ Seasonal Greetings – Automated emails sent on Birthdays, Anniversary, Holidays and on other special occasions to build a better relationship with the customers.

Press release – Press release emails are used for promotional purposes. They are typically associated with NEWS papers and other publications.

Educational emails – Sent for learning purpose after signing up for the email list. It is used to send campaign on articles, blogs and solutions for problems which has a good open rate.

Thank you emails – Email sent after purchasing a product and customers feel that they are valued for becoming their client. Typically, an additional discount coupon is sent along with the Thank you email to retain the customer.

Email marketing allows you to reach millions of customers with a click. Like any other marketing medium, it has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Low cost – There are a lot of free email marketing tools where they provide free/low-cost email campaign with analytics options.

High ROI – It is considered to be the most effective way of marketing among other digital marketing platforms for generating high ROI with less cost.

Multiple emails – Allows you to send multiple emails with a different segment at a time

Automated – Emails can be automated by Location, Time, Language, Gender, etc (Depends on the email marketing tool)

Live Tracking – Easy to live track the recipient’s open rate, page visit, etc. This option is available in most email marketing tools.

Analytics – Email marketing tools provide real-time reports like A/B Testing, Multivariate Testing and Comparative reports to understand more about the recipient’s persona.

Multiple device reports – Email marketing tools provide options to view and receive reports on various devices like Mobile, Tablet and Desktops.

Personalisation – Email marketing tools provide options to customise your emails so that receivers see them as a personalised message.

Easy Sharable – It is easy to share the information to multiple recipients from end-users

Decision Making – Emails are directly or indirectly influences in decision making to buy a product or services.

Traffic – Helps to generate traffic to the website.

More Information – Easy to attach documents like Links, Images, Audios, Documents and other format files.

Learnings – Easy to educate on specific Subject/Topic using attachments and links.

Relationship building – Helps in building relationships (Anniversary greetings/ Festival wishes)

Promotion – Used for Branding activities (Pre-launch/ offers/ Event notifications/ Seasonal discounts)

Transaction updates – Automated emails are used in Bank transaction and Virtual Money Account transaction details, Mobile bills, Electricity bills details which help us to track your transactions.

Responsive – It can be optimised to Mobile/Desktop/Tablet view so it reaches any devices.

Generate calls – They are used for generating enquiry calls on the product/services.

Immediate results – Easy to analyse the open rate, bounce rate and conversions.

Readymade Templates – Most email marketing tools provide readymade templates to create a body of the mail that supports various options like image tabs, table tabs, social sharing, links to create an attractive email.

Spam emails – Unsubscribed emails are considered to be spam and there are high possibilities to go to the junk folder and chances of shutting down the server & website.

Bounce rate –  High chance of delivery failure and the bounce rate will be higher because of its invalid email address.

Privacy Breaching – People feel that there is a breach of privacy when it comes to cold emails.

Lack of Trust – People feel that the email might be a phishing scam or Virus attachments.

Reputation Damage – It might damage the reputation of the company for spamming.

Low response rate – Response rate will be low if it is a cold mail and high chances of getting unsubscribed.

Email Data – On average, 22.5% of email ids gets decayed every year (Varies on Industries). You can learn more about database decay here.

Late response – Late responses due to various factors.

• Enable UTM codes for an email from Google Analytics
• Understand and define the goal objectives
• Segment the audience with Country, States, Time zone, user’s behaviour, etc.
• Optimise the email for Desktop, Mobile and Tablet view.
• Monitor performance and analyse
• Send a follow-up email campaign after an interval

• Make the Subject grabs the attention of the recipient
• Use 5-7 words (25-30 characters) in the Subject line.
• Use HTML format for an attractive email.
• Use Non-HTML format for slow connection users.
• Have 200-250 words in the body of the email.
• Have a maximum of 3 sentences in a paragraph.
• Make it highly relevant to the customer
• Align the email properly. Left alignment is most preferred.
• Highlight the important lines and hyperlink the CTA.
• Have sub-headings and one topic in a para
• Insert bullets and numberings to highlight and easy to read.
• Use images for B2C emails.
• Time zones (Country, State, City)
• Personalise the email and make it highly relevant to the recipient.
• Use Call-To-Action and define its purpose properly
• Use Company’s Logo in the Header for B2C
• Add Signature at the bottom with company name, Logo, Website, Social Media links and contact information.
• Mention why the recipient receiving the email.
• Give them an option to unsubscribe from the list.

Cold mails (Unsubscribed) – Strictly no for B2C. Can be considered if it is highly relevant to the business for B2B.

Message Dumping – Do not stuff in all messages in one para. Align it properly with one topic in a para.

Long Subject Line – Do not exceed more than 7 words in the subject line.

Spam words – Avoid using spamming words like Free, Offer, Buy now, Prize, Price, Discount, Flat-Off, call now, only $, money, profit, gain, won, winner, unlimited, etc.