Email Marketing and What it Can Do For You in 2021

 Email marketing is a KEY component of your digital strategy.

But what is email marketing in the first place?

When we talk to people, most do not fully understand what email marketing means in this day and age.

And sadly, others think of email marketing as an old-school marketing tactic that simply does not work anymore.

But we have to tell you – they’re wrong.

In fact, one small business sent an email newsletter campaign that resulted in over $30,000.00 in revenue for their eCommerce store.

Another business set-up an email drip campaign that resulted in over $12,000.00 in revenue.

You may be wondering – well, what is an email newsletter, and what is an email drip campaign?

Or, you’re nodding your head going along but have no idea what any of this means.

No worries as today we’re going to clearly define what is email marketing, go over why it is important, where it fits in your overall digital strategy, and discuss the BIGGEST mistakes we see people make.

We’ll also throw-in our favorite email marketing platform right now to use for small business marketing.

What You’re Missing Out On…

Now let’s begin with a story that fully explains this example.

So, an eCommerce business sells packaged snacks online.

They came with the good old fashioned “I need to increase my sales asap” pitch and told us their ideas about how they wanted to use social media to drive revenue.

So we started asking them a few questions.

One of the questions we asked them was, “Do you have an email list?”.

Confused by where we were going, they were like “Yeah…we do..?”.

So we said, “Really cool, how many people are there?”.

“30,000 people”, they said.

We immediately said, “Wow, how many emails are you sending to them on a monthly basis?”.

They immediately said, “Well, we don’t really send any consistently”.

We were shocked by this.

Not only can you use customer emails for social media campaigns, but they were COMPLETELY missing the mark out engaging interested leads and customers that are aware of their business.

So we suggested email marketing to them, and literally, they generated thousands of dollars in revenue from the very first email we sent.

These are thousands of dollars they would have missed if it wasn’t for email marketing.

If this example sounds anything like you, then we want you to know that you may be missing out on low-hanging fruit that can increase revenue in your business.

So to prevent this from happening, let’s fully break down email marketing so you can do the same.

What is Email Marketing?

Email marketing is the process of sending emails to promote your business.

These emails are typically sent to prospects to help convince them to buy your products and services. Or, they are sent to existing customers to encourage repeat purchases.

Either way, there is an art to using email marketing, and when used correctly, it can help you grow your business.

Now, there are two types of email marketing, which we categorize as “Email Newsletters” and “Email Drip Campaigns”. Let’s quickly discuss both.

Types of Email Marketing

1. Email Newsletters

These are emails that are sent regularly to communicate with your email subscribers. Think of “NEWS-letter” as a new, fresh piece of relevant information that you’re sending to your email list.

This may include new promotions, new case studies, or just new information that provides value to your subscribers.

For example, this email newsletter for a business empowered their audience to try new cooking recipes at home. An engaged email list will eat content like this up, and look forward to future emails like this.

We like to think of email newsletters as the same as social media marketing, to some extent.

Both involve creating content and publishing it so that their audience can see. The only difference is that instead of seeing your content on your Facebook page, they’ll see it in their Gmail inbox, for example.

It’s all about reaching your customers where they spend time, and the fact of the matter is that 91% of people still check their emails every day.

2. Email Drip Campaigns

These are pre-made automated emails that are sent according to a pre-existing schedule.

If you’ve ever heard of words like…

• marketing automation
• email sequences
• abandon-cart emails
• drips

…and so on, they’re all talking about the same thing.

This is an example of an email drip campaign.

It starts with a trigger, which is normally when someone subscribes to an email list. It’s followed by a series of emails that you can send in any frequency of your choosing.

Then when someone subscribes to your list, they’ll start getting emails in this predetermined schedule.

We like to think of email drip campaigns as follow-up mechanisms.

Another example, if someone came into your store and inquired about your products, but didn’t buy at that exact time, would you want to follow-up with them?

Or if you’re a service-based company that relies on leads, what happens when someone contacts you? If you call them and they do not pick-up, what happens next?

With email drip campaigns, you can send one email every other day, or at any frequency you like, to stay in front of potential buyers.

And advanced email marketers aren’t sending emails like, “Hey it’s me, are you ready to buy yet?”.

They’re sending emails like:

• Here are the benefits of [XYZ]…
• Here’s how [XYZ] helped someone achieve the same EXACT THING you’re trying to achieve…
• Here’s what makes us different from all the other people selling [XYZ]”…

…and so on.

To be successful in setting up email drip campaigns, you really have to understand the psychology behind how your customers buy your products.

What problems are they experiencing?

What questions are they thinking about?

At what point do they decide that this is enough and it’s time to do something about it, and buy your products?

When you fully understand the buyer’s journey, of your own products, you can design an email drip campaign that motivates people to buy from you.

So now that you understand what email marketing is and looks like, let’s discuss why it’s important. Or rather, let’s debunk the myth that email marketing is dead.

Is Email Marketing Dead?

Look, we get it. email marketing isn’t the sexiest way of marketing today.

There’s social. There’s search. There’s video, audio. podcasts. And so on.

And soon there will be virtual reality and dancing robots.

But email isn’t going anywhere.

Even with all of this stuff, 91% of people check their email every day. They work in their email, pay their bills, and interact with their favorite companies.

YES, people enjoy receiving emails from companies they INTENTIONALLY subscribe to. You can fact-check us on this, 72% of U.S. adults prefer to receive emails from their favorite companies.

Even with this, a lot of people we talk to are afraid of being “spammy”, or emailing their subscribers weekly.

As long as you’re delivering value, which is the keyword here, you will have nothing to worry about.

If people don’t want the value you’re delivering, let them unsubscribe. They aren’t the person you want to market to anyway.

You want to engage the person that is eager to reach a specific goal. And there’s nothing wrong with sending emails to help them in their journey.

In fact, they’ll thank you for it and want more.

With that said, the whole “email marketing is dead” argument is invalid. Many people are just busy chasing the next big thing in the marketing universe, sending terrible emails, or just too scared to send anything at all.

Either way, they’re missing out on these major benefits of email marketing.

Top Benefits of Email Marketing

1. Lower Customer Acquisition Costs (and Advertising Costs)

Email marketing is the most cost-effective type of marketing you can invest in.

Literally, small businesses report $28 in ROI for every $1 spent in email marketing. You can’t have this type of ROI anywhere.

To explain, let us give you an example that illustrates why this may be the case.

Let’s say you went to a big restaurant. Ate a big fancy meal- steak, lobster, anything you want.

But when it’s time to pay, you realize you forgot your wallet.

In that moment, who do you think would be more likely to step-in and cover the cost – your friend or a complete stranger?

Most likely your friend.

And it’s because of the RELATIONSHIP you have with your friend. They obviously KNOW you and hopefully, they TRUST you enough to know you’ll pay them back.

Keywords here – they KNOW you. They TRUST you.

They have a RELATIONSHIP with you.

This reason is the exact reason why people on your email list are more likely to buy from you.

The people on your email list already know and trust you, if and ONLY if, you’re sending them valuable content that enhances the relationship.

Comparing Facebook Ads to email marketing is like comparing apples and oranges. Everyone knows that people who know your business are more likely to do business with you than people who do not.

Instead, use Facebook Ads to grow your email list. Then, you can promote to them for a lifetime, or until you breakup, meaning they unsubscribed.

But you don’t have to worry about that because your content is going to be so good that they’ll regret leaving your email list.

2. Email Marketing Can Automate Your Sales Cycle

Email marketing has become so sophisticated that you can send emails based off of various triggers.

For example, if someone adds your product to their cart on your website, makes it all the way to your checkout page, and doesn’t click “submit order”, you can send an email and text reminder to them immediately.

Or if someone contacts you for a project, requests a quote, and stops communicating with you, you can continuously follow-up through email and text.

In effect, successful email marketing will save you more time and make you more money.

Now you probably understand what email marketing is, why it is not dead, but very important for your business. Let’s now discuss my top tips for success.

Top Tips For Successful Email Marketing

1. Grow an Authentic Email List

One of the biggest challenges that most people encounter with email marketing is developing a healthy list.

People who are driving millions of dollars in revenue from email marketing likely have thousands of email subscribers, at least.

The WORST way to grow your email list is to simply buy a list.

This is TERRIBLE for so many reasons, but in short, buying email lists is illegal and ineffective. Buying email lists is the fastest way to get your email BLACKLISTED in places like Gmail and Outlook.

When you send emails to purchased email lists, people who receive them are confused.

They’re like – “WHO IN THE WORLD ARE YOU?”. Then they block you, report your email as spam, and unsubscribe from your list.

And email providers today can pick-up on high spam activity coming from your account, and blacklist you eventually, resulting in all of your emails going to spam.

AKA – killing your open rates.

The BEST way to grow an email list is through value creation.

Develop an offer in exchange for someone’s email address. Promote that offer on social media and on your website.

Then you’ll build an email list of people who enjoy your content.

2. Create Value

Value creation is the single most important part of successful email marketing.

If there is no value created with your subscribers, there is no relationship.

So send emails that provide value to your customers, that make them think of you as a thought leader.

But how do you create value?

You create value through content – content that informs or entertains your audience. 

3. Send Frequently

Send emails as frequently as your content allows you to.

Develop content. Send it. Rinse, and repeat.

Most companies should strive to send newsletters weekly or at least monthly.

The more the merrier.

Don’t be afraid to send emails multiple times in one week, whether that’s twice a week or daily, or twice a day.

If people are opening them and engaging with your emails, then keep sending them.

4. Automate anything and everything you can

Use email drips to automate parts of your sales process.

Whether that’s sending automatic emails to people who download an offer, who request a quote, or forget to submit their purchase, use email drips to your advantage.

This will help you speed up your sales cycle, and put money into your pockets faster.

5. Choose a reputable email marketing platform

When it comes to an all-in-one email marketing solution, choose a solution that is fully loaded with newsletter functionality and email automation technology.

And if it comes with text messaging features, that’s a plus as well.

Our Favorite Email Platform For SMBs

The tool we currently use is Aweber, which is what we recommend for small businesses.

It’s stacked with powerful sales CRM, marketing automation, text messaging, and newsletter functionality, and more.

Wrapping Up

Today, we talked about:

• What is Email Marketing?

Email marketing is simply sending emails to your prospective and existing customers. The two major types of email marketing are newsletters and drip campaigns.

• Is Email Marketing Dead?

Not at all. 91% of people check their email daily and 72% of consumers actually enjoy receiving emails from brands they subscribe to.

• How Can Email Marketing Help Your Business?

Email marketing can dramatically lower your advertising and customer acquisition costs. And, it can help you automate and speed up your sales cycle.

• Our Top Tip for Success?

Prioritize value creation, grow an authentic email list, send emails frequently, automate anything and everything, and choose a solid email marketing platform that can help you accomplish your marketing goals.

What is Email Marketing? See What it Can Do For You in 2021 - Digital Marketing Blog (2020). Available at: https://www.lyfemarketing.com/blog/what-is-email-marketing-in-2021/ (Accessed: 14 January 2021).