While in recent years the marketing trend has turned more and more towards social media, one of the most interesting, as well as fruitful marketing platforms is forgotten: Emails. But what are the options here?
Whether it’s a regular newsletter or an automated email campaign, depending on what you and your company offer, you can use different strategies to optimally accompany your customers on the Buyer’s Journey.
Marketing automation is not a new, hip word for “email marketing,” but a marketing strategy all its own. While both use email to interact with your clientele – the strategies are still fundamentally different.
Email Marketing vs.
Marketing Automation
What exactly is email marketing?
Despite constant innovation and new social media platforms, email marketing remains one of the most important pillars in the marketing mix. Sending mails has many advantages:
The path consists of the following sections:
- No algorithms that can overlook potential leads: A large number of customers can be reached at the same time without having to trust what the Facebook algorithm will find relevant to your customers.
- It’s easy to target your main audience: Everyone who receives these emails has signed up for them in advance and explicitly agreed to receive them, so they have already shown interest in your product.
- Independent of cookies: this marketing tool is independent of the cookie update implemented by Google and Apple, which means that numbers and views are not distorted.
- It is easier to stand out: visually you can freely express yourself and stand out from the crowd by using an attractive layout.
Even though Twitter, LinkedIn and Co. are often frequented, it is the e-mail account that is checked every day. While on social media platforms it depends on when to post, email reliably waits in the inbox to be opened by your customers.
Infobox Email Marketing
Email marketing – the legal situation
When an email is sent, the sender has stored the email address, as well as the name of the recipient. This information is considered personal data and, according to the GDPR, since 2017 may only be handled with the consent of the recipient. If promotional emails are sent without this consent, it is considered harassment and may be prosecuted. Learn here what you need to consider from a legal perspective when it comes to email marketing.
A personalized form of address and customized content can be used to build up a personal bond with the clientele – they feel that they are being directly addressed and seen. Customer intimacy and good ROI crystallize email marketing as an indispensable tool when it comes to nurturing and retaining existing customers.
Newsletter
One example of email marketing is newsletters. These are mailings that are sent out on a regular basis to inform customers about the latest developments within your company.
It is important that the newsletter shows relevance to your clientele and thus serves its purpose – to monitor this, it is important to keep an eye on the following metrics:
| Metrics | Description |
|---|---|
| Opening rate | shows what percentage of your customers have even opened the email after receiving it. The content is important - if the subject line does not arouse interest, your mailings will go unread into the trash. |
| Click rate | or CTR (click-through rate) determines from how many opened e-mails then actually clicked on the link placed in the e-mail. |
| Conversation rate | How many customers ultimately took the action that the newsletter is intended to guide? What percentage downloaded the PDF, purchased the product, subscribed to the social media channel? |
What is Marketing Automation?
Marketing automation is basically the software-based automation of marketing processes.
Email marketing automation uses web tracking to simplify the process that turns leads into paying customers. Repetitive activities, as well as copying, configuring and sending the various mailings, run automatically – based on user behavior, individual communication campaigns can thus be carried out.
Marketing automation can happen through both SMS and social media, but the most attractive channel is email mailings.
Coming with the same benefits as traditional email marketing, marketing automation can be much more personalized to your customers at the same time. The various predefined emails are sent when your customers activate certain “triggers”. This goes from “visit the website again after a certain time” to “get interested in product X”.
The advantages:
- Personalization drives customer interaction. Your customers feel seen and directly addressed, the marketing automation is tailored to your needs.
- Automation saves time. Customer support is automatic, while you can still achieve high quality customer support.
- Lead nurturing has never been easier. Lead generation, lead scoring as well as lead management happens automatically. Depending on where they are in their customer journey, customers are provided with information and offers accordingly.
Working with sequences that follow triggers is the active counterpart to traditional, passive newsletters. While the latter is sent equally to everyone who has subscribed to the newsletter, Marketing Automation works with a database. This means that customers can be individually addressed and cared for accordingly – in real time, without you having to lift a finger.
Marketing Automation in HubSpot
With HubSpot, there is the possibility to automate this email traffic on a large scale: depending on the behavior of your customers, an appropriate response email is sent automatically. This is not done in a dark HTML editor, but on the clearly designed HubSpot platform, using the Sequences tool.
Hubspot’s inbound marketing tools are sequential and don’t end with emails sent out: new leads are automatically picked up and nurtured through “workflows.”
Infobox Marketing Automation
What is meant by “leads”?
A “lead” is a potential customer who is more likely to ultimately buy the product than other users due to interest already shown. A lead can be newsletter subscribers, but also Facebook followers.
HubSpot sequences and workflows make it easier to stay in touch with customers. Neither designers nor programmers need to be on your team if you want to create engaging and successful email mailings.
Workflows allow you to define which successes you want to achieve with your mailings – the integrated Hubspot software automatically tracks your customers’ behavior and compares it to your targeted goals. This allows you to keep track of the impact of your email campaign and make adjustments at any time to get even closer to your goals.
At a glance -
Difference between email marketing and marketing automation
Email marketing and marketing automation cannot be distinguished by many despite their different natures – yet sending emails is their only common denominator. To avoid embarrassing confusion, find a clear overview of the differences and strengths of the two strategies.
| Email marketing | Marketing Automat. | |
|---|---|---|
| Works with a static list of subscribers, without any other data | ||
| Powered by a database that stores customer data and uses it for marketing | ||
| The same email is sent to all customers | ||
| Depending on the actions of customers, other emails are sent | ||
| Segmentation based on customer behavior, demographics and preferences is possible | ||
| Regularly informing all customers about new offers at the same time | ||
| Direct customer dialog |
Although emails have been around since the dawn of the Internet, they are still relevant and attractive for marketing campaigns and customer generation. Learn in our next article how you can use pre-built as well as personalizable templates to optimize and align your already existing online marketing channels.
Until the next article – your Growth Ninjas,
Adrienne, David, Hermann, Johannes, Katharina B., Katharina T., Stefan K. & Stefan G.
