Inbound Marketing Insights

When it comes to email marketing, it's important to remember that people have willingly given you their contact information because they want to hear from you. This means that you have a unique opportunity to provide them with valuable information that can help them solve a problem or achieve a goal. However, not all marketing emails are created equal. Each type of email has its own purpose and should be targeted to a specific audience. Before you hit send on any email, take the time to analyze the type of email, the audience you're sending the email to, and the message you want to convey. By doing this, you'll be able to create more effective and engaging email campaigns that will resonate with your audience. Here are some of the most common and useful types of marketing emails that you can use to reach your audience and drive results.

• Welcome Email: When someone subscribes to stay updated with your organization, you should consider sending them a “Welcome” email. This email will introduce them to your organization, provide them with links to relevant blogs, and invite them to connect on social media. By inviting these new subscribers to stay more engaged with your brand, you give them more information about what to expect as part of your community.
• New Content Announcement: When you have a new content piece to send to your audience, it’s important to make email marketing one of your campaign’s first priorities. For example, if you are a B2B organization and have just created a new eBook, a content announcement email is a perfect way to promote that content to your existing database. This is an extremely effective way to re-engage prospects with your brand. Remember, people opt in because they want to hear from you. Always use email marketing to promote your new and existing content.
  
  PRACTICAL APPLICATION:
  A professional services firm has various content offers, which are an effective way to share their expertise with their prospects and customers. Every time they have a new content piece, we send it to their database to continually re-engage their prospects and keep them engaged with the brand. The following is an example of an email campaign to promote a new checklist. The email highlights why a prospect would be interested in the checklist, includes a call-to-action button, and has an image of the content piece. This helps people see exactly what they are going to receive when they download the content offer, and these emails are a great way to re-engage your database with new content you have created for them.
  
• Blog Notifications: As discussed in the blogging chapter, it’s essential to allow people to subscribe to your blog. Allowing individuals to subscribe to your blog can trigger automatic email marketing messages to your subscribers with links to new content. Your blog notification email is key to driving repeat traffic to your website. These blog notification emails should be very simple and include the blog title, a brief excerpt from your blog, an image from your blog, and a “read more” link that takes people back to your website.
• Event Invitation: Do you host workshops, networking events, or webinars? Email is a perfect way to promote the event to your database. In these event invitation emails, remember to include the event location (or highlight that the event is virtual), date and time, speaker and takeaways that people can expect from attending the event. In addition, always include a call-to-action that sends recipients to a landing page to register. That’s another way you can continue to re-engage your audience and create an opportunity for face-to-face interaction at your in-person events or another digital connection through virtual events.
• Transactional Emails: An example of a transactional email is if someone registers for your event through a landing page, send them an immediate confirmation that you have received their registration. Or, if someone submits your “Contact Us” form on your website, send an immediate confirmation of when they can expect to be contacted. Also, when your prospect downloads a content offer, such as an eBook, send an immediate email to them with a link to access that content offer. A transactional confirmation email closes the loop on your interaction with the prospect, allows them to access the eBook, and gives them another touchpoint with your organization. These emails immediately acknowledge the individual and provide them with access to the requested content.

As you can see, there are many types of emails you can consider sending to your database. When you have new content to share, product updates, or company announcements, think about how you can engage your existing contact database and what might be most relevant to them. Remember, people opted-in to hear from you, so make sure email marketing is an integral part of your inbound marketing program.

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