Email marketing types

There’s an infinite number of email marketing types as each business works in a different industry and has various goals to meet which requires a tailored campaign each time to suit it. There are no boundaries for email types and some businesses even go further and create its own customized type of campaigns; however, there are some types of emails that can be considered essential for all kinds of business.In this chapter will discover six different types and explain what they’re, when to use each of them, how to design it and some tips for better results.

Digest emails

The standard definition of a digest email is : an email that is generated automatically which includes all exchanged emails in a certain period of time or when a certain number of news is reached. Email digest takes many shapes but its basic form is being a summary email sent from an application on a regular schedule whether daily or weekly.

These emails were inspired from the idea of digest which means something that is easily consumed.

A Lot of big businesses are currently using email digest in their email marketing strategy for example: YouTube and LinkedIn are using digests to send a package of news to its user as way of keeping connection and attraction method for signing in.

The usage of Digests increased recently due to being a regular way of communicating with the brand customers and keeping it present their minds.The mechanism behind this technique lies in taking the top stories from the user or customer account , arranging it in a suitable design then making it personalized as possible in order to generate high engagement rates.

Digests are not only used in B2B/B2C marketing but also in internal communication inside big companies and usually by top management to receive a s summary about the sales expenses or other critical information directly by email without having to login into a system. This allows the tracking of business updates on a basis that suits the managers and saves a lot of wasted time in gathering information. It’s also a way of keeping employees informed about your brand’s marketing efforts and latest news which makes them more engaged and updated about the current status of the brand.

Digests ,as any other email type, have some best practices for generating better results and should be considered while using it such as:

Being user centric

people are always in the statues of doing something and in order to grab their attention you have to address their needs and talk their language. Being user centric means putting yourself in their shoes and trying to estimate and immerse what would be valuable to them and including it this digest.

Being highly personal

as we mentioned earlier, digests are naturally personal due to the way it's formed using data from users accounts but we have to go beyond this and produce content that actually address each user as a separate case with certain behaviors and needs because that’s the truth after all.

How often and When

by how often we mean the frequency of sending whether it's going to be daily, weekly or monthly. This is defined according to the type of data sent and its value to the person receiving the email.Attention needs to be paid as well to the sending time. For example some people might need to get the digest with stock market analysis in the morning before presuming to their work and taking decisions.so you have to make sure you’re sending your digests in the time in which the information will be most valued by your receivers.

Having personality

Your email should represent your brand identity and be an extension of its unique voice.you can’t have a formal brand on social media and send emails with sarcastic content. People would you’re not the same brand which might affect their trust in you and lead to having your brand communicating many messages at the time which is the the first step on the way to a great failure.Keep in mind that people are logging their inboxes expecting to see something boring text so one way of differentiating your email content is using a combination of amusing design and content. Make sure you’re following the brand without sticking to one design, try to be variant ,full of colors and creative in every aspect to maximize the value your recipients are gaining.

Directed emails

By now you might be wondering,if i wanted to promote a certain product to my subscribers what kind of email should i be using ? well, we highly recommend a dedicated email as a convenient way for advertisers and business owners to promote their products. Dedicated emails are also known as stand-alone emails because they contain one piece of information about one offer with one clear call to action.They can also be used for events invitations like conferences,seminars..etc. and sending notifications and reminders.

In general, we can define directed emails as the ones sent with one message to tell the story of a certain product or service and spread awareness about it. For example, if zara wants to promote its new collection they should consider using email as a strong channel in their marketing strategy for the following reasons:

• Directed emails focus on demographics and that makes it highly targeted especially if the recipients list was collected from a website related to the service or the product.
  
• It's also an easy and cost effective way for generating sales instead of dedicating a large budget to ads campaigns.
  
• Dedicated emails don't consume too much time in design and content preparation as they don’t contain much details and information like newsletters.
  
• And because you can send only one message promoting a certain offer it’s easy for you to track and measure how effective it was and then go back to iterating and refining.
  

When using directed emails keep in mind that it has backdraws that could affect its effectiveness like the fact it might give your IP a bad reputation because it might be reported as a spam if sent to a wrong or untargeted email list. So watching your spam rate closely and reviewing the content sent are not optional. Also, It’s hard to keep sending digest emails on a consistent basis and even if you did, the subscriber might not notice because with each email there is a different topic.

Lead nurturing emails

Lead nurturing in general is the process of developing relationships with buyers at every stage of the sales funnel and through every step of the buyer's journey. It focuses mainly on listening to the needs of the customers and sending a list of emails over a period of time to make them ready for sales.

Using this technique will help you maintain a continuous dialogue with potential customers during the buying cycle resulting in revenue and sales increase,educating prospects building trust and credibility.

Of course achieving lead nurturing through email differs from one industry to another but still there are some common attributes that need to exist like the extent to which the buyer matches your ideal prospect.You need to make sure that you’re on your prospect's interests list before approaching them, track their online behavior and analyze what attracts them on social media channels as it’s important to send the readers something they’ll want to read and share. Don’t forget to entertain your customers by sending mails they enjoy. Even if they won’t buy, you’ll leave a good impression and position your brand in their minds.

When designing your lead nurturing email campaign you can start by setting a goal you want your leads to reach by the end of the nurturing path this goal could be a certain level of awareness, a paying action or anything else. But keep in mind that this action won’t be achieved unless you use a naturally generated list of emails that belongs to people who are actually interested in hearing from you.Using a purchased list won’t give you the results needed, In contrast, it will lead to destroying your IP and maybe your reputation as well.

And before sending, make sure that leads aren’t enrolled in multiple lead nurturing paths at once as if they already bought your product, for example, make sure that they're transferred to a different list that receives different content. And most importantly, enroll only leads not customers.

While drawing your content path and defining the number of emails needed for the campaign, make sure it suits your persona. determine your perfect frequency by giving your recipients a chance to choose how many times they want to hear from you or segmenting your list and customizing your frequency based on each segment traits.

Spot on the action you want your receivers whether it’s purchasing, subscribing , attending an event or any other kind of actions then build your CTA around it. And always stick to one CTA per campaign not to distract your recipients’ attention between variety of options.

Also consider the buyer's journey and develop a relevant content divided on several emails for each stage and keep in touch with the sales team to know the impact of your email marketing campaign, how it's helping in converting from one stage to another and gather feedbacks for improvement.

Audit your content types and tailor it around what your customers want to receive but keep in mind that 61% of customers will read a review or testimonial online before purchasing that’s why it could be helpful to add some in the lead nurturing email in addition to videos that are used by 96% of B2B organizations and reported positive ROI with 73% of them.

And above all this, don't make the lead nurturing path too complicated by adding many steps for converting from one stage to the other. Keep it simple, direct and well structured for better results.

In the writing stage, give value and don’t just dump information without filtering and selecting the most relevant thing for the purpose in your mind.Giving value can be achieved through writing about your reader’s pains and how you can help them relieving it. Keeping your tone personal in these emails will help in engaging more audience and it works even better when you make it conversational and talk to your audience as if they’re really hearing you face to face.

Before sending your campaign test it on different email service providers (Clients) to ensure that it’s well displayed and adjust it to suit mobile screens as by the end of 2018, worldwide mobile email users are expected to total over 2.2 billion. By this time, 80% of email users are expected to access their email accounts via a mobile device. (Source: Radicati).

And lastly,try asking your leads of what they thought of each email in the nurturing series and see what happened.

Transnational emails

This type of emails is a very common one and you’ve probably received it many times while creating an account, changing password or completing a purchase. They’re triggered by an action whether this action is direct or indirect and sent individually not as a bulk to a large group of people.

Transactional emails are different and contains critical information sent to facilitate an agreed upon transaction between the sender and the recipients can be customized and edited according to your unique brand voice and personality. They’re also referred to as “triggered” “Personalized” “ Automatic” “real time” emails and one to one emails.

Transactional emails are opened 8x more than traditional marketing.

The biggest advantage of transactional emails is that they enjoy a high click-through rate (CTR). Recipients open these communications and click on them. Take advantage of this dynamic, and include a highly customized call-to-action (maybe even as a p.s.) to leverage the fact that the subscriber is fresh and very actively engaged with your email communication.

Unfortunately, one disadvantage of transactional emails is that they can add a barrier to entry. Sometimes the idea of taking yet another step to complete an action discourages recipients from completing the action altogether.

With all the types of email communication at a marketer's disposal, it's easy to fall into the trap of sending your email recipients too much email. Therefore, it's very important to regularly keep track of what messages you're sending to who. That being said, it's entirely possible to send all of these types of emails without spamming your list, and that's where segmentation comes into play.

A highly productive and effective email marketing campaign consists of segmented communication that touches prospects and leads at the right time with the right type of email to suit that recipient's needs and preferences. Examples of those emails are:

1. Account creation emails

As one of the first transnational emails a subscriber will receive from your brand, account creation emails are critical to establishing a relationship with your users. Use account creation emails as an opportunity to connect with your subscribers and begin a reliable communication with them.

Good account confirmation emails help to:

• Inform a subscriber their account has been created.
  
• Establish a relationship with a new subscriber.
  
• Highlight next steps or additional instructions.
  

2. Password reset emails

Password reset emails allow users to recover passwords or set new ones in an effort to gain access to your app. This type of transnational email is essential to any application that requires a password.

Things to consider when creating password reset emails include:

• How reliable is my transnational email service provider (i.e. will my password reset emails reach my subscribers?)?
  
• How can I ensure my password reset emails reach the inbox (think copy, email template, domain / IP reputation, etc.)?
  
• How can I ensure my password reset process protects my users against fraud.
  

3. Purchase receipt emails

Customers expect purchase receipt emails from any online vendor they do business with. Delays in email sends, or emails being delivered to the spam folder can lead to a poor user experience with your brand and potentially impact revenue.

Things to consider when creating purchase receipt emails include:

• Reinforce your brand and brand promise with proper branding and design of your purchase receipt emails.
  
• Add purchase details, like purchased item, payment details, shipping location, etc.
  
• Ensure purchase receipt email templates are responsive and optimized for different devices.
  

4. Account notification emails

When developing your web or mobile app, you need to consider how you will notify or alert your users of important activities going on in your app. These transactional emails can cover a wide range of notification use cases, but also serve to maintain the relationship with your brand.

Account notification use cases to consider include:

• Alerts based on account usage or updates to important business metrics.
  
• Updates to subscriber accounts like social posts, content uploads, downloads, task assignments, etc.
  
• Addition of new users or updates to existing user permissions.