Email Marketing
Get a cost-effective method to keep in touch with customers
Stay Top of Mind With an Email Marketing Campaign for Results
At Terzetto Digital, we help you connect with customers using an email marketing strategy so you can Get Social. We include the best email marketing service in each integrated digital marketing plan.
Just another way that we are committed to working with you to achieve success and to help you Harmonize Your Digital Marketing℠.
What is Email Marketing?
As one of the original communication mechanisms of the Internet, email has transcended time and remains very popular today. In fact, according to Statistica, there were over 4.03 billion e-mail users worldwide in 2020. As a business owner, you might have a branded email address that matches your company name, such as the one we use for general communication, hello@terzettodigital.com, or maybe you like communicating with an “@yahoo.com” or “@gmail.com” account (we always recommend using a branded email). Either way, there is a solid business case for reliable email hosting to facilitate the day-to-day email messaging between employees, vendors, customers, or prospects. But that is not necessarily email marketing, rather it’s email communication. The distinction is important to understand, as they both use the same underlying technology, but email marketing can have a huge impact on your growth if used properly.
Although e-mail marketing can be a two-way dialog, think of it more as a notification, where a business transmits email content to a customer or prospect to alert them to something of importance. What you send, how often, and to whom, should be guided by your email marketing strategy:
- Communicating to Many – your business email communication from Outlook or Gmail is typically a one-to-one conversation. You may carbon copy (CC) or blind carbon copy (BCC) a few people, but in general, office-based emails are only sent to between one to five people. In contrast, the reason why email marketing is so important is that it can be used to communicate to thousands of prospects or customers at once.
- Email Marketing List – it stands to reason that if the importance of email marketing is to communicate with thousands of people in your target market, part of your email marketing plan should be to gather email addresses. This can be done through a variety of techniques, such as an email subscription form on your website or using social media marketing contests.
- Email Personalization – the more data you collect about a prospect, the easier it is to personalize the email marketing content to speak directly to that individual. This can make for a more effective email marketing campaign where you are sending to thousands, but the message resonates with someone as if you had sent a personal email to them from Outlook or Gmail. This additional data, such as their name, company, job title and so on would generally be stored in a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system.
- Email Service Provider (ESP) – to get the most email deliverability when sending to thousands of e-mail addresses, it’s important to use the best email marketing service. These reputable email marketing service providers take care to monitor daily usage, eliminating those senders that are not using authorized email lists, or whose email content is considered SPAM. Some popular ESP’s are Constant Contact email marketing and Mailchimp email marketing.
- Email Marketing Campaign – this is the high-level purpose of your e-mail marketing, where you define what you want to send and to whom. You should always start with an email marketing strategy to focus the email marketing content on the correct audience, segmenting your email sends to maximize the personalization for higher opens and clicks.
- Email Marketing Template – while the email content is perhaps the most important aspect, the email marketing design is just as important to attract attention. If your emails never get opened, then your message will never be read. Investing in good graphic design services can both increase your open rates as well as your Click-through Rates (CTR), leading to more website traffic and conversions.
Where Would Email Marketing be Used?
The simple answer is that email marketing for small business should be used everywhere. We’ve already discussed how popular email communication continues to be, despite newer technologies such as SMS (text) Messaging and social media Direct Messaging (DM). That said, the real answer is that it depends on your overall digital marketing strategy. Each business is unique and will garner different results based on their product or service offerings, whether they are Business to Consumer (B2C) or Business to Business (B2B) focused, and ultimately the profile of their target audience. Even after considering all those variables, the low cost of email marketing makes it a winner for any small business that may have a limited marketing budget.
Here are some of the more popular applications for email marketing:
- Ecommerce Marketing – when you have a product or service to sell online, it affords you many more opportunities to use email marketing. From special offers and loyalty coupons, to abandoned cart reminders, an ecommerce website can easily increase sales with a consistent email marketing plan. In fact, the concept of consistency is core to any successful email marketing campaign. The frequency of email sends needs to be well thought out in consideration of your customer’s needs. Too many emails may cause them to unsubscribe, while too few can result in lost opportunities and a general disregard for your brand.
- Website Marketing – you can easily answer the question of how to get traffic to your website by becoming an email marketing business. Such a business would take every opportunity to create email content that resonates with their audience. This could range from an email marketing newsletter to local marketing that promotes events. The fact is that most consumers appreciate well thought out articles that offer them information without being too sales oriented. This type of email marketing content can help gain a loyal following to your business blog. You can always pepper in some sales related copy which links to a unique website landing page, thereby keeping your information and sales channels clearly separated.
- Business Email Communication – yes, we started off by saying that sending emails from Outlook or Gmail is not the same as mass email marketing. And that is still the case, we simply wanted to point out that you may be missing out on a huge opportunity to market to existing clients through normal day-to-day email communication. The secret is in your email signature design. It’s standard practice to end your business emails with a professional statement, such as “Regards”, “Sincerely”, or “Thanks”, along with your name and contact information. What if you were to use the additional real estate at the bottom as if it were a digital advertising space? Not only is it a great way to reuse the assets you’ve already created, such as social media ads, or Google Ads, but it also gives you additional exposure to what you might consider a warm prospect.
When Would Email Marketing be Used?
Communicating with prospects or existing customers can take on many different forms. From old school phone calls to more modern digital marketing techniques. Whichever you choose, the point is that you should communicate in the method and frequency that is most beneficial to your audience. The outcome of the connections you make is to build trust and loyalty, which can result in referrals and repeat business. As you formulate your digital marketing strategy, don’t underestimate the importance of email marketing as a contributor to your bottom line.
There are many use cases where email marketing for small business can be effective:
- Informative – this is email marketing content that helps to educate potential and current customers. Here you can leverage on how your products or services can solve a problem without asking for the sale directly. Free information shows that you care and can be the turning point in the buyer’s journey from someone who is doing research to someone who is ready to buy your product or service:
- Pre-sales Questions/Answers – offering an FAQ section in your email marketing design can work as a bridge to close the sale faster. If you have been asked the same pre-sales question again and again, providing the answer upfront will show your experience and may even answer a question that the prospect had not yet considered.
- Blog Articles – after posting blog articles on your website, you can email a list of curated categories of these articles at various frequencies. It saves the email subscriber time by presenting information in short form, with convenient links to the full-length article should something catch their attention.
- How To Videos – while videos can’t be viewed directly within an email, you can certainly link to videos hosted on your website landing page or YouTube. Seeing is believing and watching your company as a leader in your industry while solving their problems can turn them into customers for life.
- Monthly Newsletter –information that is helpful to current and future clients can include your own content as well as those from others. The idea is that you offer the promise of a consistent monthly email marketing newsletter to those that subscribe. In this way, you can keep your brand top of mind while keeping your promise.
- Invitation to local event – if you carter to a local clientele, chances are you are already using your social media presence for local advertising. But the key to reaching a wider audience is to expand your marketing channels. Including these local events in your email marketing campaign can result in greater attendance.
- New Product Announcement – ramp up sales with behind-the-scenes information as you roll out new products. Show exclusive picture or you can even go so far as to do your own “unboxing video”, helping your audience to visualize the product while demonstrating the most important features.
- New Service Offerings – As compared to a new product, new services are often not as exciting. But you can build excitement through a series of helpful tutorial as to what your new service has to offer. This is also a great place to add customer testimonials so early adopters can see that others have already tried the service.
- Sales Related – there are always opportunities to ask for the initial sale, and then to keep asking for more sales thereafter. Done correctly, these email marketing offers make both prospects and customers feel special and that there are saving money. Planning an email marketing campaign calendar is very important to ensure the frequency of sends is optimal to avoid unsubscribes:
- Flash Sales – nothing makes someone click “buy now” faster than a discount deadline. The inherent fear of missing out (FOMO) can be further enhanced utilizing a count-down clock. This is a great technique for eliminating overstock items or experimenting with loss-leaders to get more visitors to your ecommerce website.
- Abandoned Cart – there are many reasons that people don’t finish an online purchase after adding items to the shopping cart. You can increase sales by reminding them via email exactly what they left in the cart. This not only looks professional but gives you the opportunity to add other incentives to the mix, such as a free item or a discount deadline.
- Discount Coupons – finding a coupon code is like finding free money. Offer your best customers a loyalty discount or create a customer appreciation week. You can even stack offers to encourage larger purchases if they meet a cart minimum. With this type of ecommerce marketing, you can also track which codes worked best for future email blasts.
- Refer a friend discount – marketing to existing customers is far less expensive than converting a cold prospect into a customer. Why not recruit your best customers to become your most vocal salespeople by offering them an incentive? Assuming that they love your product or service, this extra nudge can bring you instant revenue for a small cost.
- Social Media tie in (Follow or Tweet for discounts) – the advantage of taking a holistic approach to your Internet marketing is that you can integrate different platforms. With effective email marketing, you can grow your social media presence by increasing engagement, which can lead to more sales through other channels such as social media ads.
- Holiday (Black Friday/Cyber Monday) – the holidays are a time when you can easily understand why email marketing works. People have come to expect discounts and pay more attention to their email inbox during the weeks leading up to a holiday. Here you can do a staggered launch to announce “specials coming soon” to get them ready for the sale dates.
- Personalized video (B2B sales) – sometimes a business-to-business sale can take months to close. Why not help it along by recording a personal video for your prospect to highlight product or service features and ask for the sale. This video won’t play in the email, but you can send a link for them to view on your website or using a private YouTube video.
- Transactional – this term generally means that a prospect has made a purchase and is now a customer. Your email marketing strategy can now shift to great customer service to keep them coming back for more. This is where understanding your audience and the power of a Customer Relationship Management system can really help create email content specific to groups of customers, making the email seem more like one-on-one communication:
- Thank you for purchasing –gratitude goes a long way, so make sure to thank customers for their purchases. This can be a special message from the owner, a photo of happy employees, or even a donation to a local charity because of their purchase. Showing you care cultivates the relationship and can open the door to other emails, such as the refer-a-friend discount.
- Get Started/Next Steps – with a product purchase, the next steps are generally shipping, however a services purchase may require more details. It can be helpful for the customer to understand what happens next, whether that be a timeline for them to receive the services or perhaps the ability to schedule a Zoom to do an on-boarding setup.
- Shipping Confirmation/Tracking – this one may seem obvious, but there are good shipping notifications and then there are some that lack details. At a minimum, you’ll want to send a link to the shipping company website to track progress, but why not include a setup guide or even an upsell discount if there are accessories that could enhance the product.
- Product Support – some products are easy to use and do not require any explanation. But that doesn’t mean you can’t send a quick email to offer support. This reinforces your commitment to a quality product experience and can give you a reason to upsell additional items or even some type of extended warranty.
- Customer Service – one of the best ways to create brand loyalty with current customers is by providing excellent customer service. Communication is key to that, so in addition to your Customer Relationship Management system, you may want to invest in a Ticketing system. These online portals allow customers to submit request online and create automated follow up emails to keep them informed.
- Returns – an early barrier to online shopping was the return process. Make this as simple as possible with easy-to-follow instructions and email communication along the way. Here you can offer alternative products to replace the return or elicit feedback as to the reason that they are returning the product.
- Ask for Reviews – people are busy, but you need to build up reviews in today’s online economy to increase sales. Using automated reputation management software, you can schedule an email to go out after the sale to ask for that review. This saves you time and will send them a couple of gentle reminders to encourage the review.
Who is Email Marketing For?
Every type of business can benefit from email marketing services. The fact is that all business models, be they a products business or a pure services only provider, have the same need; to convert prospects into customers. This also holds true for any size of business, from a solopreneur to a small or midsize business (SMB) because it does not take a large staff to operate a successful email marketing campaign. In the arsenal of digital marketing tools, email marketing is an equalizer because it offers a low-cost of entry with a high adoption rate by end users. You can get started quickly with a small email list of prospects and scale up affordably as your list grows.
As you consider the importance of email marketing for your small business, you should be aware that there are more complex aspects where you may need assistance. Whether you hire an email marketing agency or email marketing consultant to help, here are some of the more advanced topics to discuss with them:
- Email Marketing Strategy – Do they offer a roadmap for you to plan out your monthly sends? It’s critical that you have an email marketing plan in advance of holiday periods, as well as an annual calendar that helps to integrate all of your digital advertising. For example, you’ll want to synchronize an email offer with your paid search ads and social media ads to capture all the ways people shop today.
- Email Content Creation – it’s one thing to plan it all out and click “send”, but it’s a totally different task to be able to keep up with the volume of content required. Will you or whomever you hire be able to write all the email marketing content? Consider too that the brand messaging across all your digital channels should also sound the same to present cohesive communication.
- Email Marketing Automation – reacting automatically to how your prospects interact with each email send is a powerful aspect of email marketing. This feature saves time and can be instrumental in creating additional revenue. But it also requires both that the email marketing service providers offer this feature, and that your capable of programming this into your email marketing design.
- Marketing Analytics – do you have an analytics dashboard that can incorporate all the digital analytics from your various Internet marketing campaigns? The best email marketing service providers will have built-in analytics for Open Rate, Clickthrough Rate (CTR), and Click-to-open rate (CTOR). But you’ll need to view the metrics from other sources to get a complete picture.
- Conversion Optimization – not all emails you send will provide stellar results, so can you figure out how to improve those results? Besides reviewing all the digital analytics to help you decide, you may need graphic design services to alter your email marketing template. Sometimes a simple change as to the positioning of a button or the color of the background can increase the CTR tremendously.
How Much Does Email Marketing Cost?
As previously mentioned, email marketing for small business is one of the more cost-effective digital marketing services. It will not break your marketing budget and should be a top consideration within your digital marketing strategy. Here are a few of the items that will help you determine cost:
Email Subscription Cost – you can’t even get off the ground if you’re a startup or a seasoned business that just never collected email addresses. Having a clean email list where users have opted in to receive your email is the only way you’ll be successful. Purchasing email lists or scraping email addresses from websites may be considered SPAM and you could be in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act, a law established in 2003 to protect consumers. Once you’ve done that, email marketing will no longer be cost effective as non-compliance with this law is very costly.
A better path is to start collecting email addresses from prospects and customers directly. You can enter them into Excel or a Google Sheet and import those email addresses into your Customer Relationship Management system or directly into the Email Service Provider system. But how do you acquire them legally? This is where a lead capture page come in and may include the following:
- Subscribe to Newsletter or Offers – this is a simple approach that requires the visitor to enter their email address in a single box on your website. Doing so would indicate that they agree to receive your email marketing newsletter or discount offers via email.
- Subscription Lead Magnets – often people need a bigger carrot before they agree to let you send things to their email inbox. The solution is to give away some form of useful information to entice them. These free items are typically called lead magnets as they pull people into subscribing. For example, you could create a “How-To Guide” as a PDF or video and give them access to that content after they complete a form on a special website landing page. The form could be simple and just ask for the email address, but considering you are giving them something more valuable, it’s okay to ask for more, like name, company, or phone number.
Perhaps an example will help clarify how this works. Suppose I’ve found a whitepaper, also known as a lead magnet, on Chatbots I’d like to read called The Rise of Chatbots in Customer Service & Support. After visiting that website link, I’m presented with a “Download Now” button, giving the impression that I can simply download a PDF and start reading. But when I click on that button, a popup window appears and asks for my first name, last name, and email address. Once I enter those, I’m able to download the PDF. Another name for this type of functionality is called “gated content” because I can’t get to the a lead magnet until I perform the task that will open the gate so to speak.
- Double Opt-In – with either of the above methods, it’s best to confirm the email address that they entered by asking them to click a link in an email that you’ve sent to that address. This will keep your email list clean as you’ll get confirmation that the email address is real, plus it acts as a secondary agreement that they want to receive your communications, keeping you compliant with the CAN-SPAM Act.
Email Marketing Design – to be effective, your email messaging must resonate with potential and current customers while grabbing their attention with great layout and design. Most of the major Email Service Providers, like Mailchimp email marketing and Constant Contact email marketing, do provide pre-formatted templates. Those will help, but you’ll still need to write all the email content, find images, dedicate the time to learn how to manipulate the templates, and worst of all, your competition might be using the same template for their email marketing. This is when it makes sense to hire a full service digital agency that can provide both email marketing content and graphic design services. Having a professionally written email subject line with great visuals inside can dramatically increase your open rates and clickthrough rates, providing you more revenue than the cost to outsource this task.
Email Sending Cost – once you’ve got a clean email address list, a great looking design, and perfect copy, the only task left to complete is to click “send”. But considering this is a mass email send, you certainly can’t do it reliably through Outlook or Gmail. So how much it costs you will depend on which of the email marketing companies you’ve chosen. They all typically price based on the number of email addresses that you plan to send to per month. This usually starts around 500 contacts at the low end and can go up to 100,000 contacts at the high end. The cost can increase from there quite dramatically depending on the features that you need. Some of the smaller Email Service Providers will only offer basic features, but the best email marketing service will offer more advanced features such as:
- Marketing Automation
- Advanced Segmentation
- Website Personalization
- Landing Pages
- Auto Responders
- Conditional Content
- Subscription Forms
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
- Contact & Lead Scoring
- Predictive Sending (AI sends at right time)
- Subscribe by SMS (text) messaging
- Facebook Custom Audience integration
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Email Addresses
| Starter Plan | Growth Plan | Pro Plan |
|---|---|---|
| 1,000 | 2,500 | 5,000 |
Each of our plans offers a specific number of email addresses that can be stored. Each address represents a contact who can be sent an email campaign, with unlimited campaign sending per month.
Email Design / Content
| Starter Plan | Growth Plan | Pro Plan |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 4 |
Create the email layout, including the subject line, content, image, Google Analytics links, and segmentation (unique email content based on each target audience).
Email Marketing Automation
| Starter Plan | Growth Plan | Pro Plan |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 |
Save time by leveraging technology to sends unique messaging to each email contact based on how they interact with your email campaigns (based on opens, clicks, and website visits).
Email Personalization
| Starter Plan | Growth Plan | Pro Plan |
|---|---|---|
Creating that personal connection in email is far more than just dropping the person’s first name. The more data that you have about a prospect or client, the more personalized the communication becomes and the more inclined they are to click.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
| Starter Plan | Growth Plan | Pro Plan |
|---|---|---|
Integrate your marketing and sales by keeping better track of prospects and customers. Stop searching through your email to find a customer’s phone number. Keeps a history of all communication in one place and lets you close more deals faster.
Lead Scoring
| Starter Plan | Growth Plan | Pro Plan |
|---|---|---|
Some people are almost ready to buy from you. Some are in danger of not becoming customers. Lead scoring lets you track engagement and know who to follow up with.
Website Tracking
| Starter Plan | Growth Plan | Pro Plan |
|---|---|---|
Know when a prospect is visiting your website and which content they are reading to react to their needs in real-time. Helps to connect your sales and marketing processes to create more conversions.
Email List Validation
| Starter Plan | Growth Plan | Pro Plan |
|---|---|---|
The effort put into email marketing campaigns is wasted if a large percentage of the emails in your list are bad. This can damage your email sending reputation and limit revenue due to lost sales opportunities. It’s time to clean up your email marketing lists.
Email Subscription Lead Magnets
| Starter Plan | Growth Plan | Pro Plan |
|---|---|---|
Getting someone to sign-up for your email marketing list can be challenging, but what if you could provide some value in return? By creating content in the form of an eBook that your target market is interested in, you can offer them the carrot they need to opt-in.
Dynamic Email Content
| Starter Plan | Growth Plan | Pro Plan |
|---|---|---|
Get more contacts to become customers by showing them what they want to see. Dynamic content lets you change the text and images in an email to put different messages in front of different people.
Abandoned Shopping Cart Emails
| Starter Plan | Growth Plan | Pro Plan |
|---|---|---|
Over 40 different studies, the average eCommerce shopping cart abandonment rate is 69.57%. We’ll help you win back those nearly 7 out of 10 people and get them to “checkout” your online store again.