In the last two weeks, we’ve talked about the basics of email marketing, and the strategy you need to have in place to succeed. But email marketing is a pretty vast field – there are dozens of types of email marketing campaigns you can run to build your business.
What are some of the most popular types of email marketing, and how do they fit into your overall digital marketing plan? Today we’ll explore some possibilities to help you decipher which ones would benefit your business the most.
Types of Email Marketing: Choosing the Right Ones for You
Transactional Emails
This is the more basic of the types of email marketing campaigns. Transactional emails are automated emails that are sent after a customer takes an action to confirm that choice has been received. That could be an email thanking them for signing up for your email list, a purchase confirmation email, or an email delivering the lead magnet they requested on your website.
These emails aren’t usually very exciting – but they’re vital. They provide prospects and customers with peace of mind that their action has been successful. Transactional emails should be short, simple, and to the point. That’s because customers are looking for certainty, so be very sure to avoid confusing them.
Keep subject lines very clear – a purchase confirmation email should say “Thanks for your order!” or something similar. Keep the content short and to the point – this is not the time to push your other products or services.
Informational Emails
This types of emails marketing are a step above transactional emails. They’re designed to give your prospects and customers valuable information about your company, your product or service, or your industry.
Informational emails can include newsletters that share:
- company and industry updates
- an announcement product or software updates
- an update on a campaign you’re running on social media
Just be sure that the info you’re sharing is what your customers value, and not just what you think is important. It’s easy to get caught up in writing long emails about how wonderful your new product is, or an award your company just received, but what makes that interesting and informative to your audience? If you can’t answer that, think of another topic or angle to go with that serves nothing but value to prospects and / or customers.
Promotional Emails
These are the emails we all love to receive: when you’re running a sale, a special offer, a discount, or another great offer for your audience. These should be written to sell, not to inform – you’re trying to increase sales, after all. Your call-to-action should be clear – “buy now and save!”
And when you’re looking at how they perform, you should measure conversions to a sale, not just open rates. How many people are you convincing to take an action? That rate should be high with these explicitly sales-focused emails.
Nurture Emails
Lead nurturing emails aren’t about delivering a quick conversion. Instead, you can use them to build a relationship with a prospect who has shown interest in your company or product – maybe they’ve signed up for one of the lead generators on your website, or come to an event.
But they haven’t made a purchase or taken a critical action yet. You need to nurture them along your sales funnel until they’re ready to buy.
Nurture emails do this by building a relationship with your prospect through a series of emails. Those emails should offer valuable info, so prospects feel like they’re getting something from you for free and building you up as a trusted authority. Then, at the end of the series, you make a killer sales pitch and they’re ready to make a purchase.
Behavioral Emails
In today’s busy world, sometimes your prospects are about to take an action… and then they get distracted. A text pings on their phone, a kid wanders over, or dinner arrives on the table. And the purchase they were about to make with that full shopping cart on your site is gone – or is it?
With sophisticated behavior-triggered emails, made possible by marketing automation, you can remind those prospects of what they’re missing. These emails have a high success rate, because those prospects have purchase intent – they were interested enough to fill up their online shopping cart, after all. Sending them this quick reminder can get them back on track to complete their purchase.
Customer Feedback Emails
How can you tell how much your customers enjoy your products or services?
Well, you can guess – or you can ask them directly in an email. When customers have made a purchase and tried out your product for a few days, or after they receive their first service from your company, you can send them a survey email asking how satisfied they are with your company. The Net Promoter Score is the best way of doing this.
These automated emails are a great way to gauge customer satisfaction in real time. They can also offer you a way to build your online reputation by identifying customers who are your Promoters and allowing you to send them a follow up email asking if they would leave you a review on Google Maps, Yelp, or another site.
By targeting your most satisfied and loyal customers like this, you can increase your 5-star reviews easily.
Referral Program Emails
Email marketing is great for acquiring new customers, but it’s also a powerful way to reward loyal ones. Getting referrals from current happy customers is a very low-cost, highly effective way to gain new customers for your business. A great way to do this is with an email referral campaign.
You’ve probably seen these in your inbox before – just send this offer to your friend to get 10% off their next purchase, and you’ll get $10 in credit on your next purchase – or something similar.
Referral emails achieve two important goals:
- They reward your customers for being champions of your business, which helps keep them loyal.
- Plus, they bring in new prospects and customers without a big marketing budget.
Measuring the Success of Your Email Marketing Campaigns
How can you tell if the types of email marketing campaigns you chose were a success? As you can see from the list of types of email campaigns (and that’s only a glimpse of the various kinds out there), each kind of email marketing campaign has different goals and tactics. But there are a few key measures that work to gauge the overall success of your latest campaign.
How often did customers and prospects take the action you wanted them to take?
For transactional emails, open rates are enough, because you’re not asking recipients to take any kind of action – you’re reacting to an action they’ve already taken.
But for promotional emails, you would want to track conversion rates instead – how many people were moved by your email to make a purchase?
And for customer feedback emails, of course, you want to track how many people actually took the time to full out your survey.
When looking to find what’s working – or what’s not – in your email marketing, look past email design. Having attractive emails is great, of course, but words are what drive action.
- Is your email copy clear, concise, and compelling?
- Are you sending too many emails and starting to feel like spam?
- Is your brand consistent across emails and your other digital marketing channels?
All these factors can have an effect on your email marketing effectiveness.
Looking for Help Creating Marketing Emails to Get Results?
Are you unsure about what types of email marketing your business should be using? Or maybe you don’t know how to create effective emails that build your brand and your business, Content First Marketing is here to help.
Schedule a free business review here to find out how we help businesses grow. You can use these insights for inspiration, and let us do the marketing for you.
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