We continually talk about sending email campaigns, but do you actually know what is the meaning of email marketing? Do you really understand what really is email marketing, and what is not?
We will see in this post, the meaning of email marketing, from different points of view.
If you read the email marketing definition on Wikipedia, you will find the following:
Email marketing is directly marketing a commercial message to a group of people using email . In its broadest sense, every email sent to a potential or current customer could be considered email marketing. It usually involves using email to send ads, request business, or solicit sales or donations, and is meant to build loyalty, trust, or brand awareness. Email marketing can be done to either sold lists or a current customer database. Broadly, the term is usually used to refer to sending email messages with the purpose of enhancing the relationship of a merchant with its current or previous customers, to encourage customer loyalty and repeat business, acquiring new customers or convincingcurrent customers to purchase something immediately, and adding advertisements to email messages sent by other companies to their customers. Source, Wikipedia
It’s a good definition for email marketing, no doubt.
Note that it not only mentions the sale, but it also mentions the generation of loyalty, trust and brand awareness.
These points are very important and sometimes we forget these aspects.
As we can see, the email marketing is not just an advertising or sales channel, but also a channel to build brand image and increase the confidence of your customers in the company.
I like to see it as a part of your marketing strategy.
If your website or blog is the core of your online marketing strategy, the email marketing campaigns would be the unifying link of the different parts of the strategy.
Definition of email marketing as an advertising or sales channel
We have to consider that email marketing has some advantages when compared to other advertising media, such as banners on websites, ads on videos and other intrusive advertising options.
Advertising campaigns, according to a survey shared by Global Web Index in Reason Why told them that these campaigns often bother users who want to block ads and use tools for blocking these ads.
The main reasons were the following:
- There are a lot of boring or irrelevant advertising
- The ads take up much space on the screen and this bothers me while browsing
- There are many ads on the Internet
- Online ads are intrusive
- Many users don’t like to see ads before a video
- They try to always avoid publicity, even on television
- Other users are concerned about the fact that online advertising can endanger their privacy
- Many visitors don’t like personalized ads based on their previous searches
Do you understand the reasons?
This means there are many ads at inopportune moments and most users don’t want that. And there is also concern about privacy, rejecting advertising based on previous searches, the famous remarketing campaigns.
With email marketing, if done well, we can send good content to our subscribers.
Content that is of interest to the readers, not advertising, but useful content.
What to do?
The important thing is to try not to annoy the subscriber / customer filling his inbox with daily advertising emails.
Would you like to see an example?
This image:
This type of campaign is not very effective, it is not a good newsletter, I don’t unsubscribe because I like to use these newsletters as an example in articles like this. But if not, I would have canceled after a few days, because this image is showing an email with several things you could buy, not interesting content. And the bad thing is that when people think about what is the meaning of email marketing, they think about these sales campaigns with a list of products or services.
This explains the problem, right?
When I think of the definition of email marketing.
My concept is a bit different:
I have not selected an email with some blog posts, with a newsletter sending useful content. I prefer to use as an example a sales email, but with relevant information to demonstrate that it is possible to sell and provide useful information in the same message.
This is an email that offers related products to other I bought recently. This information can be helpful to find out products that may be of interest. And I don’t get these campaigns every day.
Working with email marketing as a part of our online marketing strategy is the best way to achieve good results.
I will add another image to explain this point:
This is what effective email marketing means to me:
- We have different online marketing campaigns, adwords, ads on social networks, banners, guest posts, etc.
- These campaigns direct the user to a landing page in a website, blog, etc.
- On the website, we will do everything possible to ask these visitors to subscribe to our newsletters.
- From that moment, we will use the email marketing campaigns, sending useful content and, at the appropriate time.
- We will send the email that will generate the conversion.
- This campaign will take the subscriber to the sales page (landing page).
- If it is not possible to convert, we can create remarketing campaigns, or continue sending other email marketing campaigns.
With these points, you can see how the email marketing is the core of our online marketing, the most important aspect of our overall strategy. It is really important when you think about profitability because it allows us to not waste the traffic generated with other online marketing campaigns.
Thus, in response for the question about the definition of email marketing, from the perspective of sales, in my opinion, it would be:
1 ⇒ The joint strategy and efforts of different marketing campaigns that allows us to send sales messages at the most opportune moment, and when the potential customer is more willing to buy
2 ⇒ It is a method of direct communication, which when well used, will be interesting for the subscriber, because he wants to receive the emails, unlike the rest of the advertising options that many users try to avoid and reject
A good advertising sales channel, don’t you think?
Definition of email marketing as a channel for generating confidence and improve brand awareness
In addition to a sales channel, email marketing is also an excellent tool for building trust and brand awareness. Through our emails, we can try to contact subscribers to:
- Clarify any doubt the subscriber may have about the products
- Show success stories about the product
- Send other customer reviews
- Follow the progress of the customer with the product or service
These types of emails help to build brand awareness and increase the trust of the subscribers. They are useful emails, not newsletters for selling products.
My personal view on how email marketing should be defined in relation to brand awareness is that we should offer customers the necessary information so they can get the maximum benefit from the product or service provided by the company.
It’s not easy to do, but offers better results over time, without burning your mailing list.
Think of the examples we have seen before, companies that send a daily sales email, usually can’t generate a positive brand awareness.
It’s something that can burn the mailing list, generating many opt-outs.
However, a focused campaign, sending good content to the subscribers, usually offers much better results, for example, with this campaign:
This campaign achieved a very positive result in terms of open rates, clicks and even some subscribers forwarding it to their friends.
Because we are sending a content that is not only interesting to the subscribers, but is also useful and this will make all the difference.
This in itself creates a positive brand awareness. And this results will help the company to keep the mailing list with interested subscribers.
In fact, you can say that these informative newsletters can be very effective over time, and this is something that is proven, because these emails are saved by many subscribers for future reference.
But the ultimate goal of our email campaigns is to sell, isn’t it?
Yes, and no one is saying it is not, and in fact these emails can also be used for selling, the best sales emails will offer good content as well:
Many times these emails can get new customers in each campaign, even if the main intention is not to sell or generate conversions.
It can also create brand awareness:
As always in @mailrelay they help our #company offering a very good #emailMarketing plan https://t.co/DTCkLTKzau
Ana del Valle Seoane (@AnadelValleMKTG) April 7, 2016
Como sempre na @mailrelay se preocupam com a nossa #empresa oferecendo um plano muito completo de #Marketing https://t.co/DTCkLTKzau
Ana del Valle Seoane (@AnadelValleMKTG) 7 de abril de 2016
Another clear example is the newsletters sent by Canva
Another clear example is the newsletters sent by Canva
Canva is a design tool for non-designers, an easy to use tool that anyone can use. Regardless of their design skills.
But, In the newsletters, they try to educate their subscribers on issues related to design:
Because, although the tool has been developed so anyone can use the system, offering basic information about design certainly will help users to get the most out of the system.
The email marketing is the best way to keep in touch with these subscribers.
Thus, regarding the definition of email marketing, for improving brand awareness, in my opinion, it would be:
1) A system to help the company to keep in touch with customers and subscriber over time.
2) A direct communication channel that allows us to study and analyze our customers’ needs, understand them better and offer support and the necessary tools so they can get more benefits with our product or service.
The question is, how can we work with email marketing?
By doing things properly:
It’s a direct communication channel with the customer.
Unlike normal advertising, which is increasingly ignored by many users, email marketing offers a two-way communication channel that is of interest to both customers and companies.
But be careful so you don’t create a monologue, sending newsletters created just to sell products. In this case, your email marketing campaigns will become what people don’t want to receive:
- Advertising
It is a matter of attitude, you should offer something back to the person who is reading your newsletter, not just try to get their money.
And this strategy will change the results we get from our email campaigns.
I hope you could understand the definition of email marketing that we explained.