Email Marketing 101: The What, The How, and The Why

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Last Updated on February 6, 2023 by Mandy Schmitz

I assume you run a blog and social media channels to keep your digital business up and running. But have you considered email marketing?

With popular online platforms like social media, live chats, and others, emails may seem old-school. But if you think email marketing isn’t worth it, think again.

Do you know emails have a user base of over 4 billion people?

What’s more, according to HubSpot, “Email generates $42 for every $11 spend, which is an astounding 4,200% ROI, making it one of the most effective options available.”

Perhaps this explains why email marketing deserves a place in every digital marketer’s business efforts.

If you are fairly new to email marketing, you’ve come to the right place. Here’s everything you need to know to succeed in this field.

What is Email Marketing?

As its name suggests, email marketing is a digital marketing strategy that uses electronic mails to communicate with a potential customer to sell products and services, build relationships, or increase brand awareness, among others.

You can think of it as the digital version of the traditional promotional mails you used to get in your mailbox some 10 to 20 years ago. Except that with digital mails, no papers are wasted and the purchasing process is much faster.

Email marketing has come a long way since emails became a thing a few decades ago. From the simple “Hi, we have a new product” message years ago, marketing emails have evolved into the sophisticated visual feast we know today.

But with an average consumer receiving hundreds of marketing emails every single day, the competition has gotten a lot fiercer. So if If you want your messages to be noticed, you have to make sure they stand out from the rest.

How Does Email Marketing Work?

In general, email marketing is not a complicated process. However, it requires a lot of A/B testing to figure out what works best for you and your customers.

Like most marketing strategies, email marketing starts with identifying your potential customers. Know the demographics of the people who will most likely be interested in what you’re offering. From there, you can build your email list.

There are many ways to build an organic email list. For example, you can use lead generation tools or entice your site’s visitors to sign up for your newsletters.

Aside from your mailing list, you also need to plan for things like:

Once you have all these, it’s time to put your email marketing strategy into action. Since you’ll be sending out large volumes of emails every single time, using an email service provider can make the process a lot faster.

Though statistics say that email marketing has a high ROI, you can’t expect your first round of email sending to produce results. As I said, it needs a lot of A/B testing. You need to figure out not just what your audience wants but what converts them into paying customers.

To do that, you need to constantly monitor your campaign’s metrics and adjust your email marketing strategy as necessary.

Elements of Email Marketing

To fully understand how email marketing works, you need to know about its three basic elements:

1. Email Service Provider

An email service provider (ESP) is software that allows you to create and launch your email marketing campaign. In short, it helps you design and run automated emails.

As a result, it becomes easier for you to build your email list and send emails to the target audience as it automates actions prompted by your customers.

This allows you to customize each interaction with a relevant audience, increase engagement, and boost conversion.

Overall, the basic function of ESP is to store and send email addresses. However, a more advanced Email Service Provider may offer additional features like A/B testing of automation, lead capture forms, website tracking, and segmentation based on what your subscribers prefer.

2. Email List

You cannot pull off email campaigns without an email list.

An email list refers to the list of emails you collect via website, social media platforms, lead generation software, or other means. Simply put, it refers to the total number of subscribers you have.

It includes the names and email addresses of people who permitted you to share the latest updates with them.

While there are several ways to build your email list, an interesting offer (i.e., a coupon or discount) will entice your target audience like nothing else. Also known as a lead magnet, it is the best possible offer in exchange for an email address.

3. Email Content

All your email marketing efforts eventually come down to the content of your email. Remember that you are the guest in your audience’s inbox, and it’s your chance to impress them.

The email content is simply the message you send to your subscribers. Typical email content includes automated replies, promotional products, newsletters, or new-release announcements.

Your content should offer value to your customers. So, the first thing you need to consider is that it aligns with your business goals and audiences’ interests.

A well-defined email with a clear goal is like hitting the nail on the head.

It will generate and nurture leads, increase brand awareness, engage your customers, and help gain customer loyalty.

Types of Email Marketing

What is the right format to meet your email marketing goals? Is it an email delivering your brand’s newsletter or an irresistible offer?

Marketers often find themselves in the face of such questions.

Below, we’ll discuss several types of emails to help you choose which is more appropriate for your brand.

1. Welcome Email

Gaining a subscriber doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll contribute to your business.

Research indicates that 50% of leads you generate are qualified but not ready to make a purchase currently. What’s more, 25% aren’t even qualified – they would never buy.

You need to nurture your leads to encourage them to buy, and welcome emails are your best bet.

But wait, don’t introduce your products or services right away. At this point, you have no relationship with your customer yet. Use the welcome email as an opportunity to create one.

Just create an impression on your customer that depicts your industry expertise, and make way for future contact.

You can write something formal and straightforward like, “Thanks for signing up” or “Welcome to our email list!”

Note that there is no right or wrong way to send a welcome email. However, you should ensure it aligns with your company’s voice.

For instance, a welcome email like, “Oh hi beautiful! Welcome to XYZ,” would work if you run a fashion business.

However, such a headline won’t be relevant to the fitness or healthcare industry, but it might go well for the skincare business.

Take a look at how Twitter welcomes its users:

2. Thank You Email

By showing gratitude and appreciation, you can build a stronger bond with your customers, and there’s no better way to do that than sending a Thank You email.

The question is when and whom to send a thank-you email?

You can send a special thanks to:

But your goal here is to humanize the relationship with your customers. So, a robotic and bland “Thank you” won’t work.

Instead, get a little more creative, “Thank you for trusting us; we appreciate it!”

Know for a fact that the customers on the other end are humans, and they’d undoubtedly appreciate a more human-like approach.

So, instead of saying “Thank you for placing an order!” try something like, “This is Steve from XYZ company, Thanks a lot!”

But, again, make sure you do not write anything silly that’ll turn off your customers. Above all, avoid typos and grammar errors!

3. Event Invitation

Your customer’s inbox is a battleground when it comes to event invitations. You have to fight to gain the attention of your customers.

Make sure you keep the event email subject lines catchy, but the tone should match the type of event you’re hosting.

Typical events include webinars, workshop events, seminars, conferences, corporate parties, meet and greet invitations, team outing invites, lunch invitations, networking events, and more.

Some common examples include:

Besides, although you’re inviting your customers virtually, it doesn’t mean it has to be boring. Design your emails well and keep them interesting.

Also, keep the subject line short yet compelling – say more in fewer words. Common subject line examples include:

4. New Product Announcement

Whether you plan to launch a product or update it, the purpose of product announcement is the same:

With over 306.4 billion emails sent and received, it is not easy to get yourself noticed. What’s more, the number is expected to grow by 376.4 billion by 2025.

So, you need to be strategic with your email design. For example, you should not send a direct product announcement email. Instead, try to build an email sequence including a teaser email, product announcement, product launches, and a follow-up email.

The sequence and series of emails are perfect for building the interest of your audience. Here are some examples of killer product announcement email subject lines.

But if you’re selling a product in high demand, make sure you include a compelling image with powerful visuals and keep the subject line simple. Sometimes less is more.

Apple, for instance, is a master when it comes to product launch. Here’s how the brand gained public attention with a minimal subject line:

5. Newsletter or Digital Magazine

Newsletters are a great way to educate customers or prospects about your brand. A digital magazine typically includes a brand’s passion projects, employee profiles, and related visuals.

Frankly speaking, newsletters are not a great marketing strategy to attract prospects. I mean, no prospect would be interested to learn about a company unless you go the extra mile to offer them something intriguing.

But they are perfect for existing customers, informing them about the latest brand news, products and asking them for feedback. Here’s what a newsletter email should include:

6. Offers and Promotions

Promotional emails are meant to spread the word about your product or service. The goal is to increase brand awareness, boost revenue, and build long-term relationships with customers.

Studies indicate that 49% of customers say they’d like to receive weekly promotional emails from their favorite retail outlets.

However, not all promotional emails get enough attention. Besides, not all are the same either. So you have to make sure your promotional email aligns with your brand’s image.

Here’s how Starbucks does the job: Enjoy 3 holiday drinks, get another free!

In short, your subject line should be related to your brand.

Here is how an award-winning online print and design company, Moo, managed to build its audience:

10% off. Just waiting for you.

But the brand follows up with a promise, “If your order’s not exactly how you pictured it, we’ll reprint it for free!”

Are you willing to offer something similar or close to your customers?

7. Lead Nurturing Email

It won’t be wrong to call this email marketing tactic the king of all.

The aim of lead nurturing emails is to take customers on a journey that’ll impact their buying behavior. These emails include a series of personalized and automated emails.

What sets these emails apart from the rest is that they are customized emails built using customer behavior and analytics. It allows marketers to target the audience, encouraging them to take further steps into the sales funnel. Here’s how to create a winning lead nurturing email:

Canva, an online design and publishing tool, helps people create enticing designs and images. Here’s what they included in their recent lead nurturing email, “Needing some pattern design inspiration?”

A designer willing to learn more about graphics would likely click this and follow up.

8. Sponsorship Emails

Sponsorship emails is essentially a paid media strategy. You pay to include your copy in another seller’s newsletter.

For this purpose, you need to design the copy or ad according to the instructions given by the seller.

You also must check for size limitations, image recommendations, and more. These types of emails are highly targeted, allowing you to define the particular segment you want to reach.

However, when reaching out to sponsors, you have to give them a reason to connect with you. Here’s how:

9. Transactional Emails

These types of emails are sent when contacts in your email list have taken a particular action. By sending a transaction email, you encourage them to complete the action.

Common examples include delivery confirmation emails, password reset emails, invoice emails, order confirmation, and legal update emails.

Here’s what an order confirmation email looks like:

Transaction emails can sometimes reactivate inactive users or recover abandoned carts.

10. Product Recommendations

Like the signposts that help you find a way when you get lost in an unknown place, product recommendation emails do something similar for your customers.

Online shoppers may look through your store willing to buy anything, but they need your guidance to make a purchase.

But how exactly will you recommend a product when you do not even know what the user is willing to buy? You can display recommended products based on algorithms, including.

The titles typically include:

11. Video Emails

Emotions rule, and videos evoke them perfectly.

Visuals are easier for the brain to process. While a written email might get overlooked, video emails will likely grab your audience’s attention.

Wistia, a video hosting platform for B2B marketers, performed A/B testing for their email marketing campaign.

The brand experienced a 21.52% increase in clicks through video thumbnails.

You can also increase click-through rates by including a video of:

Why Should You Do Email Marketing?

With several digital marketing strategies popular today, marketers often wonder, “Is email marketing important?” The short answer is yes, it’s still important and one that marketers should never take for granted.

Here are some of the most compelling reasons why you should do email marketing:

1. Direct Access to Your Audience

Email marketing allows you to be in your target audience’s inbox. A social media post might disappear after a while or get overlooked by your target audience. But emails offer a way to connect with your audience directly.

Besides, being in direct contact gives them a feeling that you value them as customers.

2. Permission-based

When customers sign up to your email list, they have permitted you to send them emails.

In other words, you are not pushing your promotional offers, product announcements, event invitations, or newsletters towards them. Instead, they expect to receive these emails.

Nonetheless, because they have given you permission does not mean you can send them whatever you’re up to.

Keep your emails meaningful, purposeful, and valuable.

3. More Personalization

Personalized emails are a way to work smarter, not harder.

71% of consumers say a personalized experience influences their decision to open and read brand emails.

Certainly, a “Hi, there!” email will get less attention than a “Hi, (customer name)” email.

But the name alone does not indicate personalization. You can also segment your contact list based on customers’ actions or particular contact properties. Besides that, you could include a personalized picture whose content dynamically changes with the LivePic feature of Marketer Magic.

For instance, you can track your page views and check how many times a contact views your page. More views indicate a customer is willing to purchase a product. Ensure you engage those contacts by building a series of lead nurturing emails.

4. You Have More Control

Email marketing gives you a range of options to target your audience. Even if we look at the types of emails alone, they explain enough how much control you have with this marketing tactic.

You can pay gratitude to your customer through a Thank You email, introduce your product through a product announcement email, tell more about your company via newsletters, and the list goes on.

5. Cost-Effective

Email marketing won’t break your bank when reaching out to your target audience. Yes, the initial efforts to build your email list require you to spend some money. Still, this marketing strategy is generally inexpensive.

A mid-sized business can expect to spend a maximum of $1000, and a small business would need to invest even less.

According to reports, 82% of marketers spend between 0-20% of their total marketing budget for email marketing – a small price to pay considering the expected returns for your business.

6. Better Targeting

Highly customized emails help you target the relevant audience. Your aim is to divide your subscribers by age, gender, occupation, geography, interests, and more.

Mailing list segmentation takes the burden off your shoulders.

This allows you to increase response rates, boosting your business revenue.

Consider your customer is at the consideration stage of the buying cycle. You can segment them and send relevant information to move them to the research, compare, and eventually the purchase stage.

7. Measurable Results

One of the biggest advantages of email marketing is that it offers measurable results such as:

This helps you understand how your campaign is working, what needs improvement, and which campaigns you need to get rid of.

It also helps you know your customers better and how you can cater to their unique needs.

For instance, a few customers expect to receive daily emails while others only want weekly emails. The latter may end up unsubscribing from your newsletter when they receive more emails than usual.

In short, measurable results allow you to come up with a solid strategy.

8. Scalable

Because you can track your email campaign results, it allows you to scale your business accordingly.

Besides, highly personalized and targeted emails also help you meet the demands of your target audience.

There’s no guesswork in business, and email marketing provides you with factual, measurable data, helping you discover valuable insights.

As a result, you can test and tweak your performance, handle increasing subscribers, and scale your campaigns through careful planning and execution.

How to Get Started With Email Marketing

Now that you know the basics of email marketing, here’s a quick guide on how you can get started:

1. Build Your Email List

You cannot begin sending emails unless you have an audience. For that purpose, you need to build your email list.

The question is how to build your email list?

Building an email list is not an overnight process. You need an effective strategy beyond the standard email sign-ups to compel your visitors to sign up. Here are some popular ways to encourage your customers to share their email addresses.

Note that simply saying, “Share your email address,” won’t work. I mean, why would anybody like to receive updates from your company unless it’s something valuable?

Make sure you offer value in the form of an incentive like free stuff, the latest updates, or special deals.

2. Choose an Email Service Provider

An email service provider (ESP) is software that helps you manage your email list. In addition to maintaining an email list, it also designs and executes automated email campaigns.

But wait, you cannot go on and choose ANY email service provider. You are investing your time and money to run an email marketing campaign, and you have to ensure you do it the best way possible.

Here are a few things to look into when selecting an ESP.

ProtonMail, Zoho Mail, Outlook, Yahoo, Gmail, HubSpot, and iCloud are top-rated email service providers.

3. Set-up Your Welcome Email

This email is geared towards users who just signed up and subscribed to your website. The goal is to welcome subscribers and encourage them to follow up with your company’s updates.

A welcome email is perhaps your first impression and the first direct contact with your customer. Make sure you keep it impressive.

Setting up a welcome email depends on the email marketing platform you choose. Typically, you need to create an email campaign, select email automation, and choose the welcome email template.

Then, you can design the template according to your preferences. A good welcome email includes the following.

In addition, make sure you send the email on time and not hours after your customer subscribed.

4. Create Email Templates

You can craft reusable emails with several email marketing tools. Let’s say you’re using Gmail for your marketing campaign. Here’s how you can create an email template.

To create and compose email templates, you need to open Gmail and follow the instructions.

Besides Gmail, you can also use several tools like BEE Free, Stripo, Unlayer, Postcards, and Email Monster to create email templates.

5. Craft Your Email Copies

Email copy is a pre-written text crafted for a particular marketing or sales purpose.

For example, you send an email copy to your subscribers to tell them about an upcoming sale.

The difference between standard correspondence and email copy is that the latter is not written in the present moment.

Quality email copy content can add value to your subscribers. Besides, it helps you tell stories, engage with prospects, and maintain consistency. Here’s how you should write a compelling email copy.

6. Formulate Subject Lines

Your email may offer value to your customers, but if your subject line is not catchy, your audience might not even open your email.

Simply put, it’s the subject line that determines whether or not your audience will open the email.

Make sure you keep your subject lines short and include the most important words at the beginning. You can skip the traditional “nice to meet you” or “Hello.”

Here are some unique ways to encourage your audience to open the email.

7. Preview Your Email

Remember when Steve Harvey announced the wrong name for Miss Universe 2015? Perhaps that moment explains the importance of doing a test run.

There are several common mistakes we make in our emails. These can include typos, missing words, broken links, outdated info, and wrong dates.

Suppose you sent an email promoting your latest product. The click-through rate is amazing; you begin celebrating until you hear back from your subscribers:

By the time you correct the message and send a new one, your subscriber probably moved on, and so did your sale.

Luckily, you can avoid these cringe-worthy errors by previewing your email.

Also, check your email for punctuation and grammar too. You can use Grammarly for that purpose.

8. Send Your Email at the Right Time

When is the right time to send an email? Well, the time your subscribers are more likely to read the email!

In general, the higher the number of subscribers reading your email, the more conversions you’ll have.

According to a study conducted by HubSpot, “Tuesday appeared as the best day to send an email with 20% more opens than average. Monday and Wednesday were tied for second with 18% more openings than average, followed by Thursday at 15% and Friday at 8%.”

Additionally, the best time to forward emails is 11 AM except for Sunday. On Sundays, 9 PM has a 35% more open rate than other times.

Besides keeping the right day and time in mind, learn about the time zones of your target audience too.

9. Track Your Results

Keeping track of your results is also a part of running a successful email marketing campaign. Here are a few metrics you need to measure:

Monitoring these metrics every week lets you know where you’re falling short. Later, you can adjust your campaigns accordingly.

Email Marketing Tips and Strategies to Keep in Mind

Some of the best email marketing strategies can put you on a path to fine-tune your email and generate more revenue.

1. Never, Ever Buy an Email List

Buying an email list is like sneaking into someone’s home without their consent, and on top of that, they are not interested in welcoming you either. Makes sense?

When you buy an email, you do not gain subscribers. Instead, you have received the contact information of people. This automatically plummets your engagement.

So, 200 subscribers who open your email is way better than 200,000 subscribers with an extremely low click-through rate.

Further, people who do not bother to open your emails might remember your brand name. What that means is a negative impression of your company.

Therefore, it’s always better to build a valuable email list instead of getting your emails spammed.

2. Use a Clear and Convincing Call to Action

Call to action refers to a link or button that prompts readers to click.

Think about the emails from your favorite brands; how did they encourage you to click the link? A compelling copy and a captivating graphic might be among the top reasons. Here are a few tips to keep in mind:

You see? Your CTA should tap into readers’ emotions and encourage them to take action.

3. Optimize Your Landing Page

An online survey shows that A/B testing is the most effective landing page optimization strategy. Besides A/B testing, here are a few other ways to optimize your landing page to increase conversions:

4. Use Attention-Grabbing Email Subject Lines

Your subscribers haven’t subscribed to your brand alone. You need a powerful subject line to outpace your competitors and compel your subscribers to open your email.

Keep your subject lines humorous, controversial, or create a sense of urgency that encourages your audience to open your email. Some common examples include:

5. Use and Maintain a Distinctive Voice

Your emails should be unique to your brand, and so should be your tone and voice.

Every company comes up with its own distinctive tone. Consider Apple, for instance. The brand stands out for its minimal and direct voice.

On the other hand, a clothing brand like the Muse often uses funny subject lines to engage their customers.

What are your plans? Make sure your tone aligns with your brand image. Secondly, you have to maintain this tone forever, so choose wisely.

You cannot use a straightforward voice for a few days and then switch to a humorous tone the other day.

You need to search about your audience, evaluate who you are as a brand, define your personality, and set the tone accordingly.

6. Talk About Topics That Resonates With Your Target Recipients

Your email topics should relate to your customer’s interests. Otherwise, why would they open emails anyway?

Make sure your email includes information that your audience is willing – and waiting – to hear.

You can know about your audience’s interest through online surveys, events, or past purchases. But DO NOT make assumptions about their interests.

7. Use High-Quality Images

Visuals win when it comes to capturing your audience’s attention. Make sure you use high-quality images in your emails.

Typically JPEG images are low-quality but have fast loading times. PNG images, on the other hand, are pretty clear and work well with photos that include text but it loads significantly slower than JPEGs

You can also include GIFs – animated formats that are not videos. Because most email customers do not allow videos, GIFs offer a creative way to capture their attention.

8. Make Your Copy Easy to Read

Readability matters!

You could be using quality content in your email, but if your audience doesn’t read it, what’s the point of including valuable content anyway?

Here’s how you can make your email more readable.

9. Encourage Social Media Engagement

Do you know a lesser-known benefit of email marketing? It can also help you drive traffic to your social media accounts.

According to the Content Marketing Institute, a surprising 83% of B2B marketers use newsletters for content marketing purposes.

So, email marketing offers you a way to create engagement on social media accounts.

You can include a link to your social media channels at the bottom of your emails or send emails solely to promote your social media. But don’t sound too cheesy, or you’ll end up losing a subscriber.

10. Update Your Email List Regularly

Updating your email list means you clean out outdated or inactive contacts. This allows you to be more responsive to the active customers who are actually contributing to your brand.

Besides, it helps you avoid getting your email in the spam box and lets you build more effective interactions with your customers. Regular email cleaning can:

Here’s how you can update your email list:

Blue mail media Inc, Snov.io, MailGet, and Infocleanse are popular companies that allow you to cleanse your email list.

Top Email Marketing Tools You Can Use

If you want to pull off a successful campaign, you need to try some email marketing tools to optimize the procedure. They allow you to create, test, send, report, and optimize your campaigns.

Below, we’ve discussed some top free and paid tools.

1. Free Email Marketing Tools

Some best free email marketing tools include:

Sender

Sender allows you to create and send captivating emails. The software is easy to use as it offers a user-friendly interface and includes several features to automate email processes and boost responses.

All in all, it includes everything you need to run a successful business from drag and drop design-builder to high email deliverability, beautiful popups, and detailed reporting – you name it!

Pros

Cons

Click here to create your free account on Sender.

Mailchimp

Mailchimp allows you to create, send, and analyze your campaigns. You can create targeted emails, automate follow-ups, track your campaign progress, and more.

Besides, it offers a straightforward and customizable user interface. The analytics of Mailchimp is also detailed, giving you insight into useful data.

Pros

Cons

Get started with Mailchimp for free today.

2. Paid Email Marketing Tools

Following are some top paid tools:

HubSpot

You can create customized emails with a drag and drop editor with HubSpot. It is a perfect tool to boost engagement and increase open and click-through rates.

The CRM (Customer relationship management) saves all the information about your customers, including their location, interests, purchases, and more. This is important when segmenting email lists.

Pros

Cons

Click here to try out HubSpot for free today.

SendinBlue

Sendinblue is an all-in-one tool that caters to your email marketing needs.

Email marketing automation, social media marketing, transactional email and SMS, and email marketing campaigns and broadcasts are its top features.

It allows you to create enticing newsletters with quality content to draw more audience. You can also keep an eye on email open and click-through rates to analyze your campaign.

Pros

Cons

Click here to sign up for free with Sendinblue.

The Best Email Marketing Courses for Beginners

Since emails offer a cost-effective way to reach more customers and boost revenue, more people are intrigued to learn about this marketing strategy.

Luckily, several top email marketing courses can help you improve your skills by providing valuable techniques and resources. We’ll discuss top free and paid courses.

1. Free Email Marketing Courses

Some of the best free courses include:

2. Paid Email Marketing Courses

Paid email marketing courses include:

Is Email Marketing Good For Your Business?

Email marketing is a great way to increase brand awareness and grow your business since it gives you direct access to your customers’ or prospects’ inboxes.

You have the opportunity to personalize emails to strengthen relationships with your customers and build your unique brand image in their minds.

Yes, similar to SEO, it requires consistency and patience, but it’s definitely worth the effort.

Looking for more ways to drive traffic to your page? Then Facebook Marketing could be the perfect strategy for our business.