What is Email Marketing?
Email marketing is a form of digital marketing where businesses send emails to customers or potential clients to promote their products, services, offers, or build relationships. It’s a direct and personalized way to reach your audience, right in their inbox. Compared to social media or advertising, it offers higher engagement and conversion rates at a much lower cost.
How Does Email Marketing Work?
Email marketing doesn’t just mean typing an email and sending it to 1000 people. It’s a systemized process that includes building a subscriber base, designing valuable content, automating campaigns, and tracking performance. Let's understand each part:
1. Collecting Email Subscribers
The first step in email marketing is building an email list. You need permission to send emails, so businesses use methods like:
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Sign-up forms on websites
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Popups offering free downloads or discounts
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Newsletter subscriptions
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Contest entries
2. Creating Engaging Emails
Once you have a list, you can start creating emails. These could be:
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Welcome emails
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Product promotions
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Newsletters
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Event invitations
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Educational content
3. Using Email Marketing Services
This is where email marketing platforms like Mailchimp, ConvertKit, GetResponse, Brevo, or Klaviyo come in. These tools help you:
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Design beautiful emails with drag-and-drop builders
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Manage and segment your contact list
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Send thousands of emails at once
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Automate follow-up emails based on user behavior
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Track performance metrics like open rate, clicks, and unsubscribes
4. Automating the Campaigns
Automation is one of the biggest advantages of email marketing. You can set up a series of emails (called a sequence or flow) that sends automatically when a user takes a specific action.
For example:
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A welcome series after someone subscribes
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A reminder if someone leaves products in the cart
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A follow-up email after a purchase asking for feedback
5. Personalization and Segmentation
Email marketing tools allow you to segment your audience based on data like:
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Location
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Purchase behavior
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Age or gender
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Email engagement
6. Tracking and Improving
Every email campaign is measured through key metrics:
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Open Rate – how many people opened the email
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Click-Through Rate (CTR) – how many clicked on a link
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Conversion Rate – how many made a purchase or signed up
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Bounce Rate – how many emails were undeliverable
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Unsubscribe Rate – how many people opted out
7. Compliance and Safety
Reputed email marketing services make sure your campaigns follow international privacy rules like:
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GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation - Europe)
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CAN-SPAM (USA email laws)
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CASL (Canada Anti-Spam Legislation)
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Why Do Businesses Use Email Marketing Services?
Here are some key reasons why businesses rely on email marketing platforms:
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Low Cost, High ROI – Send to 10 or 10,000 people at almost no extra cost
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Automation – Saves time and increases efficiency
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Personalization – Sends relevant messages to the right people
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Scalability – Easily handle large campaigns
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Insights – Understand customer behavior and improve campaigns
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