How to find out if your business needs email marketing and where to start?

Why email marketing?

Today email marketing is the online marketing tool that costs the most. The Litmus survey for 2021 describes that a whopping $36 for every $1 spent, in fact. Here are the challenges that the email channel can solve for your business:

• Increase in sales and efficiency of Internet marketing;
• Reactivation of "loyal" customers;
• Goods’ promotion and discounts among the target audience by segmentation;
• Customer loyalty growth and brand awareness.

For many companies, email marketing is a way to compete for market segments. If your competitor does not engage in email marketing or does not use it to its full potential, you will benefit from it. Email marketing is a strategic tool to take over a market niche position.

Extra benefits of email marketing

• The cost of content sending is relatively low.

An average email service unlimited newsletter for a database of 50K contacts costs ~  $70-100 per month. CR from email is higher than other channels. Target conversion from trigger messages is 5-7%, and the one from manual campaigns is 8-12%. This figure is not uniform. For some e-commerce projects, 3% of conversions is too much. Everything depends on the business model.

• Client base segmentation by interests and other parameters.

In this case, it is possible to send personalized notifications and receive direct calls from customers through surveys.

• Tackle the abandoned shopping carts and product cards’ reviews;
• Complementary sales of related products. 

You can make cross- and up-sale for the loyal audience or those who made a targeted action on the site (looked over the product card, filled out the form, stayed on the page for more than 3 minutes, etc.), thus increasing the average bill.

How do I know if a business needs to develop an email channel?

Email marketing is suitable for both B2B and B2C projects, but you need to choose a strategy that suits your target audience and business model. In each of the following types of business, you can use email marketing for that model of monetization, which is present in these projects:

• Online stores;
• SaaS-services;
• Corporate sites;
• Thematic projects.

Conditions to launch email marketing

You have a customer base of at least 10,000 subscribers, as email marketing won't significantly impact sales to fewer customers. I recommend collecting a client base of at least 50,000 so that the channel brings a greater revenue.

The customer base has to grow organically. Otherwise, you yield a zero result. There will be problems with the domain's rating, and messages will go straight into the "Spam" folder. To create your real base of subscribers, check the detailed article on the blog Netpeak.

The number of genuine visitors to the site has to be above 50,000 per month, and this is key. If the traffic is lower than 50K, we will have to collect contacts and grow the base.

Conclusion. Working with the email channel is necessary to encourage users to buy, increase LTV, stay in touch with the client, and allows you to pay a low price for the contact.

Types of emails

Manual. Each message is designed by a marketer and has a thoroughly determined grounds, strategy, and dedicated audience segment for this type of campaign.

Triggered. In-advance prepared messages are sent automatically with regards to the recipients' actions. The letters often have dynamic content (the one that is tailored for each user depending on the performed action).

Let’s take a closer look at each of them.

Manual email campaign

There are promotional manual emails and informative manual emails. 

Integration of diverse messages is essential to keep the audience interested and engaged. Don’t overload the audience with constant discounts and promotions. You may justify discounts at first glance as something subscribers need. However, the audience will drop after a while, the number of message views will fall, and the purchasing power will decrease. 

Basic trigger emails

• sign-up confirmed;
• welcoming series;
• interrupted sessions;
• abandoned shopping cart;
• automated reactivation.

Service trigger emails

• order completed, paid, canceled, etc. ;
• NPS – survey; 
• the request to leave feedback and a promo code given for the next purchase.

Custom trigger mails

• Reaction to negative feedback;
• Notification about reduced prices;
• Report about available products;
• Any custom event on the site.

Here is a simple visualization with a mind-map, which illustrates that email marketing is a variety of measures, not just one mail campaign in a month. Link to the mind-map. 

How to evaluate an email channel efficiency?

Method and result are of equal importance.

KPI for business

ROMI - return on investment

CPO - cost per application (cost per order)

CAC - price for the acquired client

Indicators of mailing efficiency

20% - Open Rate (OR) - the ratio of open letters to sent letters.

7% - Click-Through-Rate (CTR) - the number of users who clicked any clickable element in the message: a link, a button, or an image.

35% - Click-to-Open-Rate (CTOR) - the ratio of unique emails opened to unique link redirections.

4% - Bounce Rate - indicates how many emails didn’t reach recipients.

0.3% - Spam Complaint Rate - the number of emails that subscribers consider spam.

1% - Unsubscribe Rate - the number of recipients who unsubscribe from email and notifications.

In the process of launching and setting up an email campaign, you should pay attention to these aspects:

• Domain verification: can be conducted using MX Lookup;
• Sending emails must be set using a corporate domain;
• What is the domain rating: you can check this with Postmaster.
• Confirm contacts - Double Opt-In;
• Collection of new users: pay attention to base growth velocity. There should be more new subscriptions than those willing to unsubscribe;
• Base quality: to determine the percentage of active readers. Clean the base from complaints and unfollows;
• Determine whether the database segmentation is necessary (based on business needs);
• Message templates should be aligned with your website style. Add some links to your text, assess if your messages correspond to your TA interests and needs;
• The number and frequency of manual mailing matter;
• Pay attention to the triggers;
• Are there any unique UTM tags in each letter?;
• CTR & CToR of messages;
• The effectiveness of mailing (manual, triggered).

Link to image

Do not forget to make a summary analysis besides the total revenue calculation at the end of the month. Brake down the funnel into stages, and you will understand how to grow sales from this channel.

Link to image 

If you haven't done this before or did it long ago, it is wise to do it gradually, starting at 50 messages per minute. Base reactivation must be done frequently through manual or triggered mailing.

You can reactivate the base in case:

• Customers did not make purchases;
• Customers did not open messages.

Conclusion

A step-by-step guide to launching email marketing from scratch

• What type of business do you have? Who is your target audience? What is the goal of the email campaign? The target can be income, branding, and subscribers. If you understand the goal, you can better build a strategy.
• Conduct an audit of email marketing competitors. I recommend you analyze 7-10 competitors and evaluate their letters, ways of collecting personal data, and adjusted triggers. Identify your strength and weakness.
• Develop a strategy (segments, frequency, day, and time of distribution).
• Select a service, and create an account.
• Technical settings (domain verification).
• Create a corporate e-mail, and sign up to Postmaster.
• Upload a database of clients to the service, and build a group (contacts will be collected through the registration forms, orders, or surveys).
• Set up a data collection form on your website (pop-up, widget, lending, forms in content).
• Activate triggers: sign-up confirmation and welcoming messages.
• Configure triggers such as abandoned shopping carts and interrupted sessions
• Prepare a content plan for the month (variable letters).
• Prepare templates for manual emails (promo, info, digest, etc.).
• If you haven't made a campaign before, "a communication check" is necessary.
• If you did email distribution earlier but have stopped - "reactivation" is needed.
• Constant analysis of the campaign, search for "growth points" and A/B tests.

Recommendation: start developing your email channel now because primary PPC & SEO will hardly be enough to compete and stand out among your rivals. All these tools are excellent when put together.

By Maksym Sokoliuk, Head of Email Marketing at the digital agency Netpeak.