In today’s competitive and fast-paced digital era, email may come across as way too retrogressive and old fashioned to most tech-savvy marketers. The reality, however, is that email has proved its resilience over time as well as its effectiveness as a channel to get in touch with a target audience.
The continued impact of email marketing can’t just be brushed off as we interact with it in numerous ways, whether consciously or unconsciously. The countless emails we receive from work, emails from our friends among others, serve to show us just how indispensable email is in our daily lives.
Interestingly, an email has continued to make its mark and to reinvent itself among marketers despite the emergence of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and many others, whose number of users has skyrocketed in recent years.
Benefits of email marketing
Perhaps its most unique feature is its ability to let marketers communicate with people in their email list without coming out as way too forward or intrusive. This a subtle approach to marketing makes it a valuable tool of interaction for most if not all official communications, for both B2B and B2C business organizations.
Business operators can use email marketing as part of their overall marketing strategy to market, their brands, contact customers and communicate with other businesses. Some benefits of email marketing include:
- Segmentation – Gives you access to a niche market through personalized emails
- Performance tracking – Email allows you to track both your engagement rate and conversion rate
- Constant improvement – Email allows marketers to keep tweaking their methods for better results
- Make the most of your human resource – Email automation frees up your employees so that they can concentrate on other tasks to move your business forward
Noteworthy email marketing statistics
In addition to the above benefits, the following are some mind-blowing statistics regarding email marketing:
- When communicating with brands, 73% of millennials would rather use email
- Before the start of 2019, there were 3.8 billion email users (PDF).
- In the last two years, 79% of top organizations have in some way used marketing automation, including email marketing automation
- 91% of users who have achieved great success state that automating email marketing campaigns is ‘very important’ to the general marketing success through various channels
- 49% of business organizations use email automation in one way or another
- Approximately 105 a billion emails are sent daily (PDF) with the number set to rise up to 246 billion by 2020
- Email is among the top most popular information sources among B2B businesses
Factors to consider before launching an email marketing campaign
Having these statistics in mind, it is also important to note that an email marketing the strategy should incorporate some specific features. For a marketer to achieve success through the email marketing campaign, the following factors should be put into consideration.
- Testing and tracking – Email marketing the campaign should allow for testing as well as tracking
- Consistency – An email marketing campaign should also, be consistent throughout to ensure reliability and effectiveness
- Leveraging the best features – It should also incorporate great email features
- State of the email list – An email marketer should have a valid, email list with powerful leads
With the right knowledge on how to use it, email has the ability to deliver excellent results as part of any marketing plan. Unfortunately, most people who use it for that purpose under utilize it, because they have not taken the time to understand the many ways they can leverage it to record incredible successes for their businesses.
Nothing beats having the right tool for the right work. To do more with an email list, there are a number of essential social media tools every email marketer should know about and should be using. They include:
Constant Contact
This tool provides hundreds of designs for templates as well as option for tailor made ones to suit a business’s preferences and expectations. It also offers a wide range of additional features such as images, documents, links, among others which you can add if you want. It comes with a WYSIWYG editor which allows direct transfer of images as well as texts.
Furthermore, you can set up an in-depth report of your email marketing activities to reveal the number of people who have unsubscribed, forwards, bounces and such.
Constant Contact makes email marketing easy. And, Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn will help you reap maximum benefits by amplifying traffic on your website.
GetResponse
With this software, maintaining contact lists becomes a whole lot easier. You can also use GetResponse to make professional email marketing strategies.
GetResponse also allows users to include custom fields in the list of their contacts, copy contacts and make searches at the contacts section. What’s more, you can keep track of the number of subscribers viewing your emails, the number of complaints received as well as how many people have clicked or unsubscribed from the links.
Marketo
With this tool, email marketers will have access to enhanced analytics as well as email workflows. The makers of this email marketing tool market it as an easy to use too for email campaigns creation.
According to them, anyone who has used a word processor would easily create emails using Marketo. The tool includes fully responsive email templates and a visual editor, features that make it easy to eye-catching emails on the go on any device.
Marketo allows you to respond to your customers in real time. It has a rich dashboard that gives you insights into your customers so that you can create more personalized emails to send them.
iContact
If you want a user-friendly and intuitive interface, iContact is the perfect tool for you. It is fully equipped with HTML encoding and templates depending on the level of your campaign strategy. It provides a simple interface and tabs which enable you to design email marketing campaigns and monitor their performance.
Once you select a tab, allow it to install a wizard to lead you through the entire process. This application also enables you to turn visitors into loyal customers by incorporating a form for signing in on your website using your contact list.
Additionally, you can transfer the list of your subscribers from files such as CSV and Excel to your subscriber list on iContact. You can also specify your niche market by creating email aliases and sending them out based on certain specific filters.
Emma
This software’s greatest strength lies in its premium features such as an array of templates, custom design editor among others. It also allows integration with several programs and social media platforms. It also includes excellent features for reporting which are simple to use and allow result tracking.
The feature’s command central, Emma HQ, makes it very easy to manage your entire email marketing process for different departments and from different locations. You can also use this Emma HQ platform to share creative assets and email templates, as well as approve each email with ease before it is sent out.
Cake Mail
This tool is ideal for small businesses owing to its ability to ease email sending process. All you need to do when using it is to insert a title to your new email marketing campaign, create a recipient list, set up your email design and set the time for sending it. Moreover, Cake Mail provides an improved section for editing for tech savvy people who are more conversant with HTML.
By integrating Google Analytics with this tool, marketers can get in depth reports concerning valuable information including click, bounce, open and subscribe rates among others.
Campaigner
You can use this marketing system to assemble all your online accounts. This software offers a tool for setting up email with over 500 templates which you can select from. The templates are organized as per the categories in the industries and business type.
Once you start your campaign, you can deploy tools for reporting. These tools will give you access to valuable information either via email or download to a spreadsheet according to your preference.
Contactually
Its strength lies in screening contacts. This tool enables you to incorporate all your contacts, gather intelligence to enable you reach your niche market with specific information intended for them. This intelligent CRM tool will help you leverage your email list by extracting incredible value from each of those business relationships.
You can use this tool to bucket your contacts based on your work techniques, e.g. by new leads, spheres of influence, current clients, etc. For each day, Contactually allows you to create a priority list in your dashboard. In addition to these features, this tool has a number of AI features that streamline agent workflow.
And when it comes to sending out emails, this email marketing tool has a scheduling feature that intelligently guides you to ensure that they go out at the best times of day or week, for higher chances of being opened.
RyanSolutions Social Sharing
Despite being a marketing tool for resorts and hotels, this software has a superb link builder which can be used to share content online on several websites. Encouraging direct email sharing is among the best strategies of integrating social with email.
There you have it; the list of software programs you can use to enhance your email marketing experience. Once you identify your objectives, selecting the right software for your email marketing will be such a smooth ride.
About the Author
Marquis is a writer, social media manager and SEO content marketer. She currently lives on the coast of Ecuador, working remotely as a freelancer. Her primary focus is on building online visibility of new, up and coming brand, particularly brands that promote health and wellness. She lives a nomadic lifestyle, though is originally from California.
