[Basics of email marketing – Digital Marketing – Part 19] (Updated)
So far, I covered mostly on blogging, blogging platforms, little bit of SEO, and largely on social media marketing. But it is emails and subscribers when you know your digital marketing efforts are making real progress.
In the age of digital awareness, data privacy is something people take most seriously. As such, when they do sign up for your newsletters or for your product/service offerings, that is the real win for you.
Let us see how you can up your email marketing game:
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Write emails like a letter
If anything, emails are digital letters. The structure remains the same, only the medium has changed. Like any letter that you write, formal or informal, you begin with salutation, end with regards, and write a message in between.
Communicating to your subscribers is no different. You are addressing the same content to the many but more like a one-to-one talk. Some organizations put extra efforts to their messaging by making them more personalized. But if you do not have the time and resources for that, one well-crafted message is all you need.
As long as you know what to write and have the willingness to actually communicate with another fellow human being, the content of the body will fall in place. Just like a letter.
HTML or no HTML
When in doubt, write emails like Neil Patel.
While HTML elements do make up many emails and newsletters, they are not a necessity. Neil Patel, who is a well-known name in the marketing circle does it best. His emails can be broken down into 3 simple elements:
- Catchy subject line
- All text email body
- CTA – typically a link to his website
If you are from a non-technical background, not having a knowledge of HTML should not be a worry. Most email marketing tools allow simple drag and drop features to create email templates.
Similarities of email marketing tools
There are dozens of email marketing tools which can be listed in a single search query. I have used MailChimp and Elastic Email which are easy to use but like any other tool, demands some time to get used to.
Here are a few features which are provided by email marketing tools by default:
- Lists: Lists or something similar store data of the subscribers. It is in row and column format and each row saves data fed by the user which are email addresses, first name, last name, and may add other data like location or gender, if the user consents to provide them.
- Template builder: As pointed earlier, emails or newsletter do hold HTML component, but it is not mandatory. However, platforms do offer sections where you can drag and drop elements to design how your email would look like. These are often rich with options for images, rich text, buttons, links etc.
- Placeholder tags: When you send email in bulk to your subscribers, it is still important for your emails to carry the “feels” of a letter, as explained above. In formal words, it means your emails need to be more customised to feel personal.
This is achievable via placeholders which are code-like structures you insert in your emails to replace with a certain value. For example, MailChimp calls these placeholders – merger tags, and it can look like *|FNAME|*, *|LNAME|*,*|ENAME|*, which are the placeholders for First Name, Last Name, and Email respectively. When you are sending the same email to many people, these placeholders get replaced with the receiver’s name, email address or with other data whose placeholders you may use.
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- Integrable codes: When you are looking to grow your follower/subscriber list, you will be required to place certain sections to capture email addresses of people who may be interested in your newsletters, blogs, or other assets. These are called lead magnets.
Any good email marketing tool lets you create a lead magnet form with giving you options on data that you would want to capture. It can be something simple which collects only email address, or more elaborate with extra form fields.
- Campaigns & Automations: This is somewhat intermediate in nature and I would recommend you try this only after you have understood the email marketing tool well enough, irrespective of the tool you choose.
For email marketing to work properly in your favour, you would need to learn to automate. Often campaigns and automations go together. Think of it as making the appropriate settings that when a web asset is downloaded, or any other event is triggered on your website where email address is provided by the user, the tools automatically sends them a mail.
GDPR, CCPA, and Privacy
If you are not sure what GDPR is, I would suggest you do an independent research on it. In simplest terms, GDPR compliance ensures that the users have option to opt out from your emails and/or delete all their data which may be with you.
GDPR or General Data Protection Regulation is fairly a recent implementation in the evolution of internet, and similar privacy policies are yet to implemented.
Similarly, CCPA or California Consumer Privacy Act is for privacy rights and consumer protection for people of California, and platforms would ask you to comply with it as well.
Most email marketing tools give you the option to make your email lists GDPR compliant with the click of a button, and it would be wise to implement as your subscribers can be from anywhere in the world.
Conclusion
Of all the marketing efforts, perhaps none of them are as direct, converting, and loyal as emails. If a person is willing to share a private data like their email address with you, they are genuinely interested to learn what you have to offer.
As such, having lead magnets on your website, or running campaigns to capture emails of your target audience becomes one of the most important activities in marketing.