A Complete Email Marketing Guide (From Noob To Experts)

Written by: Chris Donald

Published on: 16-01-2023

Chris is Managing Partner at InboxArmy and has more than 25 years of experience in email marketing

 Email marketing is one of the best-known channels in the marketing domain. Its popularity can be ascribed to its convenience & reach. With email marketing, a single message can reach millions of people in a matter of minutes.

Unfortunately, not every person who begins implementing email marketing can expect to reach monumental figures immediately. It requires specific knowledge and expertise to utilize this channel effectively.

To encapsulate, interact, nourish, and convert prospects, you must understand each step of an effective email marketing strategy.

What Is Email Marketing?

Email marketing is a sort of direct marketing in which you send customized emails to your email lists to enlighten them regarding your product or service. It may also persuade your email list to do something particular, such as making a purchase, scheduling a demonstration, enrolling for a trial, or signing up for an event.

Email marketing is a critical medium both B2C, and B2B businesses use to boost brand recognition, increase client loyalty, and generate conversions.

When done effectively, it can turn one-time consumers into recurring clients and persuade prospective leads to make their first purchase.

The inbox has served as a hallowed location for communicating with relatives, friends, colleagues and, subsequently, companies since the beginning of the internet. Moreover, it’s one of the most convenient ways to reach customers since it doesn’t require recipients to check in at a particular website or open an app.

In today’s world, online platforms have evolved entirely. Although your clients and prospects are getting more emails than ever, increasing access to essential consumer data and information allows you to be more relevant in your inbox than ever before.

Why Email Marketing Is Important

Why is Email Marketing Necessary

1. People Appreciate Receiving Emails

A vast majority of readers find brand emails beneficial. Prospects generally join your mailing list because they wish to be updated about your company. Subscribers wish to be kept in the loop whether you have a special discount for your products or have a giveaway. Others join a mailing list to discover business strategies or techniques.

With email marketing, you’ll always have access to your subscriber list. Yes, some people will withdraw from your list from time to time. some of your emails may be labeled as spam. But if you adhere to the essentials, email reliability and unsubscribe rates will remain low.

2. Email Rounds Out Your Content Marketing Strategy

A robust content marketing strategy is essential for every online organization. This is usually the initial stage in the client acquisition process. With the right content, you can bring in new leads and give them data that helps them learn more about your industry or product.

Email also works well in tandem with other marketing channels. For example, if someone finds your website via search engine optimization, they may sign up to receive more information about your company via email. Once they’ve done so, you can send them an email with a link to your latest blog post or video.

3. Email Converts More Effectively

People do not purchase from unknown people or brands. We are frequently distrustful and want proof before we actually buy. Email helps warm up your leads, which can result in more sales than selling to cold prospects.

Email provides you with the opportunity to:

  • Nurture leads to leadership.
  • Make a more personal connection with clients.
  • Add quality to your bulletins and demonstrate your core competencies.

Increased engagement leads to increased conversions. If you take a moment to customize your emails and develop a good relationship with your subscribers, you’ll have a greater probability of conversions, which will help improve your bottom line. If you need more convincing then here are top 21 benefits of email marketing you must read.

4. Easily Traceable

Email communication is traceable and measurable. For example, you can track opens, clicks, unsubscription rates, and other metrics related to email campaigns. Tracking this data can give you a better understanding of what content works and what doesn’t.

Email marketing technology has made it easier to track the success of campaigns by delivering valuable data directly to the sender. For example, email analytics can provide information on who opened your email, what links they clicked, and when they opened it. This data helps you identify leads worth investing in.

70 + Email Marketing Terms 

Email Marketing Glossary

The email marketing domain is vast, with various email marketing terms to understand. We’ve compiled a list of email marketing terminologies that every email marketing expert should be familiar with. This list will help you expand your business email vocabulary.

1. Acceptable Spam Report Rate

The frequency with which your emails can be labeled as SPAM without negatively impacting your brand’s reputation. SPAM Reports over 0.1% (1 report per 1000 emails) will get an alert.

2. Acceptance Rate

The proportion of email messages approved by the mail server. Just because the mail server approves an email does not guarantee that it will be delivered to an inbox.

For example, a message may still be marked as spam or blocked by the recipient’s firewall negatively affecting the Acceptance Rate.

3. A/B Split Test

It is a way of comparing the outcomes of two separate emails and drawing conclusions from them. As the name implies, you create two or more email variations and label them A, B, C, and so on. For example, you can send two versions of the same email with different subject lines. Then, you can track each performance metric to determine which performs better in terms of open rate or clicks.

4. Attachment Open Rate

The percentage of people that choose to open an attachment provided to them through email is known as the attachment open rate. This metric helps you understand the effectiveness of your attachments in engaging users. For example, if you send an email with an attachment to 1000 recipients, and 100 of them open the attachment, that would be a 10% Attachment Open Rate.

5. Auto Follow-up

A follow-up email is sent automatically at a preset time after an initial email is sent. Auto follow-up emails can be used for different purposes, like thanking customers for purchases, providing additional information, or encouraging them to take action.

Auto follow-up emails can help convert leads into customers and improve customer engagement. They can also save you time by automating fractions of your email campaigns.

6. Autoresponder

An autoresponder is an automated message sent out in response to certain triggers. Autoresponders can be used for various purposes, such as providing customer support or sending out newsletters. They can be set up to send out emails on a scheduled basis or in response to certain actions the recipients take. For example, an out-of-office email is usually from an Autoresponder.

7. Blacklist

A list of IP addresses marked as spammer IPs and blocked from sending emails. Emails sent from blacklisted IP addresses are likely to be filtered out by email service providers and never reach the recipient’s inbox.

8. Bounce Rate

The percentage of emails that were not successfully delivered to their intended recipients. This can be due to several reasons, such as invalid recipient addresses, server errors, or the recipient’s server blocking the message.

There are two kinds of bounces: hard and soft, which are explained further in this glossary. A reasonable bounce rate is less than 5%.

9. Bulk Mail

Big-scale email marketing campaigns in which the same information is sent to a vast number of recipients. Bulk mailings are often used to reach large numbers of customers with marketing messages or special offers.

10. Block

Email blocking occurs when spam filters or other reasons prevent your emails from being sent. This usually happens if you exceed the mail service provider’s daily sending quota or send a spammy-looking email.

11. CAN-SPAM

The Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003 is legislation from the United States that primarily prohibits corporations from sending deceptive emails to recipients.

To remain CAN-SPAM compliant, emails must include a physical address and an unsubscribe link. The email sender must also honor any opt-out requests on time.

12. Clicks Per Delivered

The number of clicks divided by the number of emails sent to the target mailbox. It is an important KPI for email marketing campaigns, as it helps you measure the success of your emails in terms of user engagement and is used to determine the effectiveness of the content.

13. Clicks Per Open

A percentage of the number of clicks per the number of email opens. This metric can be used to measure the CTA’s effectiveness. A higher Clicks Per Open rate indicates that your email content engages and effectively prompts users to take action.

14. CPM (Cost Per Thousand)

CPM stands for Cost Per Thousand and is a metric used to measure the cost of email campaigns. It is calculated by dividing the total campaign cost by the total number of emails sent and multiplying that amount by 1000.

For example, if you send an email campaign that costs $500 to 10000 recipients, your CPM would be $500/10000 x 1000 = $50

15. CTR (Click-Through Rate)

The percentage of the total number of users who clicked on a link in your email. For example, if 1000 people received your email and 20 of them clicked on a link, the CTR would be 2%. CTR is an important metric that can help you find gaps in your email campaigns and optimize them for better performance.

An email click through rate is usually higher for more targeted emails, as they are less likely to be ignored and more likely to get clicked. A good CTR is generally considered to be above 10%.

16. CTA (Call to Action)

A call to action is a button, link or other elements in an email that encourages the recipient to take some kind of action. Common CTAs include download buttons, sign-up forms or links to web pages.

CTAs are essential to email marketing campaigns as they can help boost user engagement and increase conversion rates. A good CTA should clearly state what the recipient needs to do and be prominently placed in the email body with the right design philosophy.

17. Conversion Rate 

The percentage of recipients who took the desired action, such as signing up for a newsletter or making a purchase. It is an important metric as it directly reflects the success of your email campaigns. A reasonable conversion rate can range from 1-20%, depending on the type of offer, industry, demography, targeting depth, and your email list’s health.

About Author

Chris sent his first email campaign in 1995. He’s worked directly with Fortune 500 companies, retail giants, nonprofits, SMBs and government agencies in all facets of their email marketing and marketing automation programs. He’s also a BIG baseball fan, loves a good steak, and is mildly obsessed with zombie movies. For more information follow him on linkedin

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