Key Concepts

Digital Marketing - Study Notes:

Email marketing

Let's begin with key concepts in email marketing. Email marketing is a commercial channel used to deliver advertisements, offers, education and other marketing content directly to the interested user's email inbox. It is a segment of digital marketing that works in conjunction with other marketing channels.

Email use

Next, we will look at how email works across these channels. Here are some statistics around the use of email marketing and how mobile is more popular now than ever.

Email use continues to grow among companies and drive revenue width.

• 82% of B2B and B2C companies use email marketing.
• 75% of email revenue is generated by triggered campaigns.
• 53% of all emails are opened on mobile devices.
• 33% of emails opened are on iPhone devices.

There are plenty of email statistics out there. It's very important to remember that email has not died.

Cross-channel integration

Email works very well across different channels. Cross-channel marketing is very effective, and this is what you should be aiming for, especially in terms of inbound marketing.

Cross-channel integration can involve email crossing with:

• Social media
• Display and retargeting
• SMS
• Mobile app
• Direct mail
• In-store
• Website
• Geo-location tracking

So what do each of these mean in terms of cross-channel integration?

With social media, you can use social media and email to fill each other, in terms of you can use social media to improve and increase your subscriber list. And also, you can use email marketing to increase your social media following through social media share and follow icons.

With display and retargeting, you can now include a line of HTML codes simply in your emails to understand who's engaging with your email and then display ads across the internet to them through this.

SMS marketing can be integrated with your email to provide your customers or potential users with updates, and then follow on based on their behavior with email marketing campaigns.

Within mobile apps, based on behaviors, you can trigger email sends based on actions taken.

With direct mail, in terms of direct mail which is a physical mail sent to a person's doorstep, having the same communication, graphics, and branding experience, as well as similar offers can then match with the email experience that same person is having through their mobile devices and their computers.

In-store, more and more, especially forB2C companies, POS systems have to be taken into account. As a person is shopping within a store or passing a store, automated email campaigns can be triggered based again on their buying behavior at the till, or even in the future based on their passing by a certain smart window.

On the website, of course, naturally, email plays a part in that channel. It is going to be based on all your marketing automation activities. Did a person abandon a cart? Did a person download a piece of content? How would you follow up with them?

How would you understand what they need to receive in an email afterwards? Geo-location and tracking, and naturally, for example, if you are going to be attending an event or hosting an event, or if you have stores or access points in any particular area, you can trigger emails to send based on a person's location which will be fed to you through your email marketing data.

Types of email

What type of emails can you have?

• Announcements
• Product updates
• Newsletters
• Event invitations
• Social media updates
• Internal updates

Remember, one size does not fit all. You do not send the same email to all your recipients.

You need to create different types of emails to each person individually. These are a simple list of six which you can have, but it's really up to you and knowing your subscribers to know what they need and knowing why they need it.

So, what's an announcement email? It's when you are announcing your next webinar or an event, or a sale. A product update lists the latest features you now have in your product or service offering.

A newsletter is a summary of your latest blog posts or your latest content offers. With an event invitation, you may be attending one, or you may want to inform your customers or your subscribers of an event of interest to them of a partner, for example.

A social media update might ask them to share your great posts on social. There's no harm in asking for a little help from your fans. And finally, internal updates keep your employees informed about what's going on within the company.

Types of automated email

While you can manually send emails, the power of email marketing also comes from automated, repeated emails. When a user performs a certain action on your website, for example, you can automatically trigger an email to send to them.

These can be:

• Welcome emails
• Onboarding emails
• Confirmation emails
• Form responses like thank you emails
• Abandoned cart emails

The welcome email is automatically sent when a user first signs up to your email list. The onboarding email is a single or series of emails providing helpful tips and tricks on, for example, how to use your free trial or how they can learn about you and your service at a fundamental level so they understand what they're in for and what they can expect.

The confirmation email might be a confirmation when a user registers for an event or a webinar, or even for double-opting in to hearing from you. A form response or a thank you might be sent when someone completes a form to access an offer you have that you send an email saying, "thank you. We acknowledge that you have completed the form and requested this content, and we will now send you the details."

And finally, the abandoned cart email. The customer has added products to their basket, but hasn't actually bought them. You can send triggered emails to remind them that they may want to complete their purchase or additionally, offer alternatives if that wasn't really what they were looking for.

Subscriber lists

Before you can send an email, you will need to know who you are sending the email to.  This is where subscriber lists come from. A subscriber list is the contact information of all the users who have requested emails and are allowed to be emailed. This is the list you will use to send your marketing emails.

Opt-in permission

Next, we come to opt-in permissions. It is extremely important to remember you cannot just email anyone. You can only email people who have opted in or subscribed to your email list.

There are two types of opting in or subscribing which you can offer to users, and it is up to you at this point to decide whether it is single opt-in or double opt-in.

• For single opt-in, the user submits their email on a form on your website, and they're immediately subscribed to your list. There is no confirmation required from the user.
• The double opt-in is when the user submits their email on a form on your website, receives a confirmation email to their inbox which prompts them to take an action, such as clicking on a link to say, "Yes, I agree to receive communications from this company."

There are benefits to both types of opt-ins.

• For the single opt-in, it's very easy for the subscriber and very easy for the business. It is fast. It is quick. It is efficient.
• The benefits of double opt-in, however, are that it results in a higher-quality list, more engagement, and basically you have a list of people who really do want to hear from you. You also have a very good data hygiene set. You can prove and show that people really do want to engage with your business.