EM2

Benefits and Process of Email Marketing

by with No Comment Email MarketingInternet MarketingUncategorized

Benefits and Process of Email Marketing is the most profitable and cost-effective direct channel, generating an average return on investment of $42 for every $1 spent. For this reason alone, email should be a key pillar of your digital marketing strategy. Not doing any email marketing is like leaving money laying out on the table. 

But if you’re a bit confused about where to start, that’s totally normal. Email is a vast discipline. It’s easy for beginners to get lost in a sea of tools, techniques, and terminology.

What is Email Marketing?

Email marketing is a direct marketing channel that lets businesses share new products, sales, and updates with customers on their contact list. Its high return on investment (ROI) makes it crucial to most businesses’ overall inbound strategy. 

Modern email marketing has moved away from one-size-fits-all mass mailings and instead focuses on consent, segmentation, and personalization. This may sound time-consuming, but marketing automation handles most of the heavy lifting for you. In the long run, a well-designed email marketing strategy not only drives sales, but helps build a community around your brand.

Types of marketing emails

Marketing emails can be promotional, informational, or serve a specific purpose in the buyer journey.

Promotional emails

Benefits and Process of Email marketing campaigns are used to promote special offers, new product releases, gated content like ebooks and webinars, and your brand at large. A campaign could consist of 3-10 emails sent over several days or weeks. 

Promotional emails have a clear call-to-action — CTA, for short. The CTA represents the specific action you want the reader to take, whether it’s visiting a page on your website or using a coupon to make a purchase. 

Your business’s sales and marketing rhythm typically determines how often you send this type of marketing email. 

During crucial periods like Black Friday, you may be sending multiple promotional emails in the same 24-hour period. During slower periods in the marketing calendar, there may be a few weeks between your promotional campaigns.

Informational emails

Newsletters: A newsletter, as the name suggests, shares news related to your business. Think: new milestones reached, new product capabilities, or featuring valuable content like case studies. Sent at regular intervals — weekly, bi-weekly, monthly — newsletters help maintain consistent touch points with your email subscribers. 

Simply put, a newsletter is an opportunity to share insights, thoughts, tips — whatever brings the most value to your audience. 

Check out our post to learn more about how to create a newsletter.

Announcements: Email is the perfect way to inform customers of company announcements, new product releases, changes to the service, etc.

More often than not, email is the go-to channel for important messages. If there’s a glitch on your website, shipping delays, or an outage in your system/software, updating your contacts via email is the best way to maintain communication. It’s secure, instant, and can match the formal tone of even the most important announcements.

Re-engagement emails

Another important type of marketing email is the re-engagement email. As the name suggests, re-engagement emails help reconnect with customers or subscribers who haven’t been active lately.

Why Email Marketing Is Important

Email isn’t a new technology. In fact, it was one of the very first means of digital communication to arrive back in 1971. But at 50 years old, email marketing is used today more than ever before. 

channels, especially considering the reach and conversion rate associated with email marketing. This is part of what makes email marketing so ideal for small businesses.Finally, what makes email marketing so powerful and lucrative is that it gives you direct, individual access to your audience’s inboxes. 

The Benefits of Email Marketing

From order confirmations to newsletters, emails are an essential part of the growth and management of your business.

1. Conversions (selling your products and services)

Launching a sale or promotion? You can send your subscribers an benefits and Process of email marketing campaign to drive sales. In addition, try using these email marketing techniques to further boost conversions:

  • Personalized coupons or special offers for subscribers’ birthdays/anniversaries, in welcome emails, and as a way to re-engage your audience.
  • Abandoned cart emails triggered whenever a visitor adds an item in their cart but doesn’t check out.

2. Brand awareness

What’s great about email is that it lets you reach someone directly. It’s one-to-one communication at its best. And people don’t just let anyone into their inbox these days. It’s a curated space reserved for favorite brands and publications.

Showing up in someone’s email inbox will help your brand stay current in the minds of subscribers. A personalized marketing email is more impactful than a social media post where you can’t be sure if someone has actually seen your message.

One of the major benefits of email marketing is its scalability. This means that emails can be sent to a large number of recipients while remaining cost-effective (compared to other marketing channels). 

3. Customer loyalty

Email drives customer loyalty at every stage of the buyer journey: lead-nurturing, conversion, onboarding, retention. As well, email marketing is necessary tool to use alongside sales CRM systems to streamline communication.It’s truly a powerful way to build a community, as discussed in our guide to building relationships with email.

How to Do Email Marketing

Businesses use what’s known as email service providers (ESP) to send marketing emails. 

An email service provider is a software that sends and manages email marketing campaigns.

It’s also referred to as an email marketing platform, email marketing tool, email marketing service, or email marketing software.

Now you might be wondering, can’t I just send marketing emails with my regular inbox provider? Do I really need to pay for a product on top of that?

Technically, it’s possible. (We even explain how in our guide to sending mass email with Gmail.) Beware, though. You’re likely to run into problems with limited email bandwidth, design, and more importantly, email deliverability. Here’s why:

Internet Service Providers (ISPs) like Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, etc. are designed for personal use — not for email blasts. Although they’re free to use, they’re not free bulk email senders. So when a mass email is sent from an ISP, it’s easily flagged by spam filters and your account can be disabled for suspicious activity.

Email service providers (ESPs), on the other hand, have the necessary infrastructure in place to ensure good email deliverability rates — i.e., the ability to land emails in your subscribers’ inboxes. If you want to set yourself up for email marketing success from day one, get yourself a dedicated email marketing service.

Add signup forms to your website and other places

Create an email signup form to make subscription as easy as possible. Then place your email subscription form in highly visible places where people will definitely see it. 

Typical subscription form hotspots include blog posts, the homepage, and contact page. Creating a pop-up form on your website can be a good idea, too. Just make sure not to disrupt the user experience too much. Pop-ups that prevent visitors from using your site can be big deterrents! (Think of your signup form placement like your call-to-action placement.)

How to define an email marketing strategy

To define your email marketing strategy, think about what you want to achieve with your first campaign. Here are some common goals for email marketing beginners:

  • Promoting a new product
  • Sharing a discount with loyal customers 
  • Getting more downloads for your latest ebook
  • Updating subscribers on with company news  

Your goals can be specific or broad — as long as they fit with your business and your audience. In either case, having a clear, measurable goal will make it easier to create your email content. 

How to write your email copy

Email copy needs to offer value, feature topics that interest your audience, and embody your brand’s tone of voice.  

To write persuasive, engaging email copy, keep these tips in mind:

  • Ask yourself, “What does my audience need from me? How can I help?”
  • Imagine you’re writing to one person. 
  • Show your brand personality.
  • Tell a story.
  • Write to instill curiosity, starting with the email subject line — more on that below.
  • Use a conversational tone and write the way you speak.
  • Break up the copy with short paragraphs and use bullet points where possible.
  • Use the name of a real person for the email signatur instead of a faceless brand logo.

10 Strategies for Email Marketing Success

1. Never buy email lists

Buying a list will put your business at risk because:

  • Sending unsolicited emails and storing people’s data in your CRM without consent is illegal per GDPR and CAN-SPAM.
  • People are more likely to mark unsolicited emails as spam, damaging your email sender reputation and potentially ending you up on an email blocklist. 
  • Most email marketing services will refuse to work with you because purchased lists can harm the deliverability of other users on shared IP addresses.

In short, don’t buy email lists. Build your list organically — however slowly — and you’ll reap the benefits in the long run.

2. Use double opt-i

As already mentioned, the term “opt-in” refers to the signup process. There are two different types of opt-in for email marketing:

  1. Single opt-in is when the subscriber is added to the email list once the signup form is submitted.
  2. Double opt-in is when you send a confirmation email with a link to each new subscriber. The subscriber must click the link to complete the subscription. Without this verification, they won’t receive emails from you. 

3. Segment your mailing list

List segmentation is the process of dividing your list of subscribers into smaller sub-lists with common traits. The idea behind this technique is to engage subscribers with more relevant, targeted emails. 

Typically, contact lists are segmented by demographic information like age and location as well as customer information like lead score and purchase history. (This is where having a sales CRM that works with your email marketing tool comes in handy.)

4. Personalization

People generally appreciate when brands add personal touches and pay attention to small details. When it comes to making us feel valued and understood as a customer, a little effort goes a long way.Email personalization is essential to building relationships with prospects and customers.Here are some simple email personalization ideas to help increase your open, click through, and conversion rates.

  • Use subscribers’ first names in the email subject line and content.
  • Consider time zones when scheduling campaigns to maximise the chances of your email being read. Where are the bulk of your subscribers located? 
  • Segment contacts so that messaging is targeted and relevant.
  • Use behaviour-triggered emails based on how customers interact with your product/service.

5. Optimize your email subject line, sender name, and preview text

Email subject line

Introducing one of the most important elements of your email marketing campaign: the email subject line.These few words could determine whether your email is read or not. And with so much competition in the inbox these days, they need to stand out.

Aim to create intrigue or a desire to open in just a few words.

  • Keep the subject line to 50 characters.
  • Highlight your most interesting offer.
  • Appeal to your subscribers’ emotions and ambitions..

6. A/B test your email marketing content

Test different email subject line formulas, content formats, and CTAs. See which ones get the best engagement and adjust your strategy accordingly.

7. Optimize email deliverability

Even more than subject lines, calls to action, and copy, email marketing success hinges on reliable email deliverability.

While deliverability often depends on technical factors, there are plenty of non-technical ways to help your email newsletters reach the inbox.Here are some deliverability best practices:

  • Make sure the email subject line doesn’t come across as spammy or overly promotional. If a contact decides your email is spam before even opening it, your deliverability rate is likely to suffer.
  • Keep your subscriber database up to date by removing unengaged contacts and inactive addresses.
  • Only send to opt-in subscribers. Send emails to someone who’s never heard of you and it’s likely they’ll report you as spam. This will harm your future deliverability.
  • Always include an unsubscribe link. Under the GDPR (Europe’s data protection regulation), an individual has the right to dictate how their data is being used. The act of unsubscribing falls fully within those rights so this option should always be available.

8. Clean your email list regularly

Keep your database up to date for optimal email deliverability and higher engagement rates.

Got subscribers who’ve dropped off the radar? If someone hasn’t engaged with your emails in at least six months, send a reactivation campaign or even ask for a second opt-in. See if you can get them interested again.no one likes losing subscribers, but email list cleaning is better for your deliverability in the long term.Another important point: Make it easy to unsubscribe with a clearly visible unsubscribe button. If people can’t find the way out, they’re more likely to mark you as spam.   

9. Keep track of email marketing metrics

Analyzing key email marketing metrics will teach you how to improve your strategy for future campaigns. Most ESPs have an analytics dashboard with at least the following real-time metrics:

  • Open rate: The ratio of the number of people who opened your email divided by the total number of recipients.
  • Click-through rate: The ratio of the number of people who clicked on a link in your email divided by the total number of recipients.
  • Unsubscribe rate: The number of people who unsubscribed divided by the total number of recipients. If this number is high, you need to review your email frequency and segmentation.
  • Bounce rate: The number of emails that failed to deliver divided by the total number of emails sent.
    • Soft bounces are due to temporary issues like the recipient’s inbox being full.
    • Hard bounces, on the other hand, are due to permanent issues, like an inactive email address.

10. Scale with autoresponders and email automation

Once you’ve got the hang of things, automate your email marketing strategy to make your business grow even faster.

The welcome email is the most common autoresponder example and most email marketing services have an autoresponder function. Armed with the right email automation software, you can go one step further and set up complex email automation sequences using if/then/else logic. This kind of email series is highly effective for lead nurturing and lead scoring. 

seo-vs-social-media

Search Engine vs. Social Media Marketing

by with No Comment Business::Article MarketingEmail MarketingInternet MarketingSocial Media Marketing

Search engine vs social media marketing are two essential components of digital marketing. Each platform has its own advantages and disadvantages, but when used together, they can create a powerful combination that can help businesses reach their target audience. When it comes to driving traffic to your website, there are a variety of ways to get visitors. The primary two that individuals and businesses almost always have a struggle with investing their time and money into are search and social. Sometimes the issue is convincing people why these are a necessity for a thriving business. Other times, the conflict is whether to invest in one marketing strategy more than the other, or to only pursue one marketing strategy but not the other.

How Search Beats Social

First of all, let’s look at the reasons why you might want to choose search engine marketing over social media marketing.

More People Look for Business on Search

Think about your own habits. Whenever you are looking for something, from an air conditioning repair company to a zumba instructor, where do you go first? Most likely, you will go to a search engine – Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask, AOL, Blekko, or one of the many other options available.

A report by Econsultancy found that 61% of consumers use search engines to help them in product research before making a purchase. This means that if you want to get discovered, you will want to rank well for your target keywords.

Know What People Are Searching For

When it comes to search engines, while the numbers might not be exact, you have a lot of great tools to use in your research of what people are searching for. Google AdWords Keyword Tool is a great start in this process. While “pet supplies” may not actually get an exact one million searches per month, you will know that “pet supplies” is a more popular keyword phrase over “pet supply” that comes in at only 368,000 monthly searches.

Buy Your Way into the Results

If you can’t make it to the top of organic search results, you can always buy your way into the sponsored links section of Google using Google AdWords.

In a search for “printer ink,” two domains that are not in organic search results appear in the top two spots. Even though organic search results might get more clicks, having any presence on the first page is still better than having no presence at all.

The bonus of paid search listings is that you can customize your appearance in search results. Instead of your usual website’s title and description that is used in organic results, you can use something that calls out to a specific sale in sponsored results. As an example, the company ranking 2nd in organic search also shares its Cyber Monday sale in the sponsored listings to the right.

How Social Beats Search

Now, let’s take a look at where social media marketing meets or beats search engine marketing.

Peer Recommendations Happen with the Click of a Like

In the same report by Econsultancy mentioned earlier, they found that 75% of people in the 18 – 26 age group used recommendations on social sites in product research before making a purchase. One of the nice sides to social media is once you have a presence on Facebook, Twitter, or Google+, peer recommendations will happen when someone likes your page, mentions your Twitter handle, or tags your brand name. When someone takes these actions, their connections will see them which may help your business get discovered by others with that perceived seal of approval.

Respond to Criticism in Real Time

One of the worst problems when it comes to search engine results, aside from not coming up in them at all, is having something negative come up. Online reputation management is a thriving service thanks to rip off reports, bad reviews, and other damaging articles about a business. Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do to counter these in search engine results themselves.

Whenever you are presented with criticism on social media, however, you will have a chance to turn those complaints into compliments by responding back to them in real time. There is a lot of great information today, including books like The Now Revolution that help businesses learn how to plan for, find, and manage real-time crises in the social media space. Knowing how to do this is essential to showing current and potential customers how much you care about everyone’s satisfaction with your business.

Buy Your Way in Front of Your Target Audience

Thanks to Facebook Advertising, StumbleUpon Ads, Promoted Tweets, and other social media advertising, businesses can put their content in front of social media audiences. This is a great way to generate traffic to your website, fans for your Facebook page, and visibility for your messages on social media platforms.

Why You Should Choose to Invest in Both Search and Social

While the above mentioned points may make you believe that one strategy is better than another, there is one good reason you want to invest your time, money, and efforts into both search engine marketing and social media marketing. You simply don’t want to put all of your eggs in one basket.

If you have Google Analytics installed on your website, go take a look at it now. Go to your Traffic Sources > Sources > All Traffic. Then look at your top five traffic sources and ask yourself what would you do if you lost one of them.

Take a moment to click on each traffic source to see the percentage of visitors that source drives to your website.

In my case, Google (40.1%), t.co (Twitter – 4.54%), StumbleUpon (3.2%), and Facebook (2.47%) are my top sources for the last 30 days. So I want to ask myself what I would do if I lost my Google traffic? That would be a loss of almost 10,000+ visitors in a month. Or if I lost my Twitter traffic, that would be a loss of 1,000+ visitors.

What you might find more interesting is using the Compare to past option under your date dropdown.

Now you can see, for the last 30 days vs. the 30 days in the previous month, how your traffic is changing. In this comparison, I noticed that my search engine traffic dropped.

While your numbers may vary, the one thing that is safe to say is that if you are investing your time in both search and social media, you’ll have a good balance of traffic. This means if one source begins to fail, you could always boost your efforts in another area and know that you will not lose all of your visitors entirely.

Is it possible to lose one source of traffic completely? Of course! Imagine if 80% of your traffic was from Google, and your website was hit with the first Panda update that left top domains with a loss of 34% to 86% of their keyword positions in search. Without incoming traffic from other sources, you would be in some serious trouble!

Regardless of whether you fear the loss of your search engine traffic due to a penalty or loss of rankings to a competitor, or the loss of your social media traffic because of a misunderstanding that resulted in the removal of your Facebook page, fear should not be your only motivating factor in diversifying your marketing efforts between search and social. Did you know that search engine marketing can help you with your social media marketing, and vice versa?

How Search Engine Marketing Helps Social

Search engine optimization doesn’t just happen on your website. Did you know you can use the same keyword research and on-site optimization strategies that you use for your website’s search engine marketing campaign for your social media marketing?

Keyword Research for Social Media

Keyword usage is important in social media. Although you can’t find the specifics on how many people search for particular keywords on social media, you can use different tools to get a good idea.   

Using various methods like these will help you fine tune your status updates and bio information for search within social networks.

On-Site Optimization for Social Media

While On-Site normally just means on your own website, you can take the same principles for title tags, meta descriptions, image alt tags, and so forth to better optimize your social media profiles for search. For example, you can optimize Google+ for search…

Almost all social media profiles have some customizable elements, whether it is your profile’s name, description, or image that can be tweaked for better search optimization. Just use tools like Google Chrome’s SEO Site Tools on your own social profiles when logged out of the network so you can see the public display version viewable by search engines.

Pay attention to the Title, Meta Description, Meta Keywords, Img Tags, and H1 through H4 Tags to see which ones you can edit for better branding and keyword placement.

Digital-Marketing B2B

Digital Marketing and Today’s B2B Buyer: New Rules of Digital Marketing

by with No Comment Digital MarketingEmail Marketing

Digital Marketing for Today’s B2B Buyer suppliers must embrace and sustain ongoing change if they want to stay competitive in the future.

Why?

  • Over 70% of B2B decision makers prefer remote or digital interactions,
  • Over 70% of B2B buyers spend half their research time online,
  • In 2022 the average buyer uses 10+ channels as they journey through the buying process.

So, what do today’s B2B buyers want?

This is a complicated question. However, getting the right answer is essential for selling to today’s business audience.

As the B2B industry continues to evolve, digital marketing is more than a nice to have – it’s a must-have.

The last few years have intensified the need for B2B businesses to shift their focus to digital marketing. Why? Because digital marketing drives revenue.

To succeed in B2B, it’s no longer acceptable to have a subpar buying experience.

In this blog, we’ll take a look at how you can use digital marketing to create value for today’s B2B buyers and the strategies you need to employ to make sure they find you when they’re researching online.

How to Create Value for Changing B2B Buyer Needs

The way B2B buyers research, compare, and buy has drastically changed in the last five years

The days when Digital Marketing Strategies to Reach Today’s B2B Buyer would simply talk to their sales rep or meet prospective suppliers at an industry event are disappearing.

With digital at the helm, most buyers start their purchase journey online – even if they ultimately purchase offline.

In fact, recent Google research shows that on average, 67% of purchases for multiple industries were influenced by digital.

According to the same study, before making a purchase, today’s typical B2B buyer might look at online categories, perform multiple Google searches, and visit branded websites.

They look for product specifications and brand comparisons and try to find the best deals or promotions.

In fact, you could say, the B2B buying experience is trending towards a more consumer-based approach. Where the buyer conducts their own research before making a purchase – similar to the way consumers read reviews and compare products on Amazon.

Engaging modern buyers requires a more proactive approach to marketing. The right digital marketing strategies help people make and act on decisions faster. And they will do their due diligence. Digital empower today’s B2B buyer to research rapidly and make decisions in the moment.

But you need to be visible within their research phases to stand a chance of being selected.

So, how do you build a digital marketing strategy to engage today’s B2B buyers?

The Core Pillars of a Modern Digital Marketing Strategy

If you want to drive long-term growth for your business, the right digital marketing strategy is a must. With the right approach in place, you can better meet buyers at every point in the purchase journey and optimise for long-term growth.

Here are the four core pillars of a modern Digital Marketing Strategies to Reach Today’s B2B Buyer strategy:

Pillar 1: SEO

SEO (Search engine optimization) helps boost the visibility of your content. If you get it right, for B2B specifically, it helps your buyers build trust and confidence in your business and helps you drive traffic with intent: Do they want to learn? Are they ready to buy? The keywords inform this. Plus a lot of B2B terms aren’t crowded yet so it’s easier to compete for them and boost rankings.

In short, SEO is the process of optimizing your website to rank higher in the search engine results pages (SERPs) to increase the amount of traffic your website receives.

When customers are looking for products or services during the research phase, they often turn to search engines, such as Google. That’s why being found on the first page of the search results increases your chances of driving traffic to your site to ultimately convert them into sales.

SEO is the backbone of digital marketing and is made up of different elements:

  • On-page SEO – the content you see on your website including product pages, landing pages and blogs.
  • Off-page SEO – any activities that take place off the page, mostly gaining backlinks or inbound links.
  • Technical SEO – anything that involves the back end of your website and anything that affects the performance of your website such as site speed.
  • Local SEO – a local SEO strategy helps you appear for customers who are searching in your local area and drive footfall to your business.

Pillar 2: Content Marketing

Content marketing is the promotion and creation of content assets to help you generate brand awareness, traffic to your website, demand generation, and new customers. In summary, it allows you to provide value to your customers by creating informative content that helps to answer customers’ questions and solve their problems by offering your products and services.

One of the main reasons customers turn to search engines is to find knowledge about specific topics, products and services. Make sure that the content you produce and promote should match the search intent of your customers, so make sure it matches their intent at various stages of the customer journey.

But, why is this fundamental for B2B marketing today?

B2B businesses buy from those with an authoritative, trustworthy and reliable voice so you have a much higher chance of converting a prospect if they’ve seen your content and remember it – because it was helpful.

Key types of content include:

  • Blog posts – they help to demonstrate your expertise in your industry and help to generate organic search traffic for your website. It will also help you get your brand to the top of the SERPs.
  • Infographics – a visual piece of content you can use to provide information in an easy to read and digest way.
  • Ebooks and whitepapers – help to provide website visitors with more information on the problems you can solve for them.

Pillar 3: Social Media Marketing

Just like content marketing, social media is critical to B2B brands that want to boost their reputation, build trust, and increase their sales. Being consistent and building familiarity is key!

Promoting your brand on these channels is the perfect way to build brand awareness and generate sales for your business.

There are different ways you can use social media for your business:

  • Organic social media – every social media channel allows you to post organic (free) content. This will be shown to your community of followers and its reach can be limited.
  • Paid social media – channels such as Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn allow you to create ads and pay to boost them to a targeted audience.

Social media is a great way to promote your brand, and content, increase brand awareness, drive traffic, sales and generate new leads for your business.

Pillar 4: PPC (Paid Search)

PPC, also known as Paid Search or pay-per-click, provides a way to drive traffic to your website and you only pay when someone clicks through to your website. For B2B, it allows you to target your budget towards those that are showing an intent to buy, so it’s better for ROI. You can get hyper-personalized here to make sure the ad resonates with the Digital Marketing Strategies to Reach Today’s B2B Buyer and they have a clear expectation that you can solve their challenge.

The goal of your ad is to lead searchers to click on your website and take valuable action such as purchasing a product.

PPC ads are determined by the keywords you select for your business. When searchers type these keywords or phrases into a search engine, such as Google, an auction takes place to decide which ad is shown. The ad that wins the auction is shown at the top of the search results.

Key Takeaways

So, in summary, how can you make sure you’re reaching your B2B customers effectively?

“Buyers expect education and helpful content“

B2B buyers expect to gain value from your brand. They expect free advice to help solve their key challenges. Remember, if you don’t satisfy these needs, they’ll go to a competitor.

“Don’t get comfortable with what works now“

The volume of change we’ve seen over the last few years has taught us one thing for sure: we can’t simply rely on things being the way they’ve always been. And so we can’t simply rely on the digital marketing approach we’ve always done.

“Digital marketing is even more important“

And they’ll primarily be looking for it on digital channels where they go for their research. That’s why it’s crucial for every step of the B2B buyer journey – from awareness through to building loyalty – that you have the right activity in place to drive traffic to your website and convert sales.

“Review and reposition“

Review what’s changed in your space and how your customers might have changed their buying habits, and then adapt your strategy accordingly.

If you’re unsure about digital marketing and how competitors might be reacting, request a free Digital Marketing Strategies to Reach Today’s B2B Buyer audit from our website.

wm or em

WhatsApp vs Email Marketing: Which is best for customer success

by with No Comment Email Marketing

introdection : WhatsApp vs Email Marketing?

Email open rates have been dropping at your business?In this article, we will walk you through the detailed comparison between WhatsApp and Email marketing and see which works best for customer success.

WhatsApp vs Email Marketing is a necessity in the current business landscape as it determines the company’s productivity, brand awareness and customer service. Not only do online marketing strategies have a positive effect on your company’s bottom line, but they also give you an edge over your competitors. While there are several forms of marketing strategies that you can use, email & WhatsApp marketing have evolved into two of the most popular ones in 2022 and beyond.

What is email marketing?

Email marketing is nothing but using e-mails to promote your business products & services efficiently. As one of the oldest marketing strategies available, businesses often use email marketing because it is cost-effective and efficient. The best thing about email marketing is that businesses can easily collect emails of customers and prospects through mailboxes and then convert them into sales and clients. Unlike some of the latest marketing channels like social media & WhatsApp, which are based on engagement, email marketing is based on interest, so it is less time-consuming.

What are the advantages of email marketing and when should you be using it

Email marketing is still widely used by businesses across domains because it offers several exciting benefits. Some of them are listed below:

Affordable

When compared to other traditional & modern forms of marketing, email marketing can be operated at a much lower cost because there aren’t any additional costs like printing fees, banner prices (online & offline) & distribution costs.

Customization

WhatsApp vs Email Marketing because it’s based on interest, email marketing allows business owners to tailor the content according to their needs. The possibilities for personalization are endless – you can include special deals & offers according to the interests & demographics of the readers.

Scalable

One of the reasons why email marketing is still prominent is that it is highly scalable. You can create additional contact lists & campaigns for different products, demographics & geographical regions.

Reliable

WhatsApp vs Email Marketing is a permission-based marketing channel where businesses need to receive the customers’ consent before engaging with them, you can be assured that you are marketing your products to interested customers.

Testing & Optimization

Email marketing is one of the very few marketing channels that allow you to test your campaign’s efficiency in real time through A/B testing. You can send out unique messages & offers to the same target group to select the most useful campaign.

Data & Analytics

Since emails have been used for marketing purposes for a long-time, there are several tools that can provide benchmark statistics based on your domain, target demographic and other details. This allows you to make informed marketing decisions by using real data & perform custom segmentations.

Customer-Friendly

Marketing your products through email is also one of the least intrusive options because customers can read the content on their own time. It is also easier for customers to share your email campaign with friends, family members or social media profiles.

While these advantages might suggest that email marketing can be used for all scenarios, it is best suited for sharing information and newsletters with a wide range of customers. While email marketing might not generate high traffic instantly, it is proven to pull in prospective leads in the long run. Another major avenue for using email marketing is remarketing since the use of personalization allows businesses to send tailored emails to previously contacted customers. While using email marketing for customer acquisition, it’s also crucial to keep in mind that the best way to retain your customers is to make the whole communication process simple & fun.

Also read: Instagram vs WhatsApp: A detailed comparison for 2022

Disadvantages of email marketing

While email marketing provides some advantages, there are also several disadvantages to using the channel. These disadvantages outlined below remind us why email marketing is not the first choice for marketing in today’s landscape.

Low open rates

One main disadvantage of email marketing is that it has low message open rates. Since it is easy for customers to ignore emails or mark them as read even without reading them, businesses need to have strong content that is easy to understand and highly relevant to their products. Unless the subject & content is highly engaging, customers will quickly delete the email & never read it.

Delivery errors

Email marketing is a channel that has more bounce rates because there are more opportunities for errors. There are also cases where emails would not be delivered to the intended audience because they might be filtered out by service providers. So, there is a need to ensure that all the details are correct, especially when sending them in bulk, to make sure that you are not missing out on valuable customers.

Higher spam rates

Emails also have strict email filtering and spam protection policies. If your emails use spam keywords like Click Here, $$$, etc., they might be moved to the spam folder. It is also important to note that email marketing should also comply with data policy & privacy laws. Therefore, there is a need to ensure that emails are delivered to the target customer base and not unsubscribed/irrelevant users due to mistakes.

Design Issues

The design of your emails plays a crucial role in generating engagement & traffic. Since emails can be viewed on both desktops & mobile platforms, the design should be optimized for both platforms. Since this includes the font, graphics & layout that your email is using, you need to hire a good in-house designer. Only when your email design is both attractive and well-optimized, you can make sure that your customers will be enticed to open and read them.

Size & Type of Content

Since there is a maximum size limit for emails, it is important that the content you are sending doesn’t use big attachments or high-level graphics that are slow to load. If your content is heavy on video content or other images that are embedded, your customers might not be able to view the complete email properly. This can result in low engagement rates & attrition.

Subscription & Burnout

While creating email lists can be a time-consuming process, businesses can easily burn through the list of active subscribers if they fail to engage with customers. So, businesses need to periodically review and reorganize their customer lists based on recent sales, email read rates & other business metrics. This can add up to a lot of time, effort & even costs as well.

Resource Dependence

As mentioned earlier, emails need highly engaging content & excellent designs to ensure that they have a high level of engagement. There is also a need to regularly monitor the performance of each email campaign. All of these activities demand an additional specialized workforce from a business perspective. While outsourcing these tasks is an option, it does not work out well for businesses with limited resources.

Benefits of marketing on WhatsApp

WhatsApp marketing has slowly grown into one of the leading marketing options in the current digital era. A variety of companies have already used the chat application as a means to boost their sales and customer engagement. Many of the largest businesses across several industry verticals have started marketing their products using WhatsApp marketing. To gain a better understanding of how WhatsApp marketing works, you can check out our WhatsApp for Marketing blog.

Since WhatsApp has a high message-open rate, it has also become one of the preferred options for businesses that are looking to grow beyond email marketing. In addition to the high open rates, WhatsApp also offers the following benefits:

Large Reach

WhatsApp has an ever-growing customer base (more than 2 billion active users), which allows businesses to reach a wide range of audiences across various countries.

End-to-End Encryption

WhatsApp is a highly secure platform that offers end-to-end encryption for all messages. So, businesses can ensure the privacy of their customer data.

Personalized Conversations

Since WhatsApp chats are personal in nature, it allows businesses to connect with potential customers & create individualized experiences.

Marketing Automation

WhatsApp vs Email Marketing provides several options for marketers to automate their campaigns. Businesses can send quick replies & create automatic chat workflows easily to ensure excellent support. Try our WhatsApp auto reply message templates for your business communication.

Diverse Content Options

In addition to text chats, WhatsApp allows businesses to send images, audio clips, videos & locations to their customers and increase their engagement.

Catalogs & Shops

WhatsApp allows businesses to create attractive catalogs & online shops to market their products to interested customers. This can help businesses increase their engagement & sales.

Also read: WhatsApp for sales: 13 tips to boost your business

In-App Payments

Unlike many other marketing channels, WhatsApp business allows businesses to process payments through the WhatsApp chat application itself. This will enable businesses to create a seamless experience.

Data Analytics

WhatsApp allows businesses to capture data using customized reports & analyze the data efficiently for unique insights.

4 major differences between WhatsApp marketing and email marketing

When we compare both email & WhatsApp marketing, we can clearly see that there are several similarities between both the channels. Both channels have strong privacy policies and both of them require user consent. Both of the channels also allow the use of different types of media files for marketing purposes. However, there are some fundamental differences that make businesses prefer WhatsApp over emails. They are:

Message Open & Engagement

One of the most striking differences is the huge difference in message open rates between both platforms. WhatsApp’s 98% message open rate completely dominates emails open rates which stand at around 20%. This makes it one of the perfect platforms to be used in all sorts of direct & indirect marketing strategies. While some customers may not open emails, they will definitely check their messages & WhatsApp notifications.

Speed & Reach

Since WhatsApp has one of the largest active users in today’s era, businesses can rest assured about their brand exposure. This large user base combined with a high open rate assures speedy delivery & engagement. Customers are also more like to respond to  WhatsApp messages as they will open the message and read the content more thoroughly. This allows brands to generate important marketing data that allows for future optimizations.

Junk & Spam

It is well-known that there are a lot of missed opportunities when it comes to email marketing. A common email address mistake or content-related error can result in the message being marked as junk or spam. This wastes a lot of effort from a business perspective. Since business owners can view the customer’s profile in WhatsApp, it greatly minimizes the risk of mistakes. WhatsApp’s double tick & blue tick feature, which shows that a message has been delivered & read respectively, also adds value as it assures that the message is delivered to the right customer.

Resource Dependence

We’ve already seen that the design of an email plays a major part when it comes to its efficacy. However, this isn’t the case with WhatsApp. WhatsApp messages are mostly instantaneous and can also be informal in tone, so they aren’t as resource intensive as emails. Also, WhatsApp allows businesses to integrate all types of content (including photos & videos) efficiently and not worry much about the size of the file.

Also read: Top 10 Advantages of a WhatsApp Business Account

Start marketing on WhatsApp with ChatPro today!

We can clearly see that WhatsApp currently offers much better reach and engagement in today’s market. This makes it a must for businesses that want to grow beyond domains and borders. However, marketing with WhatsApp might be a complicated process for many business owners. To circumvent this complication and get guided assistance, you can partner with ChatPro, a WhatsApp Business Service Provider that excels in providing WhatsApp workplace solutions.ChatPro has extensive experience helping businesses from various domains including real estate, travel & education market their products/services through WhatsApp. Create your free trial account here .

demo-attachment-1240-Mask-Group-40

Email Marketing

by with No Comment Email Marketing

Why Email Marketing?

No matter what type of organization you run, email marketing can help you connect with and grow your audience and convert prospects into loyal customers – at a fraction of the cost of most other marketing channels.In fact, email marketing is really about building relationships with potential customers. The goal should be to make a connection, build a relationship.

In fact, email marketing is one of the most effective marketing channels that exists. Did you know that for every $1 you invest in email marketing you get $44 in return?we’ll review the best autoresponder options available depending on various budgets and business needs.

Email marketing allows you to build relationships and brand recognition, further educate your email subscribers, and promote events and sales.

Plus, it’s easy to align your email content with social media. And with the right tools and support at your fingertips, you can achieve all of that – no design or coding experience needed!

Email marketing is a strategy used to promote a product or service by sending an email message to a list of subscribers.

Email marketing is a quick and efficient way to reach out to a large number of people. It enables marketers to share messages with individuals swiftly and efficiently. One major disadvantage of email marketing is the ability of subscribers to unsubscribe from the lists at any time.

Email marketing can be used for many things, such as promoting products and services, collecting customer feedback, and communicating with existing customers.

Some of the benefits of email marketing are that it is cost-effective, it allows for personalization, and it can reach more people than other types of advertising.