Best Practices For Using Different Types of Email Marketing

Email marketing is a great method for connecting with your audience. It is easier to scale compared to other marketing methods and more cost-effective than online ads or influencer marketing. Unlike social media marketing, you can divide your audience into as many segments as you need, and doing A/B testing using emails is pretty straightforward. To top it all off, gaining access to your customers’ email addresses is not so difficult either. When you list the benefits of email marketing, it seems like it should be the golden child of marketing. However, we don’t hear about it as often as we should in marketing circles. Why is that? Is it an outdated marketing strategy? Is it not as profitable as, let’s say, social media marketing? Or is email marketing an oversaturated field?
Statistics show that email marketing can be at least as effective as other marketing efforts, but you need to know how to do it right. If you use effective email marketing strategies, you can benefit from all the advantages we have listed above without experiencing common email marketing problems such as inactive subscribers, unopened emails, or marketing emails going to spam folders. In this article, we are going to answer common questions about the efficacy of email marketing, go over the different types of email marketing, and share detailed tips that will help you create a successful email marketing strategy.

Is email marketing still relevant today?

To some, email marketing may seem like a product of a bygone era. They might think that marketers would be better off focusing on more modern strategies like influencer marketing or online ads. Email marketing statistics show that most marketers disagree. According to a Statista survey conducted in July 2022, B2C and B2B marketers put email marketing in the third spot on the list of leading digital marketing channels.

Another survey shows that email is the preferred communication channel for U.S. professionals.

As email marketing is a very low-cost and a highly scalable marketing method, the return on investment it offers is incredible: According to a DMA report from 2019, you can earn £42 for every pound you spend on email marketing. Moreover, DMA report from 2019the number of email users is predicted to grow to 4.6 billion in 2025.
With email marketing, you have the potential to reach almost any customer at low costs and high ROI, and this fact is not likely to change in the near future.

Why is email marketing important to your brand?

One of the best advantages of email marketing is how versatile it is. No matter which field you work in or what your marketing goals are, you can benefit from adding email marketing to your marketing plan. You can use email marketing to stay connected to your customer base, turn one-time customers to loyal customers, convert leads, promote important sales events, or share your brand story. There are various types of email marketing and at least one of them will help you reach your marketing goals. However, versatility can also mean that there are many ways to fail. To be successful, you need to gain access to audience data, have concrete marketing goals, and know what a successful email marketing campaign should look like. What the most successful email type and email frequency is different for each brand. However, when you have the necessary data and the know-how, you can unlock your marketing potential and take your business to new heights.

Types of email marketing

So, what is the correct email marketing type for your business? Let’s dive into different email marketing types, their use cases and advantages, and share practical email marketing tips that can help you create marketing campaigns that get results.

Welcome emails

Welcome emails are usually the first emails that you will send to your new customers. You can send them after a customer makes their first purchase, adds their email address to your email list, registers to your website, or attends your event. As these emails are usually the first contact with your audience, it is a good idea to be cautious. A boring-looking or spammy welcome email can mean losing that customer for good.

Be quick
The most important thing that you should remember about welcome emails is that you should not wait too long to send them. The best practice is to send them right after the customer makes their first contact with your brand. If you wait for a later opportunity, the customer may lose interest. Or, in the worst scenario, they may forget who you are and mark your welcome email as spam.

Keep them short
Consumers usually don’t tend to pay a great deal of attention to welcome emails. After all, they are only at the beginning of their customer journey and aren’t that invested in your brand. By keeping your welcome emails short, you can increase the chance of customers fully reading your communications.

Send multiple emails if necessary
If your ideal welcome is too long to fit in a short email, you can always divide your message into several emails. For example, you can start with a sweet welcoming gift and then send another email explaining how your system works. However, it is important to time your emails right. If you send them one after another, the customer will probably think you are spamming them. We suggest waiting for a few days, or even maybe a week, before sending your 2nd or 3rd welcome email.

Newsletters

Newsletters are the most versatile type of email marketing. They are great for staying top of mind and nurturing existing contacts. Newsletters are periodic emails and their content can be anything you can think of: You can promote new products, share your brand story, talk about important business events, or give links to your blog posts. Their periodic and versatile nature can also mean that you can end up creating very dull emails or realize you have nothing to share this week. Email marketing newsletters can require more planning than other types of emails and it is relatively easy for customers to completely ignore them.

Repurpose other content
Writing interesting newsletters periodically can be a challenge, but there are some shortcuts that you can take. The main purpose of newsletters is to update your customers and to keep them interested in your brand; you don’t always need to create new content. You can add excerpts from blog posts, add item descriptions that are already available on your website, share a news article, or summarize an event you have already talked about in detail in your other emails.

Try to provide value
You should always try to give your audience a reason to read your newsletters regularly. It is always a good idea to share practical information about your products and services. You can also share your company’s future plans, which can help you connect with your customers on a deeper level.

Share links
Newsletters don’t need to be as short as welcome emails, but sending a huge wall of text might deter some of your customers. To avoid this issue, you can summarize your message and add a link for those who want to see the full picture.

Promotional emails

Promotional emails are the most common type of email marketing. They can be used for promoting products, offers, or upcoming events. They are the most important tool in your arsenal for converting leads into sales, but standing out in the mass of other promotional emails can be tricky.

Try to stand out
As promotional emails have the potential to increase sales and bring revenue, brands use them frequently. As a result, consumers are bombarded with these types of emails and learn to ignore them very quickly. Some people may get tens of promotional emails each day, and marketers need to try very hard to stand out. But how can you do that?

• Don’t use generic subject lines. The first step you should take is to make sure you choose eye-catching subject and preheader lines, as customers use them to decide whether they should open your email or not. Don’t write generic lines like “Great deals await you!” or send promotional emails without a preheader. If you are offering a great deal, it should be at the front and center of your email. It is always beneficial to use humor or pop-culture references to attract customers’ attention.

• Personalize your emails. You can increase the chances of your subscribers interacting with your emails by giving the impression that the items you are promoting were handpicked for them. You can use customer data to promote products similar to those they have purchased before or are currently looking for. You can also add a more personal tone to your promotional emails by calling your customers by their first name and using a more informal language.

Add urgency
Statistics show that an average person sees between 4,000 and 10,000 ads each day. It is safe to say that people are not likely to buy most of the products they see advertised. Adding urgency to this equation can help urge consumers to move from consideration to purchase. It can be beneficial to limit the sales period to a few days and to make sure that this information is very visible in your emails. Using lines like “Buy while supplies last” can make you seem a little too pushy and be off-putting for your customers, but you can consider using lines like “2-day summer sale” or “Check out our new limited collection.”

Use visible CTAs
Now that you have caught your audience’s attention and given them a reason to consider buying your product, you can further urge them to make their purchase and facilitate the buying process by making your call-to-actions front and center. It can be a good idea to use eye-catching colors and large fonts for your CTAs.

Don’t just rely on promotional emails
Promotional emails can help you urge customers to go to the next step of their purchase journey. This means that for your promotional emails to be successful, the customer needs to already have either an interest in your brand or the intention of buying products similar to what you are offering. You should not just rely on promotional emails, but make use of other types of email marketing to reach out to new customers or nurture your existing sales leads.

Pace your emails correctly
No matter how eye-catching your promotional emails are, if you are sending five of them each day, they will be marked as spam sooner or later. While it is always important not to bombard your customers with promotional emails, the correct email frequency will be different for every brand. We suggest testing out different frequencies to find the sweet spot so that you don’t alienate your customer base or miss sales opportunities.

Promoting other communication channels

Sure, email marketing is great, but multichannel marketing always takes the cake. You can multiply the chances of your message reaching your audience by simply using another channel to repeat the same message. Everybody prefers different communication channels, and you may miss out on some opportunities if you just stick to email marketing. Email marketing is a great tool for promoting other platforms you are on.

Share your social media handles
If you are active on a social media platform, don’t forget to share this information with your customers. For example, adding your Instagram or LinkedIn handle to the end of each email is an unobtrusive but noticeable way to promote your social media accounts. You can also put social media links in your newsletters, if you have shared a relevant post somewhere else. For example, if you are mentioning how successful a particular business event was, you can add a link to the photos of the event that you have shared on Instagram.

Ask people to join your social media campaigns
Your brand may try its best to be authentic on social media, but you can never be as authentic as actual people who genuinely support your brand. Social media is a useful tool for word-of-mouth marketing, and you should use this tool to your advantage. If you are doing big giveaways on social media, you can send promotional emails to make sure you reach as many people as possible with this event. Alternatively, if you are inviting your customers to share testimonials or pictures of your products, you can consider using marketing emails to share this message.

Triggered emails

Triggered emails, also called transactional emails, are the emails you send to your audience after they complete a specific action. You can send triggered emails after your customers complete a survey, download a file, make a purchase, or sign up for a webinar. These types of emails can be used to show the next steps the recipient should take or to urge your customers to engage with your brand in other ways. Let’s look at some examples of transactional emails that can be beneficial for your brand.

Abandoned cart

Marketing emails sent after customers abandon their cart have a high chance of resulting in a purchase. However, it is important to know when to send such marketing emails and how to entice your potential customers. In order to achieve this feat, it is important to think about the reasons why the customer might have abandoned their cart. If you think that the customer simply has forgotten about their shopping cart, just sending a reminder might be enough. However, people who abandon their carts usually have other reasons to do so. They may be unsure if your product is the right one for their needs and have been reading reviews. They may be looking for cheaper options or think that the shipping costs are too high. If you think the former is true, you can try sending product information and positive reviews. If you think your prices might be too high for the customer, you can offer a discount or a free shipping option. If you’d like, you can send more than one marketing email about abandoned carts, but each email should deal with a different topic. For example, you can start with a simple reminder and continue with testimonials or free shipping offers. However, it is a good idea to wait a day or two before sending consecutive emails.

Post-purchase advice

When you send useful tips about your product after the customer completes their purchase, you can show that you care about the customer experience and nurture your connection with them. These types of marketing emails can help you turn new audiences into brand advocates and repeat customers.

Review requests

Marketing statistics show 95% of customers read product reviews before making their decision. Requesting reviews via email can be useful in increasing the number of positive reviews for your products. Of course, the recipients can choose to leave negative reviews as well. To lower your chance of receiving negative reviews, it can be a good idea to analyze customer data to determine what kinds of customers are more likely to leave positive reviews and plan your email marketing strategy accordingly.

Seasonal emails

Holidays and big shopping events like Cyber Monday have the potential to generate high revenue. You can use email marketing to make sure you do not miss out on this potential.

Send seasonal emails early
Customers are bombarded with marketing emails during the holiday season. It can be difficult to catch your customers’ attention when they see numerous holiday deals each day. Solution: Send your holiday emails when there is less competition. According to an NPD report, half of the holiday shoppers start shopping before Thanksgiving, and the percentage of customers waiting until December is decreasing each year. In 2021, 46% of consumers started holiday shopping earlier than in previous years. While sending promotional emails about the holiday season during the summer months might be odd, you can increase your chance of getting noticed if you act faster than your competitors.

Use festive and holiday-specific themes
Holidays are happy occasions, and you should try to match the tone by using fun colors and humorous taglines.

Segment your audience
You should know about the important holidays that are celebrated in the countries where you are promoting your offerings. By segmenting your audience according to the holidays they are most likely to celebrate, you can show them that you care about your customers and catch their attention when they are most likely to start shopping.

Re-engagement emails

Sometimes people can stop interacting with your emails. Having inactive subscribers means that you are not getting the most out of your email marketing campaign. Efficiency is important, but inactive subscribers can also bring an even more serious risk: a low deliverability rate. When your audience ignores your emails or marks them as spam, the likelihood of your marketing emails ending up in your customers’ inboxes decreases.

Try to re-engage inactive subscribers
If a customer has not been engaging with your marketing emails for some time, you should send them a re-engagement email. So, what are the best practices for re-engagement emails?

• Offer discounts. It can be beneficial to entice inactive subscribers with special offers and discounts. As always, you should use messages that create urgency. Limited-time offers can trigger FOMO and urge your customers to make quick decisions.

• Be bold and use CTAs. Customers can stop interacting with emails because they start to tune out usual promotional emails. That’s why it can be a good idea to show that this email is different by clearly stating your purpose and your offer in the subject and the preheader lines. For example, you can use a subject line like “We missed you! Special 30% discount to rekindle your interest.” Don’t forget to add prominent CTAs to your re-engagement emails to make the customer experience as smooth as possible.

• Give your audience more control. Sometimes people start ignoring emails because their frequency is too high or they prefer other communication channels. If you realize that you are not able to reach a customer with your usual email marketing strategy, you can offer the option to decrease the frequency of marketing emails or the option to switch to a different form of communication.

Cleanse your email list

When you realize your subscriber isn’t coming back, you should know to let them go and remove them from your email list. Keeping them can decrease the deliverability of your marketing emails and limit the possibility of your marketing emails reaching your engaged subscribers.

Global marketing campaigns

No matter which email marketing type you choose for your campaign, being active in multiple marketplaces and having a global audience has its own unique challenges. Having a multicultural audience means that you need to translate your email content, find a reliable and easy way to segment your audience, and keep local customs in mind. Here are our tips for navigating global marketing campaigns:

Use email marketing tools and automate the process
Sending any type of marketing email manually is a challenge, but managing multiple languages and audience segments manually can be a nightmare. By using email marketing tools and automating the email marketing process, you can free up your time and avoid human errors like sending a Greek newsletter to your German audience.

Pay attention to local holidays
For global companies, the benefits of seasonal emails are manifold. Holiday emails can be a great tool for generating sales and nurturing your leads. By celebrating your diverse audiences’ important local holidays and offering them great deals, you can show that you care about your customers and respect their culture. So, while sending festive emails during the holiday season can be a good start, you can take your seasonal marketing efforts to the next level by incorporating local holidays like Diwali, Ramadan, or the Chinese New Year into your email marketing plan.

Choose a reliable translation partner
If you want your global marketing campaigns to be successful, the first step you should take is to find a reliable translation agency that can deliver high-quality translations quickly and consistently. Email marketing, especially email marketing types like newsletters and seasonal emails, can be more time-sensitive than other marketing methods. The translation quality cannot be ignored either. Remember: Unlike online ads or social media campaigns, you are not casting a wide net hoping to generate leads, but you are trying to create an ongoing consumer-brand relationship with a curated audience. If you want to keep your active subscribers, it is essential to deliver consistent and high-quality content to all of your audience segments.
Our suggestion? Whatever you are looking for in a translation partner, MotaWord can deliver. MotaWord supports 110+ languages, offers a fast translation service with its collaborative translation approach, and can deliver high-quality marketing translation thanks to its ever-growing team of experienced translators. You can visit MotaWord’s website to learn more, or get an instant quote to get started.