What is Email Marketing?

What is Email Marketing? It is one of the online marketing methods that can be used to communicate with users and customers via email. Common messages in this method are usually promotional or news and due to its purposefulness, it usually has better feedback than other methods such as social networks.The content of your message can include ads, useful content, attractive and different discounts and offers, and more.

Email marketing is one of the best and most cost-effective communication and advertising methods for the target audience. But what is email marketing and what are its advantages and disadvantages?
Email is one of the best communication tools that is especially effective for business and advertising communications. That’s why our inbox or even our spam section is full of various promotional emails and so on.

But these days, many different companies are trying to communicate purposefully with their audience to get higher conversion rates.
On the other hand, not all advertising methods need to be expensive, and by using efficient tools such as email, attractive content, special offers and a suitable call (Action To Action), many customers can be attracted.
Although various advertising tools have become widespread in the online space, many still believe in email marketing and believe that if this platform can be used properly, good results can be obtained. In this article, we want to talk comprehensively about email marketing.

What is the difference between email advertising and email marketing?

Many of us use email marketing and email advertising as synonyms.

But email marketing is much broader than email advertising.

In email advertising, you have a specific advertising message and you want to send it to many people via email. In such a situation, you may even violate ethical principles and do so by purchasing an email bank.

But when we talk about email marketing, we mean long-term, two-way communication with potential and actual customers. This relationship begins with the customer’s permission and continues with his consent. In addition, the messages that are exchanged go beyond advertising messages.

History of Email Marketing or Email Marketing

Gary Tuerk was the first to send bulk emails to 400 customers of the Digital Equipment Agency (DEC) 41 years ago, grossing $ 13 million. After this incident, he was called the father of world spam. But he himself believed that because he sent his e-mail to the target audience in a targeted manner, he should be called the father of e-mail marketing or e-mail marketing in the world.

Between 1990 and 2000, with the pervasive use of the Internet, people’s lifestyles and work underwent many changes. Hotmail, as the first web-based email service, was launched for free so that marketers could use its digital marketing capabilities and reduce direct or in-person direct marketing costs.
Email marketing has come to the point where bulk messages must be sent to the target audience’s inbox. Unrelated email subject, ad and annoying content, sending time, etc. were some of the things that emails would spam if they were not followed.
But from 2010 onwards, email marketing entered a new phase and the rules of the game changed completely. On the one hand, the strictures of sending bulk emails, examining the content of emails, the cheapness of email marketing compared to other methods and the widespread use of smartphones, the popularity of users using email and the emergence of social networks, on the other hand, make the conditions for email marketing more difficult. Had done in the past.
But little by little, from 2013 onwards, many people realized how to use email marketing professionally. The use of appropriate content based on the needs and interests of users, the use of professional email marketing service, integration of email with content management systems, the use of email marketing automation systems, customer segmentation and attractive offers made the target audience more involved in incoming emails.

Benefits of Email Marketing

Now that we have reviewed the history and importance of email marketing, it is time to talk a little bit about the benefits of email marketing and see how different businesses can use the capacity of this useful tool.

Good return on investment (ROI)

In today’s world where different businesses are reluctant to spend and on the other hand they have to spend a lot on advertising, the issue of return on investment is very important. Managers eagerly want to see how much they earn for the money they pay.

One of the great benefits of email marketing is that it can be very effective if done professionally and correctly. Email marketing has a great conversion rate and is a very cost effective method.

Instant effectiveness

All you have to do is send an email to your target audience and see the effects from the moment you send the message. For example, if you are going to have a 24-hour auction or special sale, you can get the most out of email marketing. Email marketing and its content can well instill a sense of urgency and time constraints.

Fast and cost-effective

Email marketing is  one of the fastest, easiest and cheapest advertising tools that not only has a good return on investment, but also at a reasonable cost and with the right email list you can achieve incredible output.

Custom emails

Not only can you customize your messages as an email sender to get better output and increase conversion rates, but your audience and subscribers also have the choice of specifying which emails to send.

Customer behavior analysis

Email marketing is one of the best tools for studying and analyzing the behavior of customers and consumers. You can find out what emails your audience has opened, what messages they find appealing, which links they click on, and which CTAs they respond to.

Easy start

One of the best benefits of email marketing is its simplicity, which allows anyone with a minimum of training to start email marketing. On the other hand, you do not need a professional team and a lot of money to get started. You can even use ready-made templates with text, photos and video. Of course, some Drag & Drop email services have made it easy for novice users as well.

Direct message transmission

Another advantage of email marketing is the direct and fast delivery of messages to the target audience, which not only opens your email more often or even waits for it, but also has a good conversion rate. Email list segmentation works well for businesses that have enough customer information.

Content Publishing Platform

Email alone can be a great platform for publishing content. You can send all or part of your content in email to your audience and get them more involved. Finally, with an engaging and practical CTA, you can ask them to do what you want them to do.

Disadvantages of Email Marketing

It is true that marketing has many benefits, but no system can be perfect, so email marketing is no exception. In this section, we will address some of the problems of this system.

1. Spam
   If you are unable to properly target your audience or your email is completely advertising content, recipients may delete your messages or identify them as spam. You just have to be more discriminating with the help you render toward other people. The key to success is getting the most out of your email and getting a high CTR.
2. Unsent emails
   If you use bulk email services, sometimes your message may not reach its destination. Also, if you use terms such as “free”, “be sure to click” and., You should also expect the email to be spammed or not reached by the audience.
3. Design Problems
   One of the disadvantages of using email marketing is that the content of your message has to be displayed correctly on every device, and this persuades some to use only text message in their email marketing, which is not really attractive. Designing an attractive and professional email that is displayed correctly on all screens is really hard work.

Email Marketing Indicators

One of the most important tasks for successful email marketing is to analyze the results and optimize the emails.

Fortunately, most email marketing services have features for regular reporting and some even automate optimization.

The following are some of the most important indicators.

Open Rate:  The open rate is the ratio of the number of users who opened your email to the total recipients of the email.

Click-Through-Rate:  In general, with click-through rate, we want to know how many people have clicked on different links or buttons in the email.

Bounce Rate:  The bounce rate is the ratio of the number of emails that did not receive any clicks to the total number of emails opened.

Subscribe / Unsubscribe Rate:  Statistics of the number of users who subscribe to your list or request to unsubscribe.

Conversion Rate:  Statistics of the number of times our preferred user performs a purchase, download, or subscription.

How to increase the  Open-Rate rate of  sent emails?

The following strategies are considered to increase the open-rate rate of sent emails.

Send email at the right time

Your goal in sending emails is to be read by users, so you should take the time to do so. Usually the early hours of the morning due to the high volume of emails received and the late hours of the night due to the fatigue of users are unfavorable times that will waste all your efforts.

Instead, it can increase the feedback rate of emails sent when the mailbox is empty, which is usually late in the morning or early afternoon.

Email Marketing Training

Email marketing is a broad field and its complete training is not included in this article. To summarize, email marketing involves the following steps:

• strategy:the starting point for any kind of marketing, a strategy is appropriate. With the right strategy, you can move forward with discipline and planning.
• the e-mail list:To start your email marketing to email list. You can get this list from the lead generation process.
• Choosing the right service for email marketing: Thereare various institutions and companies that help you in email marketing. You need to do the right research to get the right service.
• Design Email:Email design and registration form is one of the most important email marketing. These emails should be visually appealing.
• Email sending automation:You can set the email settings so that after registering the recipient , he / she will be sent emails with useful and useful content.
• Analysis of data:should the results of your email marketing campaigns over time and analyze control.

Email Marketing Strategies

Now that we are witnessing the emergence of new tools and new tricks to attract the audience, we must see which email marketing strategies work better and more.

• Create the best email list

Email marketing makes no sense without a proper email list. Your email list should be well-targeted and smart so that you can get the most out of your good email marketing. If you want to attract more emails, be sure to create value and benefit your audience.

• Retargeting

Retargeting: Re-targeting buyers we haven’t heard from for a long time or people who for some reason have left their previous portfolio unfinished is another important email marketing strategy. Be sure to remind them to come back to your site to complete their purchase.

• New and targeted advertising campaigns

Although email communication is very self-explanatory and quick to return, and on the other hand, we are witnessing the implementation of various and new advertising campaigns, as a result, different campaigns can be implemented with email marketing on different occasions.

• Retention marketing

One of the actions of any business, especially those who have a product or service to sell, is to be able to retain their customers and persuade them to buy again. Email marketing is one of the best tools for retention marketing or customer retention, and you can build duplicate customers for yourself while retaining your previous audience.

• Newsletters

Newsletters are still attractive to some, and those looking for useful and new content will become members of your newsletter. You can strategically post interesting and useful content in your newsletter, part of a blog post, new product updates, social media posts, and more on a regular basis.

What is Email Marketing Automation?

Automation means automating processes and email marketing automation means automating email marketing processes. In addition, you can have a professional automation behind your email marketing system so that you can make the most of the information and data you get.
Email marketing automation can mean sending email automatically based on the customer’s shopping history, interests, priorities, specific dates, customer behavior, and more. Email marketing automation helps you stay in touch with your audience on a custom basis.

Email Marketing Campaign

An email marketing campaign is like any other advertising campaign and has its own characteristics. In email marketing campaigns, you need to define goals, audience personality, content, submission time, budget, and key performance metrics.
The first step is to determine what your goal is for your email marketing campaign. Are you looking to attract new leads, have you targeted previous customers, are you looking to sell more, do you have a special discount or offer for a period of time, and….
The next step is to segment the email list or segmentation based on our contact person. Simply put, divide your target audience so that you can get the right message for each group.
We talked about different types of email marketing campaigns in the section on using email marketing. But to run an email marketing campaign, which email marketing service provider should we go to?