Many people may have heard of email marketing, but is it actually effective? Recently, many marketing methods are using new methods such as SNS, and you may be wondering if marketing using email is really effective.
However, email marketing is extremely powerful, and if done well, it can be an effective marketing method. Kobayashi Pharmaceutical, which sells pharmaceuticals and sanitary products, and NTT, a major telecommunications company, have successfully used email marketing to earn large profits.
In this article, we will discuss the following topics regarding email marketing:
- What is email marketing?
- 4 benefits of using email marketing
- Things to note about email marketing
- Key points for email marketing success
In this article, we will thoroughly explain why email marketing has such deep-rooted power and the benefits of using it. If you want to know
the marketing
power of email marketing or want to know an overview of email marketing, please refer to it.
What is email marketing?
Although the use of email has decreased in recent years due to the development of SNS, there are still many users of email, and it is a powerful marketing method, especially in the ToB industry. We will explain the characteristics of such email marketing.
Businesses that can easily use email marketing
Email marketing is a marketing method that uses email.
This method is suitable for toB businesses where there are many opportunities to check email content on a PC. In fact, data shows that PCs have an overwhelmingly higher click-through rate for emails than tablets and smartphones. Therefore, it is recommended that you conduct email marketing for toB businesses that regularly use PCs that open emails frequently.
Difference from email magazine
An e-mail newsletter
is a method of nurturing potential customers using e-mail. On the other hand, email marketing is a marketing activity that uses emails to get potential customers to become fans of your company or your products. Therefore, e-mail newsletters are one of the e-mail marketing methods.
4 benefits of using email marketing
There are four benefits to email marketing. Understand the benefits and put email marketing to work for your company.
You can get started without spending too much money
The big advantage of email marketing is that it doesn’t cost much.
For example, marketing methods such as advertising operations, video production, and holding exhibitions and seminars naturally incur a certain amount of cost.
On the other hand, email marketing requires only a PC, an internet environment, and an email address, so the cost is very low. Therefore, it is a highly recommended marketing method for companies that have just established a company and are low on funds, or for companies that cannot spend much money on marketing.
You can take an approach tailored to the user.
Email marketing allows you to take a tailored approach to your users.
E-mail content and delivery frequency can be flexibly adjusted to suit user attributes. It is very effective because it allows you to fully approach the target group that your company is aiming for and the group that you want to use your products and services, rather than the general public.
Regular approach possible
Email marketing allows you to reach out to your customers on a regular basis. When doing general door-to-door sales, you have to visit customers, so the limit is probably 5 on average per day. However, with email marketing, you can reach many users just by thinking about effective content and sending emails. It is possible to approach hundreds or thousands of companies in a day.
Additionally, with door-to-door sales, it typically takes several weeks or months to re-approach people in the same area, but with email marketing, you can approach them every day. Email marketing can easily provide the regular approach you need to grow your customer base.
Easy to measure effectiveness
One of the reasons why email marketing continues to be strongly supported is that its effectiveness can be easily measured. Since various user reactions such as email open rates and click rates can be measured numerically, you can easily see the results of various measures. Therefore, it is easy to make repeated improvements, and it is a versatile marketing method that can even make very detailed corrections.
The fact that you can change your approach depending on the user that I introduced earlier can be the most cost-effective marketing method if you take advantage of it. Many companies continue to use email marketing because of the ease of measuring effectiveness.
Things to note about email marketing
Email marketing can be cost-effective marketing depending on how you use it, but there are some things to keep in mind. If you do not understand the precautions that I will introduce below, the cost-effectiveness may be poor, so be sure to check the precautions before using email marketing.
time-consuming
Email marketing does not lead to immediate results and requires time and cost.
It is best to keep in mind that marketing methods become more effective after repeated modifications, so it is not something that will be effective from the beginning. Although the monetary cost is low compared to other forms of marketing, there is a time cost. For this reason, you should decide whether to conduct email marketing depending on your company’s management policy, funding, and other circumstances.
It is necessary to perform PDCA frequently
Email marketing can be highly effective by repeating the PDCA cycle. Therefore, the actual work begins after sending the email. You need to understand the situation and come up with hypotheses, such as understanding the email click rate and open rate, how to increase those numbers, and what to do to make customers want to buy your product.
Depending on how diligently you perform PDCA, your initial time costs will be reduced, your marketing will be more cost-effective, and you will be able to maintain high effectiveness.
Therefore, in order to make email marketing effective, it is necessary to frequently go through the PDCA cycle.
Key points for email marketing success
There are five points you need to keep in mind to make your email marketing highly effective and successful. Learn the key points of success and implement effective email marketing.
Clarification of the purpose of implementation
Email marketing has a low monetary cost, but it does have a time cost. Therefore, unless you are clear about why you are doing email marketing and what your goals are, it is not uncommon for your efforts to give up midway through.
Also, once the specific goals and goals you want to solve become clear, numerical targets such as KGI, KPI, CTR, CVR, and open rate will be determined. Before starting email marketing, it is important to clarify the purpose of the email marketing and the problem you want to solve.
Define your persona
Make sure to clearly define personas, which are the most important thing in marketing, especially in email marketing. Email marketing has the advantage of being able to change the content, timing, and frequency of emails depending on the users you approach, so it’s especially important to set personas clearly. Another point unique to email marketing is that the user action rate changes greatly depending on how far you set up your personas. It is necessary to set personas in detail because it affects the effectiveness.
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Be sure to check the open rate and response rate
Checking the open rate and response rate of emails is a key point that determines success or failure in email marketing. This is a very important point because by checking, you can perform PDCA and think about the next measures.
Therefore, be sure to check the numbers. However, if you are too focused on the numbers, even if the numbers are high, customers’ purchase motivation and loyalty are often not very high. Let’s make improvements that look at the numbers, keeping in mind the improvement of customer satisfaction.
Make improvements frequently
The most important point in email marketing is to make improvements based on the information you get.
The more improvements you make, the more you will be able to differentiate yourself from your competitors, and the more effective your marketing method will be.
Also, if you make frequent improvements, you will accumulate customer data and marketing know-how, which will be very effective when using other marketing methods. Therefore, in order to quickly produce results and obtain various benefits, it is necessary to make improvements frequently.
Deploy tools
To make your email marketing more efficient, you need to implement tools. By installing tools, you can automatically create and send emails, collect and analyze data, and more. The amount of work will definitely decrease. Labor costs can also be reduced by introducing tools. In order to make email marketing successful quickly and for a long time, it is essential to introduce tools.
summary
Email marketing is one of the marketing strategies that many companies use, as it is still extremely effective and inexpensive, even now that SNS has developed. However, this does not mean that it is easy to attract customers; it is a type of marketing that requires patience and requires having one’s feet on the ground and thoroughly analyzing and making adjustments.
If you continue to perform the PDCA cycle without giving up, there is a high possibility that it will lead to big profits in the end. Although it’s a slow process, why not consider using email marketing as a company’s profit and even a major asset?