Role of Email in
Inbound Marketing
From Interruptive Salesy Marketing to Lovable Permission Marketing
As we inch closer to 2020, when technology is believed to be more dynamic and information all the more accessible, brand marketers have to up their marketing strategy and get ready for a new breed of informed users. They are the ones who want YOU to hear them out, unlike the era of interruptive outbound marketing when marketers would just speak about themselves. This is the essence of “Inbound Marketing”, and it applies to email too.
WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF
INBOUNDMARKETING
Implementing the Best Practices of Email Marketing in Inbound
Inbound Marketing is customer-centric marketing
focused on getting found by customers.
Its main aim is to draw customers towards your products and services through content marketing, social media marketing and SEO. It enhances customer experience by offering relevant information through various marketing channels. Inbound email marketing works to HELP and troubleshoot the problems faced by users (individuals, Agencies, etc.) in their respective fields by sharing valuable content that is relevant for the target audience.
The 4 stages of the Inbound Marketing
ATTRACT
Strangers into visitors. Blogging, SEO, Social Media, Paid Advertising.
CONVERT
Visitors into leads. eBooks, Emails/Blog posts, White papers, Tip sheets, Gated content.
close
Leads into customers. Email Workflows, Customer Relationship Management, Deliver Customer support.
delight
Customers into evangelists. Feedback/Reviews, Emails, Social Media, Customer support
ANALYSIS is something that’s common to each & every stage
Beginning from Attract to Delight, each and every marketing strategy should invariably be assessed. Attract stage works as a scaffold for email marketing. The full-fledged role of emails is in the next three stages of Convert, Close, and Delight.
Emails come into picture at the finishing line of the Convert stage. Next, they are used to close the leads into customers and finally delight them to turn them into evangelists.
DECODING THE THEORY OF
INBOUND V/sOUTBOUND
in Emails
Pleasant Palatable Emails V/s Pushy Pesky Emails
Inbound email marketing is about BEING THERE where your customers are. It’s all about finding the right customers and creating evangelists from strangers.
Outbound email marketing is almost like the faulty practice of blowing your own trumpet, in an endeavor to pull customers towards you.
THE RAZZMATAZZ OF
EMAIL MARKETING IN INBOUND
Why all the hype of ‘email marketing’?
EMAIL IS HERE TO STAY
The number of email users worldwide is forecasted to rise to 3 billion by 2020 according to Radicati. Email marketing now has 20% impact on revenue, up from 17% in the previous year as discussed at Email Evolution Conference 2017.
While Twitter has the limitation of characters, Facebook poses the dilemma of “post reach” and LinkedIn doesn’t support interactive elements, EMAIL allows you to convey your message in the most engaging manner possible with personalization and interactivity.
Email enjoys great acceptance with businesses and customers alike. The number of worldwide emails sent and received per day in 2017 will be 225.3 billion. Now that’s quite a HUGE NUMBER!
If you are one of the few marketers who assume that emails are old school, remember OLD IS GOLD when it comes to their role in inbound marketing.
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HEAVENLY TIPS FOR
INBOUND Email MARKETING
Perfecting your email marketing strategy
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Know your
AudienceThe context in your email copy is the king, when it comes to email marketing campaigns. And that flawless amalgamation is what the role of inbound email is all about. Once your audience is defined, the next step is to segment your subscribers with similar preferences into groups. Knowing your audience is an ongoing process that continues through all the stages of inbound email marketing.
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Segment your
ContactsSegment your contacts on the basis of Buyer Personas. As HubSpot defines, Buyer personas are semi-fictional representations of an ideal customer, based on real data and some educated speculation about demographics, behaviors, motivations, and goals. Buyer personas help you to know who your email audience is and give you an idea about the recipient of the email. After all, the key to inbound email marketing is DATA!
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Send the Right Email
at the Right timeJust like friendship is all about saying the “right” things, inbound email marketing starting from convert, close and delight stages should follow the same principle of creating the right user experience.
Understanding a buyer’s journey - awareness, consideration, and decision stage - is imperative to get optimum conversions.
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Nurture Leads to
Turn them into Customers73% of B2B leads aren’t sales-ready. Make sure your emails generate value to them and drive conversions. Leads are possibly looking for information and not for something to purchase. Offering the kind of information in emails that convinces them to purchase is what inbound marketing is all about. Make sure you nurture your leads right from the end of convert stage to close stage.
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Be there, when your email subscriber needs you!
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Delight your Subscribers and Customers
It always feels nice when someone exceeds your expectations. How “delightful” would it be when someone borrows your car for a day and returns it refueled! When it comes to marketing, you can use emails to delight your customers and transform them into evangelists.
As a smart start, send out THANK YOU emails or incentivize your loyal customers by offering a discount coupon to delight them.
Key Takeaways
- The current marketing era is about permission marketing rather than intrusive marketing. Go with the flow.
- Emails play an integral role in convert, close and delight stage of inbound.
- Email marketing enjoys great acceptance with marketers as well as subscribers.
- The key to effective inbound email is authentic subscriber data.
