What Is Email Marketing?
Email marketing’s been in the news a lot lately, but what is it exactly? Consider those direct mail flyers and envelopes that appear in your mailbox every week. Sometimes, they offer coupons. Sometimes, they announce new products, services or locations. These mailers are marketing pieces, and they’re effective. Even if you don’t act on them, you often remember the company names, even if you don’t mean to.
Email marketing works the same way, but with two very important differences:
- Your marketing words are delivered directly to your customers’ email inboxes, instead of their external mailboxes.
- You don’t need to worry about printing costs, although you do often need a web-based service, such as MailChimp or Constant Contact — just two names of many options.
Email marketing, like direct marketing, allows you to send coupons from your business, announce new products, services or locations. You can also use email marketing to share news of your industry. Like blog posts, email marketing pieces can provide tips for better using your products or services. And like all online content, you can use an email marketing specialist to produce effective content.
How Do Newsletters and Email Marketing Work Together?
Newsletters for businesses act as vehicles for email marketing. You can deliver them once a month or as often as twice a month to your email list. Sending a newsletter:
- Keeps your business brand top of mind
- Reminds your customers of your value and quality
- Shares your latest deals and offers
- Delivers useful and valuable information
Newsletters for agencies may have a dual purpose. If you run an internet agency, you can use a newsletter to grow your own business, but you can also offer email marketing services to your clients. It’s another service to help your clients succeed.
Using a professional email marketing specialist takes care of the details for you, including the content creation, the email list management and the delivery process. While you still get the opportunity to approve all content, including the newsletter design, before it gets sent, you don’t have to worry about the details. An email marketing specialist like Ray Access handles it all.
What Do I Need to Start a Newsletter?
The first and most important requirement for a newsletter is a list of email addresses of your clients and prospective clients. Acquiring email addresses is an art and a science. Perhaps the best way, after gathering the email addresses of all your clients, past and present, is to offer something of value on your website that your visitors have to sign up to get, leaving — you guessed it — their email address.
In addition to an email list, you need to either hire an email marketing specialist or buy a membership in an email marketing service that can send out hundreds or thousands of emails at the same time. You need to design a template on that service and then populate it with content however often you plan to send your newsletter.
Interested in starting a newsletter for your business or agency? Contact Ray Access, an email marketing specialist who makes it happen for you. Need more information about email marketing or newsletter? Read some of our other blog posts, including:
- Best 5 Reasons to Start an Email Newsletter
- 8 Email Marketing Best Practices and Tips for Business
- How to Effectively Use a Newsletter
Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.