Is Email Marketing Still Effective For Business

With Digital Marketing trends changing frequently, Many people still have questions regarding Email Marketing like:
Should E-mail marketing be included in Digital Marketing strategy for brands?
Do still business needs e-mail marketing?
Is it worth to spend on Email Marketing budgets?

The answer is YES to all this. The email marketing is the oldest form of Marketing and it is not dead, it is still considered to be the most effective way of marketing. Do read how you can succeed for your business by integrating email marketing and why is still important for business.

What is Email Marketing?

Email marketing is an electronic medium through which you can communicate with your targeted audience by sending information through emails regarding your product/services which might be useful to them. Mails are sent to the group of recipients, it is a direct way of communicating with your prospects. Different types of emails which are sent are:

  • Welcome Mail to the newly user who registered to your email id
  • Promotional Mails regarding discounts and offers on products or services
  • Thank you mails on purchasing your products or services
  • Updates and newsletters of the company

    Some Facts that proves that Email Marketing is still effective

    Email marketing is up to 40 times more effective than social media, according to a study done by McKinsey & Company.
    The same study also shows that the buying process happens 3 times faster than in social media.
    According to the Fourth Source website, 92% of internet users have at least one email account.
    People might not access social media too frequent or they might not have social media account but 99% of people will have email ids.
    Also with email marketing we can have direct contact with our customers which is one of the reason it is still effective.

How email marketing works?

The basic steps to run an email marketing campaigns are to take a permission from your customer to send them emails, built a list, segment it, create marketing campaigns choose a email marketing tool which suits your business type and goals and send the emails.

It is very easy for business to send mails to the group of people on regular basis but doing it in a correct way is more important to get most out of it.

Why email marketing is important to the brands/ Business?

Though email marketing is one of the oldest and traditional ways of marketing, it still has a huge benefit and great impact. It is still the most powerful way to connect to people.

It might happen that some people may not have account on social media but they will have email account.

  1. Low Cost Investment – The main advantage of email marketing is that it the low cost investment to the company, Other mediums like print media, TV, advertisements are too much expensive compare to email marketing campaigns. They are very cost effective and its benefits are also too vast.
  2. Measurable – While the companies are running the campaigns, they should have a clear idea of what they are gaining with their marketing campaigns, where they are lacking and what are innovative ways through which they can accomplish their goals. Business should have the clear view of all this. With E-mail marketing tools it becomes easier to measure the success of the campaigns and design strategy accordingly. With email marketing you can measure valuable insights like open rate, bounce rate, engagement with the content, subscriber’s retention. With so many tools email campaigns are highly and easily measurable which can benefit the business to gain their goals.
  3. Integration – Email marketing tools helps to integrate with the CRM, Social Media, web analytics systems. This helps the business to know their customers better and segment accurately based on their profiles. This makes them easier to market their products to the prospects and reach out by crafting messages rightly to the right audiences and maximize the Return on Investment
  4. Helps businesses to generate leads and drives conversions – The main focus of any business is to drive sales. With the email marketing it is easily achievable. You can be constantly in touch of your potential customers through a great content, deliver the information in which your audience is interested, share promotions, events, news updates. This increase engagement of customers with your business and helps business to nurture the relationship with your customers and increase lead generation which in turn helps business to drive more conversions.
  5. Builds strong relationship and brands trust – Through email marketing tools business can communicate at the personalized level. It allows the business to communicate with the individuals feeding personalized information. The personalized data such as purchase history, the interaction with the website can be fetched through the integrations and database and emails can be sent accordingly. Personalization helps to built stronger relationships and it also build trust for the brands. Email offers the most customized marketing solution to the business. 

Success of how email marketing will work for your business:

The email marketing will work best for you if you have taken care of the factor known as CRITICAL

  • Creative – Use a smart layout, this refers to the overall template, design, images, colors and also keep in mind that email are read on mobile too, so make the template user friendly.
  • Relevance – Always customize and personalize your emails and make it relevant to the individuals, do not just send the generalize emails, send it according to the interest and preferences of your customers
  • Incentive – The email should give a clear message to the user – What is in it for me. It should clearly highlight the benefits for the customer   
  • Timing – Time for sending an email, plays a major role. Know which timings works best, it is believed the emails sent in afternoon works well rather than overnight, send the emails accordingly.
  • Integration – Email marketing cannot depend on one channel, Integration with CRM ensures that you know more about your customers and accordingly you can plan your strategy.
  • Copy – While creating an email copy ensure that the tone you are using to communicate, the subject lines, the signature. This is one of the factors to get higher conversions in your business. Do test the different versions before sending the emails.
  • Attributes – the email header is of utmost important, check its attribute like subject line, to/from address, cc, BCC. This can factor into spam if not tested or handled correctly.
  • Landing Pages – Do not link your emails to the landing page, but link it with the most relevant page or offering page on your website. The links in your email should redirect your customer to the same page of what you are offering or giving the information to your customers.

Email marketing still remains the most effective strategy in 2020 when it comes to reach customers directly, attract, retain, update and want to stay loyal for your brand .

Learn the right Email marketing strategies that will definitely lead you to staggering 70% of growth for you business.

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3 Digital Mediums You Should Prioritize To Boost Sales In 2020

As we are all aware now a days that whether we are just a start up, big brand name or having just a small existence of brand online it is must that your presence on digital marketing channels should give good Return on Investment (ROI). We need to also outbeat our competitors and most importantly we would like to get results in quick time that you are investing in your marketing efforts. To win in this cat race it is very important that you prioritize the digital marketing channels to boost your business sales and get ROI in less time.

  • Lets understand how each of these 3 digital marketing channels which can help brands to boost sales

    1. Pay Per Click Marketing
PPC in Patna | PPC advertising in Patna | PPC company
  • Pay Per Click marketing is also known as PPC marketing which refers to the paid advertising. Where you pay to the network to show your advertisement on them. Major players which can help with your ppc marketing efforts are Google Ads , YouTube and Facebook Marketing.

    Let us understand how these 3 networks can help you:

    There are over 3 million searches happening on Google search and Google can help you to connect with the prospects who are searching for products or services which you are providing. With Google you can reach millions of target audience who are interested. As millions of people are present or active on this network chances of your brand to become popular becomes high. Also once you advertise it is guaranteed that your ads will be shown and that to only the relevant audience. In recent years YouTube has also gain huge popularity, it is the associated partner of Google and to show ads you have to use Google tools. You can get good audience reach if you want to make your brand popular. But conversions might be less compare to Google network.

    After Google next big player is Facebook. Facebook also has millions of an audience base where you can improve your brand presence and increase sales.  Like Google it will also guaranteed that your ads are shown to audience likely to converted with relevant audience targeting. The only advantage with Facebook paid advertising is that it has more robust targeting as compare to Google network, e.g. using Facebook Ads I can do in-depth targeting e.g. If my brand is about providing gifting articles than on Facebook I can target people whose anniversary or birthday is coming in next 15 days, so people might be searching to gift and whooo, my ad will pop up to those target audiences, while using Google I can do targeting on broad level like people interested in purchasing gift articles. Moreover advertising on Facebook is affordable compare to Google, but when we talk about the reliability no one can beat the Google network.

    So now when you ask which network to choose for advertising Google, YouTube or Facebook, good suggestion is do a research about your presence of your audience, where you pitch them with the sales message most relevant audience according to the type of brand you have.

    While promoting on PPC channels every brand should remember these 2 golden rules:

    a. Do not Mislead your audience:

    Do not mislead the users with claims or representations that are likely to create a false impression in consumers as to the price, value or quality of goods or services on offer. Whenever you advertise Do not mislead, provide accurate details, and only disclose the offers that you are actually giving. Your customers will love your brand for your honesty and will remain loyal

    b. Create an appealing impact to your customers viewing your ads

    Create an appealing ad copy, it can be considered as a sales copy where you as a brand has to prove your best and convince your audience to avail services and purchase products from your brand. Try to provide how your audience will be benefited and try to include your best-selling points. Highlight what makes you unique compare to your competitors.

    The main advantages that brands can get with adopting PPC channels are:
  • Quick brand presence and awareness.
  • Mass audiences can know about the promotional offers and product offerings
  • Instant brand visibility
  • Good audience reach

    2. Social Media Marketing
Benefits of Social Media Marketing - SEO AIM POINT
  • When it comes to digital marketing, undoubtedly Social Media is a biggest player from all of them, may in terms of community building, continuous presence of your audience being active.

    With social media you have a great opportunity to connect your customers with your brand, whether it is about any updates, informative blogs, post about offers or video behind the scene there is so much varied content to share. You can also get connected with the like-minded professionals by creating different groups and can amplify the reach. Leveraging social media channels is definitely worth.

    While promoting on social media every brand should remember these 2 golden rules:
  • Focus on rapport with your prospects rather than sales
    You should always provide more of valuable and interesting post to engage your customers rather than just promoting your business all the time. You should always focus on 80:20 ratio. I.e. 80% of your post should be informational blogs, educational videos, industry updates and 20% should be offers, discounts, sales post. Your prospect would rather prefer to visit website to get converted. Interact with your prospects enthusiastically. Know when your prospects are active and schedule the posts accordingly, be consistent and understand that what kind of your post interest your audience. Write for your audience and not for yourself
  • Choose the right Social Media Platforms Mix
    Being so many options available with social media channels It is very important that you select the right mix of social media channels according to the type of brand you are, for e.g. if you are into e-commerce industry than best suitable social media channels can be Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and WhatsApp rather than LinkedIn.

    Some social media channels are meant to be for B2B business, some for B2C and some can have mix of both, so this does not directly means that if you are into B2C business you cannot have presence on social media channel which is meant mostly for B2B, if you can optimize your content well then why not.

    The main advantages that brand can get with social media are:
  • Increase Brand Awareness
  • Improve Brand Loyalty
  • Build Brand Equity
  • Humanize Your Brand
  • Stay Top of Mind With Your Customers
  • Establish Your Brand as an Authority & Thought Leader
  • Reputation Management
  • Boost Customer Engagement
  • Open Communication
  • Improve Sales
  •  Make Content Go Viral

    3. Email Marketing
Email Marketing for Financial Advisors : Best Practices for 2019 ...
  • Email Marketing is one of the oldest form of marketing. We can say that even before the evolution of digital marketing, email marketing concept was into existence. It is term to be more personalized or direct form of marketing as you are directly interacting your audience through emails. Email marketing refers to directly sending a commercialized message to a group of people. Every email sent to a potential or current customer could be considered email marketing.

    Unlike one-to-one messages, email marketing entails sending one message to many people—dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of people.

    Email Marketing is a form of Direct Marketing. The different types of e-mails that brand can send are:

    Welcome emails – Whenever someone signups to your newsletter.
    Promotional emails – Whenever brand is offering some discounts or offers, Transnational emails – Whenever audience purchase or have transactions on the website brands share updates.
    Retention/follow-up emails – Whenever audience shows interest but do not get converted, you can send a convincing message to consider your product or service to purchase

    While promoting on Email Marketing channel every brand should remember these 2 golden rules:

    a. Have good subject line:

    A subject line is the deciding factor whether your email will be opened or not. Give the reason to audience to click and read the message, try to include offer value, incite urgency, or both in your subject lines in order to increase clicks. Tempt users to click and open your message. Include personalization, e.g. address your email subject line with the persons name, it makes your audience feel special and thinking that the message is crafted especially for them

    b. Keep it short and simple:

    No one has time to read your entire message, keep your message short and crisp, make it easier for the user to understand about what you are trying to convey. Have a good and decent design connecting with your brand, e.g. if your brand represents yellow and black color include images and messages with same color combination so that audience can easily connect with your brand. A simpler to read and scan for users to understand about what you are trying to convey.

    The main advantages brand can get with email marketing campaigns are:
  • Build stronger relationship with your customer
  • Acquire new customers
  • Build Brand awareness
  • Increase Sales
  • Support other marketing initiative

Conclusion :

You really need to know the good strategies and how you can configure on digital marketing channels as if any mistake there will be huge loss in terms of marketing budget, efforts, in some cases it might also hamper your brand reputation.
If you are excited to learn the art and science behind this for your brand successful journey on digital marketing channels then enroll for IIDME’s digital marketing course which are designed to understand how to practically implement these strategies in real scenario for the brands.

Whether you do digital marketing yourself or tie up with any agency this knowledge will definitely help you to build the right strategy to build your brand online presence and boost sales

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Effective Digital Marketing Strategies For Brand Success

What is a Digital Marketing Strategy?
Digital Marketing Strategy can be defined as a holistic approach to create a comprehensive plan of action which helps the business to achieve their digital marketing goals.

What is the need for Digital Marketing Strategy?
In today’s digital era, where every brand knows the importance of their presence of Digital Marketing, no matter what is the size of the business whether it is small, large, startup, everyone is adopting different digital marketing channels for the brand presence.  For any successful implementation of digital marketing efforts every marketer should prepare an effective digital marketing strategy.  Let’s have a look regarding the effective digital marketing strategies that every brand must follow:

1. Set up digital marketing strategic business planning:
Create a well-defined business plan template to get an overview of your business idea and the essence of your product or service, break it down into key parts. Check out what are the key objectives you need to include in your business plan template. Below are given key points that you can include:

a. Identify the Problems:
List down –  What problems are people facing? List their top 3 frustrations.
Existing Alternatives
This can be a direct competitor to what you are offering or the existing ways people are employing to address their problems.

b. Solutions:
List down – How will you solve these problems? Write down a solution for each problem.
Identify Key Metrics for the solutions.
You can note the key points of how will you measure the success of your product or service? List the key metrics.
E.g. if your competitor is performing well in terms of brand presence on social media, then likes, reach, engagement of the post can be key metrics measured, you can use SEM rush tool to do competitor analysis and compare your brand with the competitor for any brand for all the channels in digital marketing

c . Unique Value Proposition:
List down – How will you turn an unaware visitor into an interested customer?
Create a clear and compelling one-liner message you want to send across.
Create High Level concept for your value proposition:
Identify how does your product or service fit into the grand scheme of things? Try to be innovative and prepare Unique Selling preposition

d. Unfair Advantages:
Identify what separates you from competitors? What makes you ahead of the pack? Look at the opportunity gap and identify how you will fulfill
Identify Channels
How will you reach your target consumers? Direct marketing, social media, ads, partnerships — identify the effective ways to reach them

d. Customer Segments:
Create 3 to 4 personas of the people you can help. Visualize these people who will turn to you for solutions.
Early adopters for your customer segment
Identify what are the specific characteristics of your early adopters?

e. Cost Structure:
What are the fixed and variable costs to launch your product or service? Consider the cost at each stage from setting up a website, hiring employees, production, marketing, and bringing them to consumers.
Revenue Streams for your cost structure
What money sources will grow your money? How will you generate income?
Show a pricing model of your product or service and include other revenue
sources, such as sales and subscription fees.

2. Find Your Competitive Position with a SWOT Analysis

A SWOT analysis maps out your companies path towards your goals by identifying strengths and weaknesses (internal attributes) and opportunities and threats (external conditions). Uncover your company’s competitive position with these guiding questions. Use the blank framework on the next page to start filling out your own SWOT analysis.


Strengths – What advantages does your company have? What do you do better than anyone else? What are your unique selling points?

Weakness – What areas can you improve on? What does your company lack? What things do your competitors do better than you?

Opportunity – What changes in technology, policies, and social patterns can be a growth opportunity for the company?

Threats – What are the obstacles to your company’s growth? What changing factors can threaten your company’s position?





3. Visualize Your Company’s Weak Points with a Pirate Funnel
The Pirate Funnel is a customer-lifecycle framework by Dave McClure that shows what you need to focus on to optimize your marketing funnel. It is called a Pirate Funnel because the first letters spell out “AAARRR” for Awareness, Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral, and Revenue. Use the blank framework on the next page to start filling out your own pirate metrics.


a. Awareness:
How will you introduce your company to your potential customers? Examples: impressions, click-through rate, visits, and social media metrics.

b. Acquisition:
Where are your potential customers coming from?
What channel is driving the most valuable traffic for your company? Examples: new leads, email subscribers, resource downloads, support and sales chats.

c. Activation:
How will your potential customers try your product or service for the first time? Examples: new trial signups, product sales, activation after app download.

d. Retention:
How many of your customers are you retaining? Why are you losing others? Examples: customer acquisition rate and customer churn rate.

e. Revenue:
 How can you increase revenue? What’s your monetization plan?
Examples: customer acquisition cost and customer lifetime value.

f. Referral:
How will you introduce your company to your potential customers? Examples: impressions, click-through rate, visits, and social media metrics.

4. Position Your Product or Service with the 4Ps of Marketing
The 4Ps of Marketing illustrates how product, price, place, and promotion work together when a product or service is launched to customers. It is created by Neil Borden in the 1950s to demonstrate the ways companies use advertising and marketing techniques to convert potential buyers into actual customers. Use the blank framework on the next page to start filling out your own 4Ps of Marketing.


a. Product:
Product refers to the good or service you are offering to customers. What needs does this product fulfill? What frustrations does it address? What makes it compelling to customers such that they will believe they need to have it? It includes

Brand
Features
Packaging


b. Promotions:
Promotion is how you will get the word out about your product or service to your target customers. It includes advertising, public relations, and promotional strategies like

  • Ads
  • PR
  • Social Media
  • Email
  • Search Engine
  • Video

c. Price:
Price is what customers pay for a product or service and it takes into account the cost of production. Are there established price points for this product or service in the market? How will this price compare with competitors? It includes

  • Discounts
  • Bundling deals
  • Credit terms

d. Place:
Place refers to how and where your customers will look to see your product or service. It also considers how you will deliver the product or service to them. Will it be in a physical store or online? What will be the distribution channels? It mainly includes:

  • Stores
  • Website
  • Online
  • Marketplace

5. Establish Your Product’s Appeal with a Product-Market Fit Pyramid
Product-Market fit is a concept coined Marc Andreessen and refers to your start-up being in a good market with a product that can satisfy that market. Finding Product-Market fit is the difference between struggling to find customers and having them knocking down your door for your product. Use the blank framework on the next page to start filling out your own Product-Market Fit Pyramid.

a. Identify your target customer:
Use market segmentation and create personas to get a picture of the people you are targeting. No need to be precise. A high-level hypothesis is enough to start testing, and revise as you go

b. Know “undeserved” needs:
What needs do they have that are adequately met?

c. Define your value proposition:
How you will meet your customers needs better than your competitors? Of all the needs you can address with your product, which ones will you focus on?

  • Build only what is needed to create enough value for your target customers to validate the direction of your product.
  • Create a version of your product to test hypotheses with your customers. Apply user experience principles to receive feedback and to bring your feature set to life for your customers.

    d. Test it out to your customers.
    Ensure you are testing with your target market so feedback received will help iterate your product in the right direction. Making your test group answer a survey is a great way to ensure they possess the attributes of your target customer.

    6. Know the Stages of the Customer Journey with a Marketing Funnel
    A Marketing Funnel maps your company’s marketing activities at each stage of the customer journey. It starts with making your target audience aware of your solution, then guiding them through an evaluation process and finally leading them to make a purchase. Use the blank framework on the next page to start filling out your own marketing funnel.
    Marketing funnel will include the following key points:
  • a. TOFU – Top Of The Funnel
    Activities that facilitate awareness. Make your target audience aware of the problem you’re addressing and how you’re solving it
  • Social media post and ads
  • Email marketing
  • Promotional video
  • Press Release

    b. MOFU – Middle Of The Funnel
    Activities that facilitate evaluation. Convert those who are aware into leads
  • Discounts
  • Exclusive offers
  • Free trial
  • Event

    c. BOFU – Bottom Of The Funnel
    Activities that facilitate conversion. Guide the leads in making an informed purchase decision
  • Demo
  • Feedback
  • Success stories
  • Comparison sheets

7. State Your Company’s Mission, Vision, and Values 
Clearly defining your company’s mission, vision and values is a powerful way to align your team and reach your goals. Below are the points to be included for framework which will give you the idea of how to plan for it

  • Mission – It is the reason why your company exists. It is the visible and tangible effect you want your company to create for your customers and the world.
  • Vision – our company aspires to be in the future. It is how the world will look like once you’ve accomplished your mission.
  • Values – These are the guiding principles that will influence your actions to fulfill your company’s mission and vision.



    8. Clearly define your strategy planning with Strategy, Tactics and Execution
    A strategy, a list of tactics, and knowing how to execute them are integral in the attainment of your company goals. Use the blank framework on the next page to start filling out your own strategy, tactics, and execution
  • Strategy is how your methods, time, and resources come into play to fulfill your company mission and vision.
  • Tactics are the specific methods, resources, and techniques you will need to accomplish your strategy.
  • Execution is how you will employ the tactics you’ve chosen. It includes measurable outcomes, such as timelines and deliverable.

    9. Develop Deep Insights About Your Customers Using Buyer Personas

Buyer personas are semi-fictional representations of your target customers. These personas are based on market research and real data about the people you are targeting. Two to three buyer personas are ideal. The more detailed the buyer persona, the better.

Typically a buyer persona’s include following:
a. Demographics – Gender, age, marital status, employer
b. Buyers Journey – Awareness, consideration, purchase, advocacy
c. Buying Roles – Decision makers, influencers
d. Channels – Social media, other digital activities,non-digital activities
e. Sources of Information – Content that influences purchase decisions
f. Values and Fears – Values dependability, clarity, good UI, fast support Objects to pricing and poor value proposition during sales process

Not all audience is created equal. The need for a persona helps in:


• Targeting specific contents.

• Mapping content to the stage of buyer journey.

• Personalizing.

• Marketing to develop the correct pitch.

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