She's Not Dead!

And by "She", I mean email marketing. I have given my email to so many companies that I have a separate email just for all of the marketing communications I know I will be receiving. Personally, I don't think they are that effective on me because I rarely check that email and only use my professional email for school and work. But here's the thing, I might be the outlier because email marketing is still alive, and well it's just evolving with the times.

What is Email Marketing?

Email marketing is the act of sending a commercial message to a group of people. Emails are sent to potential or current customers to try and influence conversions. Email marketing is used to send out promotions, sales, or solicit donations and is one of the cheapest ways to gather engagement. Here are some facts about email marketing.

• Email is almost 40x better at acquiring new customers than Facebook and Twitter - McKinsey & Company
• 78% of marketers have seen an increase in email engagement over the last 12 months - Hubspot "State of Marketing" (2020) 35% of marketers send their customers 3-5 emails per week. - Hubspot "State of Marketing" (2020)
• Marketers consistently ranked email as the single-most-effective tactic for awareness, acquisition, conversion, and retention. - Gigaom Research "Workhorses and dark horses: digital tactics for customer acquisition"

Why Should I Use Email Marketing?

With email marketing, marketers can create specific content that can be sent out to their target in a fast and easy way. This message can also be personalized when using a mail service because the name of the receiver can be on the top of each email making it seem more singular rather than a mass email. Email marketing can also be helpful in collecting data on your target by sending out customer satisfaction surveys. It's also so much easier to reach people because they are constantly checking their emails everywhere they go now that we can do so on mobile devices. There are so many benefits to email marketing, read more about them here.

What Services Can I Use?

Two popular email marketing services out there are Mail Chimp and Constant Contact. These services allow users to streamline their marketing communications and can be automated. Just sit back and watch it get sent! Another cool thing about using an email marketing service is that you can A/B test your emails to see which brings a greater outcome.

Mail Chimp

"Built to help you grow your own way" Mail Chimp is a popular email service great for e-commerce, retail, startups, agencies, and more. They offer built-in security, four different pricing plans to grow with you, 300+ integrated applications, support GDPR industry compliance, and have great support for when you need help. The price range begins at $0 and can go all the way up to $299 for their premium subscription. We used Mail Chimp when I was a Social Media officer for Planned Parenthood Generation and it helped us keep members up to date with meetings and volunteer opportunities.

Constant Contact

"Email marketing and more, made easy." Constant Contact is similar to Mail Chimp in many ways. One unique difference that Constant Contact offers is not only just their email service but it can also be used as a website for the business. They have an A.I. powered website builder to help businesses create websites that can be integrated with their email marketing campaigns. Pricing for Constant Contact is different from Mail Chimp because they offer a free trial but then businesses need to start paying after that trial period. The price ranges from $20-$45 per month for their email marketing services. They have separate pricing for their website services which is $10 per month.

Marketing Automation

According to Hubspot, "marketing automation refers to software that automates your marketing for you. The software is designed to help you prioritize and execute your marketing tasks in a more streamlined and efficient way". Automation doesn't replace you and your job but it will make you more effective. This is a great tool for marketers because it can make an impact on the number of conversions you are able to get in a campaign. Email marketing when done wrong is just email blast after email blast. With marketing automation, it can be more specialized and used at every step of the process. I believe that email marketing and marketing automation can be used in conjunction because they are both great tools to reach current consumers and prospects and eventually turn those into conversions.

Best Marketing Automation Practices

Integrate with Inbound Baby! Marketing automation is used best when it is integrated with your inbound strategy. "Inbound is about providing valuable content that aligns with your customers' needs and interests" (Hubspot). Used together these two tools can help enhance your communications, providing the content they need at the time they need it.

Set Up Customer Engagement Campaigns. Keeping customers engaged is essential to company growth and brings in the big bucks. We want to continue our relationship that makes customers happy so they continue using our product or service. A way to nurture this relationship is by sending out customer satisfaction surveys. Marketing automation is a great way to accomplish this.