Every marketer out there probably tells you you need to build an email list for your business, but it can feel so daunting! The truth is though that it’s the highest-converting marketing channel, email marketing offers a staggering ROI of $42 for every 1$ spent (as reported by Constant Contact). So we thought we could have a look at the key information you need to know and uncover the best emails for your email marketing campaigns.
What are the main email marketing benefits?
On top of the impressive return on investment, email marketing is a channel you fully own as opposed to social media platforms. Everyone on your list should have some interest in your products or services and therefore are already engaged in your sales funnel. Your social media might have more impressive follower numbers, but they depend on algorithms and most of them probably aren’t seeing all of your content. Both are great, but for different reasons.
Is there a best frequency for email marketing?
That’s a hard question to answer since every business and every audience is different. A study from Get Response analysed over 7 billion emails and found that the first email you send always has the best open rate, and that rate goes down for every email after that. Our generic suggestion is usually at least 1 email per month, and no more than 4. That should ensure you’re not forgotten and that you don’t alienate your customers.
The best emails for email marketing
1. The best emails for email marketing
When someone joins your email list, you should leverage that! You can use the welcome email to send them a freebie or give them plenty of information about your different products and offers. It’s a great way for you to “introduce yourself” and show your style of emails.
2. Regular Email Newsletters
This is a classic but a good one. Use it to round up what happened on your website since your last newsletter or speak about a current topic. Think about driving traffic to new products or new blog posts by showing sneak peaks or snippets.
3. Transactional emails
Transactional emails are such an untapped gold mine, they’re the best emails for email marketing. Transactional emails are all the default emails like Order Confirmation, Shipping Confirmation, etc. A lot of businesses leave them as default, but these emails have the best open rates. Use them to add a little banner talking about special offers (keep it below the main information) or recommend something that would fit with their purchase.
4. Abandoned Cart Email
Abandoned cart emails are a double edged sword, and we have a hot take on them. We all know of at least one business that sends an email with a discount everytime you leave something in the cart. People aren’t stupid and this is basically training them to abandon their cart on purpose…no thanks. What they’re incredible for however is specific sales. If you have a weekend-only sale, it’s a great idea to send an abandoned cart email before the end to create a sense of urgency that people are about to miss out on those oh-so-special prices. No need to give an extra discount.
5. Step-by-Step Guide
This won’t work for all businesses, but sending out a step-by-step guide on how to use your star product might help users have a better experience with it. That email has a higher chance of being opened since it’s providing information on something they already own. It’s also a great opportunity to mention other products you have that might make the experience better.
Best practices for your email marketing campaign
Verify Your Domain
There are new email deliverability rules and domains like @gmail.com have a high chance of landing in the spam folder.
Avoid using no-reply
Most email service providers will allow you to customize your sender email address. Avoid using something with “noreply” or “no-reply” as those can trigger spam filters.
Customise preview text
Make sure you add a preview sentence to your email so people can see what it’s about from their inbox.
Personalize your emails
We’re in the era of personalization, addressing people by name will make your emails much more engaging, especially if you use it in your subject line.
Make your emails mobile-friendly
Today, 81% of all emails are now opened and read on mobile devices.
Our favourite tools for email marketing
Having the best tools will enable you to create the best emails for your email marketing. As a general rule, we aren’t big fans of claiming one tool as the BEST one. There are dozens of great email service providers out there and the best one will be the one that works for you and your business. We do have favourite ones however…
Mailerlite - Our Favourite Free Tool for Email Marketing
Mailerlite’s free plan will cover you for your first 1000 subscribers. Their dashboard is very easy to understand and their email editor allows you to create beautiful emails easily. They have standard automation and segmentation options as well which are a great gateway if you want to start levelling up your email marketing.
Flodesk - Our Favourite Paid Tool for Email Marketing
Most email service providers increase their fee as your subscriber list grows, but Flodesk doesn’t work like that and we LOVE it. They have a standard fee that applies no matter how many people are on your list. Their dashboard is extremely easy to use and their email editor will help you design beautiful emails. They offer loads of automation and segmentation option an dmae sending freebies a breeze. You can also create check out pages to sell directly from. They’re a newer company and are constantly rolling out new features as well which keeps things interesting.
There are so many good reasons to tap into email marketing, and the effort is definitely worth it. You will build a sales channel that you fully own and control that also offers great ROI for your business. You can find plenty of opportunities to tailor your strategy to your audience which is why we believe these are the best emails for email marketing. Plus the content you create for your emails can be repurposed on social media, but that’s a topic for another blog post!
