Have you ever noticed your inbox flooding with lots of promotional mails from various e-commerce sellers or mails relating to services industry where they offer huge discounts? Are you surprised by their frequency and their quantity? They all are sent in lieu of email marketing strategy of the company. But how do these companies get your email address? Whenever you visit a website, they always ask you for your email address. Even social media sites like Facebook, Instagram everyone needs your email id to create your account.
What is email marketing?
Email marketing in layman’s language is sending an email message to lots of people at the same time. The content of the email can be informative, transactional or promotional. This strategy is broadly divided into two categories: i) engagement emails and ii) transactional emails.
Engagement mails vs transactional mails
Engagement mails are more directed towards branding and storytelling than creating sales. We often come across welcome mails whenever we sign up for a website, or an email containing information about latest trends or tips or some free e-books. The focus is to create a relationship with customers even if they are not interested in buying at the time. It also helps to foster a relationship so that in future, they look forward to buying from you. They are generally planned ones.
On the other hand, transactional emails are auto generated mails. For example, whenever you buy anything online you get an order confirmation or cancelled mail, order status mails, cart status or discount offers that comes with a timeline. They are generally generated based on user actions.
Why to invest in email marketing?
Email marketing is one such strategy where a spend of $1 can give you return of $38, if done right. This strategy generates highest ROI for marketers. Though with fast changing technology many marketing mediums have evolved. However, email is still a competition to them due to its high reachability, easily delivers message, cheap and open mode of communication. Also, email is here to stay as it is one of the effective means of communication. Many top marketing giants swear by this strategy. For example, you must have seen a bunch of mails from Amazon selling you deal of the day or lightning deals. So go on guys and try your hand at it with our free course Email Marketing: Get started with Sendy and AWS SES.