Email Marketing Basics

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What is Email Marketing?

Email marketing is an effective digital marketing method that entails dispatching commercial communications to a targeted audience via email. It offers one of the highest ROI (Returns on Investment) in the realm of digital advertising.

Since subscribers are required to explicitly opt-in to receive messages, marketers are engaging with an audience that has already shown interest in their brand.

Email Marketing Categories

Among the main types of email marketing campaigns, the following three are the most common:

• Newsletters – The main category. Newsletters are distributed on a consistent basis to provide online content (new products, services, marketing news, etc.), presented using professional and expert knowledge, that fosters enduring relationships between marketers and their subscribed customers.
• Automatically Transactional Emails – Created based on a user actions, like order confirmations and shipping notifications.
• Promotional Campaigns – Promoting products or services, by focusing on explicit CTA (Call to Action).

Top Email Marketing Platforms

• EmailOctopus – In 2015, EmailOctopus recognized the need for a more effective way to connect online with customers. The existing tools were cumbersome, costly and overly complicated. They developed a tool that is both user-friendly and budget friendly. Today, EmailOctopus team have empowered over 100,000 users, to feel like online marketing experts.
• SendX – SendX is a user-friendly, cloud-based email marketing solution tailored for small to medium-sized businesses, bloggers and digital marketers. It aims to offer a cost-effective, feature-packed alternative to more extensive email platforms.
• SendPulse – SendPulse is a comprehensive automation platform that focuses on email, SMS and chatbot marketing, providing a full suite of tools for creating landing pages, developing online courses and managing everything through a free CRM.
• Moosend – Moosend is a cloud-based platform for email marketing and automation, aimed at assisting businesses of any size in creating, sending and monitoring email campaigns.
• Omnisend – Omnisend was established in 2014 under the name Soundest, initially serving as a straightforward email marketing solution for ecommerce businesses. Their mission was straightforward – simplify marketing for those who are actively engaged in it. As ecommerce progressed, Email transformed into an omnichannel, leading to the rebranding of Soundest to Omnisend.
• Brevo – Established in 2012 by Armand Thiberge in both India and France, Brevo aims to create the most accessible customer platform, that promotes sustainable growth for all businesses and non-profit organizations, by encouraging more human and personalized interactions.
• ActiveCampaign – ActiveCampaign serves as a cloud-based CXA (Customer Experience Automation) platform, merging email marketing, marketing automation, sales CRM and multi-channel messaging (SMS and WhatsApp) into a unified system. Established in 2003, it employs artificial intelligence through its “Active Intelligence” engine to support over 180,000 businesses in automating and customizing their customer interactions effectively.

Main Advantages

• Automation – Marketers have the ability to create automated workflows, that can help to dispatch targeted emails triggered by specific actions. For instance, a welcome letter for new subscribers.
• Subscribed Customers – The subscribed customers in the email list belongs to the marketer.
• Precise Performance Metrics – Marketers can monitor precise performance metrics. This encompasses open rates, CTRs (Click Through Rates) and direct transactions.
• Rigorous Segmentation – Marketers can categorize their subscribers lists into smaller segments, allowing them to focus on individuals based on their distinct interests and buying habits.

Legal Compliance Regulations

To safeguard users’ privacy and prevent substantial penalties, all email marketing activities must adhere rigorously to international anti-spam regulations:

• GDPR (Europe) – Mandates clear, distinct and verifiable users consent, prior to gathering private information and dispatching emails to any citizen of the EU.
• CAN-SPAM Act (US) – Stipulates that sender information must be accurate, subject lines must not be misleading and a visible physical address must be included in every email.
• Unsubscribe Option – Each marketing email sent must feature a straightforward and working unsubscribe link.