Growing your brand or selling your services or products online by employing email marketing is one of the most effective, popular, and cost-effective tools around for marketing campaigns. It has become a popular marketing tool for business, partly because it encourages a user to act.
At its best, email marketing allows businesses to keep customers informed and tailor their marketing messages to a specific audience. On the other hand, if not done right, this kind of marketing can also drive customers away if they are bombarded with persistent and annoying spam emails.
In this article, we will explain what email marketing is, how it works, and how to get started. By the end, you will have a basic grasp of email basics, as well as launch an effective email series for your business.
What is Email Marketing?
At its core, email marketing is a direct marketing channel that lets businesses introduce new products and services, acquire sales, and provide updates with customers listed on their contacts list. It’s cost-effectiveness and high ROI makes it crucial to most businesses overall inbound strategy.
Today’s email marketing has already evolved from a one-size-fits all approach and mass mailings. Instead, it now focuses on consent, segmentation, and personalisation. Your email subscribers will appreciate receiving useful content that will assist them in achieving their goals by providing useful ‘value added’ content.
This process may seem time and labour consuming, but with the help of marketing automation, it now handles most of the heavy lifting for you. Not only does a well-designed email marketing strategy drive sale, but it also helps in building a community around your brand.
Email marketing is a vital ingredient in any Digital Marketing ‘soup’ since it can”
- Build Relationships – People in general appreciate a good email. The effort it takes to craft the perfect email does not go unnoticed. Since it’s nearly impossible to reach out to customers by phone (it is also expensive). Email marketing campaigns bridge thus gap.
- Boost Brand Awareness – It is sometimes awkward to self-promote in places where your prospects haven’t necessarily opted in to receive updates about your business. With email marketing campaigns, you’ll always have an avenue to promote yourself, especially since customers have already opted in.
- Promote Your Offering – You will be able to freely send emails about your products and offerings, features, and benefits, or even new content. Since your customers have already opted-in, they’d want to hear from you that isn’t disruptive or unwanted for them.
- Nurture Fickle Leads – Customers are not all the same, a one-size-fits-all approach does not work. Regardless of if you are giving a sneak peek into an incoming product launch, or simply rewarding them for being loyal customers, everyone loves a sweet deal, and it’s a great way to accelerate your marketing goals.
- Cost Effective – One of the most obvious advantages of email marketing is its lowest cost compared to other mainstream marketing channels. Granted that there may be a small overhead for sending thousands of emails at a time, but in all, these costs are still far lower than what one would expect to shell out by using other marketing channels.
What is an Onboarding Email Series?
First impressions do matter a lot when it comes to business and dealing with customers. It is therefore not a surprise that most companies consider a “Welcome Email” as one of the most important emails in a customer’s onboarding journey.
Sadly, many brands do not go the extra mile to invest the time in creating an automated onboarding email sequence that surpasses a good impression to elevate into a lasting one.
An Onboarding Email Series, also known as a Welcome Series, is simply a series of emails that are sent to your subscribers automatically after they sign up to your email list. An automated welcome email series is an easy and effective way to greet your subscribers or saying thank you for a first purchase or signing up.
Because an email series can be highly customised, it also provides a powerful way to introduce to customers what makes you, you.
Why is an Email Onboarding Series Important?
Email is not new technology. In fact, email is one of the very first means of digital communication way back in 1971. Fast-forward to today, email marketing still used today more than ever before.
You might be thinking, isn’t social media where it’s at for digital marketing today? Although it is true that social media is also an important channel for any digital marketing strategy, email has several advantages to social media.
- Email marketing campaigns can be personalised to a much greater extent than those on social media.
- Email is considerably lower on cost implementation than any other channels, considering its reach and conversion rate.
- Email gives you direct and individual access to your audience’s email boxes.
- They work.
With email onboarding, it gives you an opportunity to set a direct bridge between you and users. But we must admit that his effect does not come automatically on its own.
Timing is a vital element to be able to leave a lasting impression. Additionally, it can sometimes be tricky to find the perfect onboarding email sequence. The important factors to consider with emails is that they must be created strategically, and they need to be delivered to the right person, and at the right time.
On average, an onboarding email series yields up to 51% more revenue than a single welcome email. There are several reasons why.
- You get your customer at their peak interest when they are hungry to learn more about your brand and your products. These people are more than likely to open your emails.
- An onboarding sequence can act as a safety net in the event the end-user does not or wasn’t able to engage with you right at the very beginning. Perhaps they missed the first of the email series, and it’s the second email that piqued their interest.
- By expanding the window to connect with your subscribers, it opens multiple avenues to educate and sell to the user the most important aspects of your business. This includes, sign up instructions and product launches or introductions.
The beauty is you will be able to test what content resonates best with your customers through trial and error. With this, you will be able to adjust and optimise future email campaigns. In the process, you gain a treasure trove of data on how to do well by your customers.
The moment a customer signs up to your email list, expect that they will be most excited to get emails from you. This is now the perfect opportunity for you to welcome them and introduce yourself, your team, and your company. This can be the beginning of a long-term and loyal consumer base.
Additionally, an onboarding email sequence can:
- Engage new subscribers.
- An engaged consumer will keep coming back for more.
- It can increase brand loyalty.
- A loyal customer will keep purchasing from you and spread the word about your business.
- A successful onboarding sequence can potentially increase your deal closures and upsells.
How do you create an Onboarding Email Series?
Poorly thought-out emails will not only lead to a low engagement but can also contribute to a high number of unsubscribes. To create or set up an effective onboarding series that converts, consider the following:
- Create your strategy – Now that you know what an onboarding is, you need to create a general outline that needs to be done in each step of the sequence.
- Understand your audience – When you onboard your customers, it isn’t only all about your brand, product, or service. You should also understand what their interests are and what you can do for them to address their pain points.
- Create your plan – There are many ways to onboard customers, but one of the simplest, efficient, and scalable ways is to create a short sequence of onboarding emails. When creating your campaign, focus on the following:
- Welcome
- Unboxing
- Content
- Support
- Feedback
- Upsell
- Optimise your emails – The best marketing emails are optimised for mobile devices. If your emails do not display correctly on mobile, half of your audience is going to think you don’t know how to properly craft an email.
- Segment your user base – As your email list expands, it’s likely to contain a diversity of user profiles. By segmenting your list into smaller sub-lists with common traits, you will be able to engage subscribers with more relevant, and targeted emails.
- Test your sequence – To see exactly what it will look like in the inbox before you send your actual campaign.
- Automate, automate, and automate some more – Automation allows you to schedule your emails and send them to relevant users at scale. This is essential for effective email marketing.
You need to realise that new subscribers signed up to your email list for a reason. Your business is genuinely of interest to them, and they trust you enough to invite you into their inbox (which says a lot these days).
During this time, they are at the peak of their excitement, so take advantage of this opportunity to onboard and connect with people on an emotional and rational level. And we at The Growth Manager can help you in building relationships and drive long-term engagement with our Email Marketing Strategy. Join us today, it’s your time to shine!
