Email marketing
“More than 34% of the people worldwide use email. That’s about 2.5 billion people. It’s predicted to increase to 2.8 billion email users in the next 2 years. Yup, email’s popular. The Radicati Group, who came up with that info, also reckon that the world sends about 196 billion emails daily. Out of these 196 billion emails the majority, 109 billion, is business email.
Let’s put it simply. Email marketing is a vibrant and powerful way to connect with people. Bringing it home, think about your own experiences. Do you even know anyone who doesn’t have an email address? You probably receive a number of HTML emails each week (I sure do). You read them, get inspired by them, and even look forward to the next one. Email is a big part of our lives. A very big part.
Email marketing is also a very personal way of reaching your target customers. Messages from your friends and family are sitting next to email updates from your company. That’s why email marketing works at its best when it is personalized. Email can be tailored to customer actions so that every communication is relevant to their interest. You can cover topics like changes in your company, victories, request feedback from your customer – this list is virtually endless. With 2.5 billion users, email isn’t going anywhere.
There are many purposes for doing email marketing when trying to have an online business such as building relationships with your customers and also tracking your progress in terms of conversion rates and sales. It's important for you to have an attractive opt-in list on your website, so people will feel a sense of urgency to subscribe. By constantly marketing and promoting people to opt-in, you will eventually build a large email list that will help your online business succeed.
Building Relationships
Email marketing isn't just about loading your customers' inboxes with emails in hopes to gain a sale; it's about building steady relationships with your customers. When a person decides to opt-in to your email list, the connection you have with that person is fragile. Unless you are a person who is an already credible and trustworthy person online, customers can easily remove themselves from your list whenever they want. That's why it's important to build relationships by sending them emails that don't involve promoting your products or services first. Instead, send them emails first that contain valuable information that actually helps them achieve a goal that they had in mind when they first subscribed to your email list.
Building a List
Having an email list of thousands of people allows you to easily send your message to a lot of people instantly. This beats going to each and everyone directly and giving them your message. That's why email marketing campaigns are so popular these days because one of their purposes is to build a large list that gives the merchant leverage. Merchants who have large lists have the power to share their email list with potential joint venture partners. Having a large list also makes it easier to convert sales fairly quickly through trial and error processes.
Increasing Sales Conversation
Most visitors who go to your site the first time will not buy your product. If they leave, that means your conversation rate is zero. But if you capture their email, send them an email about your monthly newsletter or some type of free report that engages their interest, they may come back a second time to buy your product. If they do, that means your conversation rate is fifty percent. This was just an example, however. Basically, the more emails you capture, the higher chance you will have with increasing sales conversations because you might have a second, third or fourth opportunity to get them to come back and buy the product you are selling on your website.
Repeating Sales
Email marketing also allows you to repeat the sales of your products. For example, maybe you are selling something and the customer buys it and never comes back. There's a good chance of this happening if you did not capture their email. But say they bought your product, loved it, and desire more of what you are selling. If you have their email, you can offer a second, third or fourth product to them and give them a discount for being an existing customer. There are all sorts of different ways similar to this strategy that can help you have repeat sales for your business if you have a large email list.
Getting Feedback from Customers
The most important aspect of a business is its customers. Customers may not always tell you about what they like or don't like face-to-face. But with emails, they can be honest about their feelings. In order to constantly improve your business, one way is to ask your customers for feedback on the products that they have bought. What are some ways to improve it? What did they like about it? Sending out these questions to your email list allows you to get feedback from your customers, so you will know what business actions you need to perform next and how you can go on to improve your online business.
Here is my favorite email marketing tool that I use and Honest review
GetResponse claims to be the easiest newsletter tool available, with a tonne of pro features. This is a big claim, especially as their prices are so competitive. The Polish-based company’s global reach extends to 182 countries, and claim to engage over 1 billion subscribers every month! That’s a lot of emails.
Feature-wise, they do boast a lot more than most other email marketing services. From simple A/B testing to custom landing pages; comprehensive design testing to video email marketing.
The landing pages are especially interesting as they are part of Conversion Funnel, a new feature that takes care of traffic generation and can even act as an online store including payment processing. Another feature that’s worth mentioning is their automation, allowing for advanced automated campaigns based on triggers/conditions such as sales or even location. Other tools offer automation, but most are not as powerful or user-friendly.
On higher-tier plans, you also get access to their webinar feature, as well as an inbuilt CRM - extras you don’t commonly see in email marketing platforms. It was certainly enough to capture our interest - and, eventually, our business (we now use GetResponse for many of our automated campaigns). So let’s take a deeper dive into this tool.
Is GetResponse the right newsletter service for you?
Recommended if:
You want to capture customer leads:
GetResponse is one of the few newsletter tools we’ve tested that’s truly built for inbound. It offers flexible forms, a landing page editor, Google Analytics integration, and sophisticated automation for segmentation and emails, allowing you to both captures and nurtures new leads. On top of that, it’s even possible to host live and on-demand webinars with them.
Their new Conversion Funnel feature allows you to do all of this in an organized manner and easily track where’s converting best.
You’re an eCommerce:
If you’re an online store owner, GetResponse is packed with features to help you drive more sales – integrations with platforms like Magento and Shopify, abandoned cart campaigns, dynamic email content (e.g. based on purchases), and sales tracking. These are available from the PROFESSIONAL plan and upwards.
If you opt for the cheaper ESSENTIAL plan, as an e-commerce, you’ll benefit from GetResponse’s Autofunnel feature. Here you can set up or connect your eCommerce site and start building your sales funnel with landing and thank you pages, social media campaigns, and much more. Autofunnel is ideal for small businesses selling products and services online.
You need sophisticated automation:
We were impressed with GetResponse’s workflow builder, which enables you to set up automation for a whole range of actions, including sending emails, assigning lead scores, contact tagging, segmentation, and data updates. (Available on higher-tier plans only.)
Not recommended if:
You need solid deliverability rates:
Deliverability should be an important consideration for any email marketer. GetResponse had some room for improvement in our deliverability tests. Of course, deliverability rates can always change, so we’re hoping this will improve in the future.
You’re after a free plan:
GetResponse doesn’t offer a free (or even freemium) plan – just a free trial of 30 days. If you want a free newsletter service, comment below and I will reply with a blog
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