“ Danielle Symone is one of the best E-Mail Marketers I’ve seen for bringing businesses quickly and painlessly to a place where their emails can be a truly strategic marketing channel. She is, quite simply, the on-ramp for the next generation of sophisticated email marketers.”
- Bill Nussey, CEO, Silverpop
Email marketing means different things to different people. Some see it as a critical communication link between consumers and the brands they trust and love; others see it as a thinly veiled, intrusive marketing tool. Either way, the email marketing you conduct today faces stiff competition from the email communication that is now the backbone of our digital lifestyles.
"My favorite types of emails are the notices from my online photo sharing program letting me know my friends have posted new photos. It makes me feel really connected to them and makes me happy."
Participant, Email Experience Council keynote presentation:
“The Value of Email, in the Eyes of the User,” 2008
The Five Types of Email
Spending time improving the “in-business” tactical elements will not significantly improve your email marketing efforts if you have not first effectively defined why you are embarking on an email marketing campaign, what the ultimate message you want to resonate with your reader is, and how your reader will be able to demonstrate that they have not only understood your message but also acted on it. Are you ready for the five key types of email you need to know about to create a marketing success? OK then, let’s get down to business. We believe that out of all the thousands of types of emails you can design, or hundreds of thousands of permutations of creative, i.e. images and marketing copy, for your messages, you will ever create only five key types of email messages:
• Awareness
• Consideration
• Conversion
• Product usage
• Retention and loyalty
Awareness
- Forget email marketing for a second, and think about the goal of creating brand or product awareness with your consumer. At this stage, you are simply trying to create awareness that you exist in a consumer’s mind-set.
Consideration
- Once you have a consumer’s attention (usually at the point where they have been exposed to your product or service multiple times), you need to think about a new type of email: email messages that create and drive consideration. Unlike awareness-related emails, consideration emails contain educational elements that actively move the reader toward taking an action to buy or try your product. These emails focus on specific benefits of the product and in many cases provide a means for people to self-qualify themselves as viable prospects
Conversion
- Conversion emails are the most common form of email marketing messages that a person receives (outside of personal communications). These messages are your standard, hard-hitting, “Buy it now” and “Sign up today” emails. But email marketer, beware! These emails can be the worst performers when you evaluate your return on investment (ROI). Conversion emails work well when the reader is already in the mood and mind-set to purchase something from your company. Send this message to them at any other time, and you run the risk of alienating them from engaging in a future conversation.
Product Usage
- After the initial sale has been made, many email marketers get lazy, stop working, or flip the responsibility of emails to another department within the company. Don’t fall into this trap! For example, when you purchase something from Amazon, you immediately receive a confirmation email. Inside that email are some recommendations of other products that people who bought the same thing you did also purchased. A week later, you receive an email asking you to complete a survey about how happy you are with the product you have purchased and, again, subtly recommending products “others like you” have tried. This sneaky but clever service-oriented approach to the email cross sell/up-sell works more times than you can imagine. The bottom line is, once someone purchases your product, they are going to use it. And whether they like the product or not, they will be talking about their experience, possibly online. Your best bet is to keep the lines of communication and influence open and capitalize on this effort; by sending emails as they are using the product, you can help soothe upset consumers or expand the reach of loyalists.
Loyalty
- Similar to usage emails, loyalty emails are sent only after a sale or transaction has taken place between you and your customer. The difference is that usage emails drive the customer to use the product or service they just purchased, and the emails encourage the reader to share their resulting feedback with friends and family. This helps capitalize on the “high” of buying something they value to leverage viral marketing. Loyalty emails, however, have a much longer life span. They need to keep someone engaged with your product or service for the life of your relationship with them (or until it is time to make the next purchase).
Is this type of email important? One thing is for certain:
With more than 41 emails popping into your consumer’s inbox on a daily basis, you need loyalty email to keep your brand on your consumer’s mind. The role of loyalty emails is simple: keep your company and your company’s sense of value on top of the consumer’s mind. Often referred to as e-newsletters, loyalty emails don’t sell, they celebrate!
Understanding the Economic Impact of Email
Let’s talk money. As you’ll see while learning the nuts and bolts of it throughout this blog, email marketing is a demanding, high-energy effort. Does it really have a strong payoff?
We have a secret to share with you here: Email is driving your offline and online growth! It’s true. Although many marketers have focused on revenue and sales being driven from other channels, such as the Web, stores, and even direct-response social ads, it is email that has evolved over the years to be the “super influencer.”
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In our next blog...
We explore the five categories of email messages you will send: awareness, consideration, conversion, usage, and loyalty. The next blog will focus on the critical elements to consider for any of these types when designing an email campaign. To become a skilled email marketer, you need to understand how to continue improving results over time. This next blog will help, and we hope it quickly becomes one you bookmark for future reference.
Thank you for reading!
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