There are many digital marketing channels that you can use to promote your brand. A lot of marketers consider free online e-mail marketing as a powerful marketing channel. The right e-mail marketing strategy can easily boost sales and increase website traffic. This blog contains e-mail marketing tips and its benefits for businesses. It also lists some online websites that allow you to do e-mail marketing online.
E-mail marketing is a digital marketing strategy, in which emails are used to send content to the target audience. The target audience may consist of clients, leads or prospective clients. Effective e-mails convert leads into customers, and one-time buyers into regular clients. There are a lot of free online e-mail marketing tools available, which you can use to manage your e-mail campaigns with e-mail marketing tips.
IMPORTANCE OF E-MAIL MARKETING
1. Customizable
E-mail marketers can easily customize the e-mails that they send out. Sending personalized e-mails gives the audience more value. Other digital channels do not allow marketers to address the audience individually. E-mail marketing online allows you to tailor messages by including the receiver’s name or by sending content related to their interests.
2. Cost effective
E-mail marketing online is inexpensive. It allows businesses to reach out to a large number of people at relatively no cost. Unlike traditional channels, where you have to pay a lot for printing or screen time, e-mails are almost free. Even if you invest in e-mail marketing online tools that allow you automation and tracking, the cost is still lower than other marketing channels.
3. Easy way to connect with the target audience
You can easily segment your e-mail list based on interests, demographics, locations, etc. Targeted e-mails thus not only provide content that is suited to the audience’s needs, but also increases conversion rates.
4. Easy to track
Use free online e-mail marketing tools to easily track how well your campaign is going. You can check open rates, CTRs, conversion rates, etc. and make necessary changes to your e-mails to drive the best results.
E-MAIL MARKETING TOOLS
1. MailChimp
It is one of the most widely used e-mail marketing tools for free online e-mail marketing. It allows you to integrate with WordPress, Facebook, Twitter, Google Analytics, etc. MailChimp also gives easy to read reports with graphs and comparisons to your previous campaigns or similar campaigns that were done in your niche. It has two plans that you can subscribe to:
- Free Plan: The unlimited free plan can be used for up to 2,000 subscribers and 12,000 e-mails/month.
- Paid Plan: Costs about $20/month for sending unlimited e-mails. There are some extra features like e-mail support, social media monitoring, sending e-mails by time zone, spam diagnostics, etc. in the paid plan, which are not provided in the free plan.
2. Mailjet
Operates in more than 150 countries. There is no limit to contacts and the interface is user friendly. It offers two plans as well:
- Free Plan: upto 200 e-mails per day, for unlimited contacts.
- Paid Plan: Starts at $9.65 per month. It offers features like customer support, removal of Mailjet logo, no limit to sending e-mails, etc. A paid plan, which starts at $15.50 per month, also allows you to do A/B testing and provides marketing automation.
3. Benchmark
It is an e-mail marketing tool that provides a lot of options to do e-mail marketing online. Using Benchmark, you can send video e-mails, and create clean and professional templates. It is available in 8 languages and also provides free and paid subscriptions.
- Free Plan: Unlimited free plan for upto 2000 subscribers and you can send up to 14,000 e-mails per month.
- Paid Plan: Starts at $13.99 per month for 600 subscribers. Additional features include advanced automation, A/B testing, etc. There are other add on features, for which you can pay to use, like list verification, image hosting, dedicated IP, etc.
4. MadMimi
Madmimi is a quite popular e-mail marketing tool, because it is very easy to use. You don’t need a lot of technical knowledge to operate this. It is easy to work with because of its user friendly interface and has a good customer support.
- Free Plan: Unlimited e-mails for up to 100 contacts.
- Paid Plan: Starts at $10 per month for up to 500 contacts.
E-MAIL MARKETING TIPS
You can use these e-mail marketing tips to improve open rates, CTRs and conversion rates. These are easy to follow and help to build credibility and better relationships with customers.
1. Provide value
Always make sure that the content you send to your e-mail list is of value to them. If you consistently send e-mails that are of value, it brings down unsubscribes and increases open rates. Quality content is the key to increase conversion rates and build brand loyalty.
2. Personalize each e-mail
Adding a personal touch to your e-mails makes the audience feel like they are communicating with real people. This increases their trust in your brand. It has been seen that using personalized subject lines increases the open rates.
3. Keep e-mails short
Keeping the e-mails you send out short, clear and concise, gets you a better response. This is because short e-mails keep the attention of the reader. The longer an email is, the more chances of the reader stopping midway are high. Use bullet points, simple language and include a CTA to get your readers to act favourably.
4. Keep building your subscriber list
Never stop adding more e-mails to your subscriber list. Add subscription CTAs on your website and other social media platforms, tap into influencers’ and publishers’ e-mail lists, go through previous customer data, etc.
5. Use catchy subject lines
The open rate of your e-mail depends on your subject line. Keep your subject lines natural, short and to the point. The optimum length would be approximately ten words. Write subject lines that stand out and are catchy. Using generic subject lines would decrease your open rates drastically.
6. Include links and call to actions
E-mails are usually sent with the goal of increasing sales or website traffic. To get that, it is important to include links to your website so that after reading the e-mail, it is easier for the audience to navigate to your website. You can even draft call to actions as they generate a user’s curiosity and compel them to act.
Make e-mails mobile friendly: More and more people are opting for opening e-mails on their smartphones. To optimize an e-mail for mobile, compress the images, use a responsive design, avoid long paragraphs and use fonts that can be read on mobiles.
Free online e-mail marketing is a powerful tool to drive sales, increase conversion rates and foster relationships with your customers. It has a greater reach, and provides better ROI than any traditional channel. It is easy to set up an e-mail campaign, especially by using one of the e-mail marketing tools provided above. Using the e-mail marketing tips in this blog, you can get better results for your campaign.
