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Email Marketing
What is Email Marketing?
Email marketing is an essential part of the digital marketing strategy. Generally, with email marketing, brands can attract and retain customers with personalized messages that promote their content, brand, and product. Brands can also segment contacts and use personalization techniques to deliver messages that customers can’t ignore.
However, the key difference between email marketing and other digital marketing channel is that email marketing can bring about key contents, and the return-on-investment (ROI) is the highest.
Many people think that email marketing will just be chucked one side or go into the junk mail, but what they forget is, every now and then there will be an email that is so good, not only do people read it, but they also click it, share it, and recommend it to their friends. And when they do, that’s when the magic of email marketing comes.
Why Email Marketing?
Email 40x more effective at acquiring new customers than Facebook or Twitter – McKinsey
Email marketing has highest conversion rate at 66%, compared to others – DMA
Message from email 5x more likely to be seen than Facebook message or post – Radicati
72% of people prefer promotional content by email, with social media channel only 17% – MarketingSherpa
Still not convinced?
According to research by Moz, a social media message’s lifespan only lasts for 18 minutes. However, for email, the message is positioned in an inbox and can be opened anytime by users, providing a credible, long-lasting way to connect with subscribers.
Additionally, emails can comprise all our marketing techniques and content, and with email automation, we are now able to easily personalize messages. This is especially important, and the key to attracting new customers and satisfying existing subscribers, as it shows that we know them, and know them well, making an effort to do so.
How to do Email Marketing?
The AIDA Model
The AIDA model refers to the different thinking stages of the buying process that consumers go through, from when consumers first learn of the brand, to when they start considering their needs and factors, until when they decided to make the purchase, and after they made the purchase. Thus brands and companies must work on these 4 thinking stages, specifically raising awareness or generating interest, or creating desire, or bring forth an action from consumers.
At every stage, a specific approach will be needed, further differentiated and customized based on individual target segment needs.
The email marketing construction process comprises of 5-step, namely to start with identifying customer personas and motivation, followed by creating segments, then acquiring customer data, and nurturing possible leads, and lastly, analyzing result data and optimizing the campaign. These are supported by the general direction of the AIDA model based on which thinking stage consumers are on. When companies put them together during planning, they will then be able to come up with an optimized email campaign.
Below are two examples found on”19 Examples of Brilliant Email Marketing Campaigns [Template]” by Lindsay Kolowich, where I will be elaborating more and my thoughts.
Charity: Water
Charity: Water takes on a different email marketing approach. As a non-profit organisation, donations are made to benefit something or somewhere. In Singapore, and possibly most of the world, many times organisations only send an email to thank donors for their contribution, and sometimes, show what her contributions have done.
For Charity: Water, they do the extra mile, to show the entire donation journey, showing what happens to the person’s donation. They show a project timeline, and indicate at which point is this person’s donation at right now. Charity: Water’s email marketing does not only last for a few days or weeks, but last for more than a year.
Charity: Water’s email marketing campaign falls under the retention thinking process of the AIDA model. Previously I had explained that the AIDA model comprises of awareness, interest, desire and awareness. However, post-purchase follow-ups are important as well, as retention are important towards a brand or company, especially for future purchase and campaign, with customer retention being more effective and more cost-effective than acquiring new customers. For Charity: Water, they are looking for retention, making donors feel good about their donation, and make more donations.
Charity: Water’s email marketing strategy is very effective, as they make donors feel empowered, knowing how their donations, who benefits from it, and impelling them to make further donation, because they feel that they can empathize with charity, gaining a sense of accomplishment from giving back to society, and satisfying them emotionally.