About 4 billion people use email regularly. So, it may seem like email is the best channel to get in touch with your audience and improve awareness.
Yet, it is not enough to list all your products or services in an email and send it to your prospects to get sales.
The truth is, research shows that 80% of internet users prefer learning about companies through custom content rather than from ads.
At the same time, over 70% of consumers get upset when they see irrelevant content.
In sum, it means that an email is a great tool for marketing. And many businesses have leveraged the power of newsletters and automated updates. Yet, there is more to email marketing than simply letting your audience know what offers you have in stock.
Here are the seven ways how content marketing principles can skyrocket your email campaigns performance:
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1. Email content marketing allows higher personalization level
Back in 2015, eConsultancy reported that email was the most personalized marketing channel. Despite some argument as to what respondents defined as personalization, it is still clear that marketers prioritize email.
Indeed, since you get client data after they sign up for your newsletter, you can use this information to segment your audience and personalize your email content correspondingly.
The more you segment, the more relevant content you can create and then use it in emails to enhance engagement.
What’s more, being a way of direct communication with customers, email allows you to ask bluntly what kind of content your readers want to see and act on the answers.
This information lets you synchronize your email marketing with subscribers’ needs: each of them gets the content they have subscribed for.
As you target narrow audiences, you can figure out the reasonable amount of promotions that will bring conversions and still offer information that the reader considers valuable.
The beauty of personalized email copywriting is that you can adjust the tone of your emails to the audience’s preferences. This way, you will reach your goals and keep engagement satisfactory at the same time.
2. Email content marketing creates an emotional bond with your brand
Email marketing can take many forms: sales emails, welcome messages, thank you notes, confirmation emails, numerous transactional emails and so on.
If you see some kind of story here — that’s because there is. Storytelling isn’t about a 1,000-word article, it is about providing structured, valuable information to your customer and engaging them.
Consider the benefits of using storytelling in email marketing instead of simply being promotional:
- a relatable story makes people feel connected to the brand;
- a story that drives on emotions is more memorable than a standard ad;
- a story combines promotions and communicative elements in a way that makes a reader glad to be around.
People are used to seeing email as an information-conveying tool. It’s perfect for raising awareness about your product, a new deal or an upcoming event.
At the same time, storytelling techniques can help you educate your customers without them feeling as if they’re being taught. Thus, they won’t feel skeptical and be more receptive.
Another benefit of storytelling for email marketing is that it provides an experience which consumers crave. As your brand story unfolds, people feel they get something more than material things, adding extra value to interaction with you.
3. Email content marketing guides through the customer journey
People subscribe to your newsletter for different reasons. Some may expect to receive discount alerts, others may look for a read (your news or blog updates). If they keep getting something different from what they expect, you will lose your subscribers.
That’s why it is crucial to know what your audience wants. Then you can put together a personalization strategy that involves engaging content, building awareness and moving your leads through their customer journey.
Depending on where the recipient is in their buyer’s journey, they will receive different emails. Businesses can send a referral email to loyal customers, encourage them to recommend their products and reengage passive customers by offering discounts.
Those at the top of the funnel will need basic blog content that will spread your thought leadership and keep your audience updated with the news. The good idea is to diversify your newsletters with user-generated content, surveys, infographics — all that boosts engagement.
As the relationship strengthens, you can add more in-depth content that describes your company and what it does. Such messages will differentiate you from the competition and set the reader up for craving more details. What is more, you can use email signature templates for Outlook to create descriptive signatures that provide your subscribers with more information about your company and increase brand trust. You can add your name, contact information, a website link, and social media icons, just like in the example:
When it comes to promo emails, they are necessary to drive your sales later on. By bringing together an informative piece, compelling visuals and a powerful call-to-action, you will get more eyes to your promo emails.
The key here is to send a copy that is highly relevant for the portion of an audience that receives that email. You can use A/B testing to determine what content works best.
Confirmation emails are important to let the customer know where they stand in their buyer’s journey. They confirm that an action was successful and inform about the next steps. But they can also promote your other products or services by using behavior-trigger elements.
4. Email content marketing can help you define your priorities
In order to meet your goals with email marketing, you need to choose metrics that will measure the effectiveness of what you do.
That’s where KPIs come into play. While they will differ and depend on the industry and objectives, there are certain email marketing KPIs that are worth considering for everyone:
- Bounce rate
It is the percentage of email addresses in your list that did not receive your email. The reason may be a server issue, full inbox or even a nonexistent email address.
A bounce rate of about 2% is considered a good one, meaning your emails are usually deliverable.
If it’s higher, clean up your email list, check if your emails look spammy, or consider changing your email domain. Additionally, consider doing DMARC configuring to reduce email spoofing and phishing attempts and ensuring better deliverability.
- Open rate
This is the percentage of opened emails compared to the number of sent emails. The higher the open rate, the more relevant and attention-grabbing your subject lines are.
A benchmark for a good open rate is around 20%. If your rate is dropping below that number, you might want to reconsider your choice of an email blast service or check how your email content correlates with your customers’ expectations.
- Click-through rate (CTR)
CTR shows how many users have clicked on the links in your email. Aim to keep your CTR no less than 2%. Otherwise, try changing your email design, language, and check how you can personalize your emails even more.
- Conversion rate
This indicator tells you how many subscribers took the desired action upon clicking the link in your email. If you see that users click on links but don’t make a purchase or submit a form, that may be the sign of a misleading CTA.
- Return on investment (ROI)
This is the revenue you’ve generated due to your email marketing campaign versus how much you’ve spent. If you spend more than you earn, that means you should tweak your strategy.
By choosing and tracking your metrics, you get an idea of what part of your marketing you should pay attention to.
Sometimes the reason something’s not working as it should is as simple as an email not looking properly on a device. In this case, it is easy to spot by using email testing tools before you start sending out.
In other times, you may need to go back to creating buyer personas and rethinking your processes. Still better than staying ignorant and keep losing money.
5. Email content marketing builds authority
Having someone subscribed to your email list means you have their trust already. Yet, to get their continued support, you have to build a relationship.
By turning to a company for a product or service, customers buy a solution to their problem. In other words, they buy the company’s experience, expertise, and approach.
Telling your story and aligning your message with the mission builds your brand and infuses trust. People feel you have gone through the pain they are currently experiencing.
As you talk about how you can help, your audience will start recognizing you as an expert.
By offering them value-based content, you give them a “taster” of your experience, so they are going to want more. Meaning, they will most likely go and buy your product or service because they trust you.
6. Email content marketing helps you be consistent
The core principle of content marketing is bringing value to the reader. Combined with email, one of the most popular marketing channels results in the opportunity to target consumers in a place they visit every day.
There is a belief that an average user sees one out of every three ads and takes action after seeing the same ad nine times. So, it became a habit for marketers to aim to hit a prospect at least 27 times with the brand’s marketing.
An email is a perfect place for reaching out to your audience regularly, thus ensuring visibility.
Along with consistency, you may use effective persuasion to demonstrate to your customers how buying from you serves their best interests. Again, evoking imagination, telling a story and providing it in sound bites are the techniques from content marketing that will lift the quality of your emails.
7. Email content marketing helps you stay current with trends
High-quality content brings quality leads that result in higher conversions. But for this, you need to laser-focus your content on the segments of people you target.
Depending on the audience, certain types of content can be more effective than others.
Thus, statistics show that videos are the preferred type of digital content for 44% of marketers. Fewer marketers rely on webinars and eBooks in their campaigns. And infographics are least popular.
Experiment, combine and test different content types with your audience to see what works best for your company.
By utilising an automated email marketing platform, you can speed up your search for the most effective email content. People’s tastes change over time, so keep close tabs on the trends.
Summing up
Through content marketing, you can teach your clients without being salesy or boring — it is more about building authority through friendship.
At the same time, email marketing makes regular outreach possible, as many people tend to check their inboxes every day.
All this makes the merge of email and content marketing a cost-effective way to improve the result of your marketing efforts.
